Well impressed with the new crop of young drivers. Real shame for Ericsson though.
The finger has reappeared.
I reckon Mercedes made a bad call on their first stop.
I agree with Joel, bad call.
Suspect using the wrong tyres in the first quillifying session didn't help?
I guess they thought the hard tyre would be the best tyre for the race, also did they under estimate the competition aka used to winning
It's easy in retrospect but a combination of wrong tyres for Q1 plus perhaps coming in under the safety car rather than staying out. I think they
were worried about the hot track temperatures and high deg and pitted. But that did cost them. The better tyres were over a second quicker and lasting
15(ish) laps, they pitted on lap 5? That's quite a lot of time to chuck away. I feel they (Merc) were just over-confident. Interesting that
Rosberg didn't do much with the better tyres in the final stint.... can't imagine he'd settled for 3rd at that point.
But it's so easy in retrospect. And it would be interesting to know what the problem with the car was for the Mercs at the beginning.
So when is the invitation for Rosberg to visit Vetel's pit going to come out?
I bet Fernando cried himself to sleep that night! What a turn-around.....
Only 8 seconds behind after an extra pit stop, I know who really won the race for me.
Was a shame McLaren couldn't finish and I imagine if I was Alonso I'd feel kind of bad about leaving Ferrari considering how well both cars did. The middle of the field did seem much closer than it was last year.
It seems very likely that this race was a bit on an anomaly with respect to Mercedes vs Ferrari performance and I fully expect Mercedes to pull
comfortably ahead in the next race. The heat of Malaysia led to a tyre-limited race not a car-limited race and it just so happens that the Ferrari is
easy on its tyres. Not trying to take anything away from Ferrari but I think this race with 62C track temp at one point was a bit of a special case.
We'll see soon enough.
I don't think Alonso will lose any sleep over Ferrari winning this race because he's focussed on winning another WDC not just a race or two.
McLaren are struggling just now but both he and Button feel there is huge potential and there are certainly some signs that they are correct once the
power unit issues are resolved. Only a fool would underestimate the combined force of McLaren, Honda and two world champion drivers to turn their
fortunes around.
McLaren were already into the points before they had to retire so don't be surprised to see them well into the midfield by the time they get to
Europe bearing in mind that it is perfectly legal to introduce reliability fixes to the car along the way. That's why it's better to have a
potentially fast car which is unreliable instead of a reliable car which is not fast.
I expect McLaren will get ahead of the Force India and Lotus cars by the time they reach Europe (China, Bahrain, Spain) and be challenging Sauber and
Red Bull shortly afterwards. Towards the end of the season they will hopefully be closing the gap to Williams but I think under normal conditions it
will be 2016 before they will be beating Williams, Ferrari or Mercedes. So, aiming for both cars in Q2 by Europe and both in Q3 by the end of the year
I'd say is realistic. 2015 will be dominated by Mercedes with Ferrari maybe picking up 2 or 3 wins in total I'd say. Similar to what Red
Bull did last year basically.
That's my tuppence worth...we'll see.
Good call by Ferrari to stay out and take track position. Putting Hulkenberg between Vettel and Hamilton gave him the 10 seconds that he eventually won by.
How many 'Tokens' Ferrari have spent on the engine development, I know not. I just hope they have some left.
All I do know is that without the recent relaxation of Mercedes's engine development rules (i.e the loophole the other teams have found), rules
which create a very unfair Germanic playing field, I would have turned the TV off today.
At least Hamilton was made to look honest today (if only for one day), but I'd rather he was awarded the 2015 Championship now, with Rosberg as
runner up. The two of them could then be excluded from the remaining races, allowing us to see some real racing for '3rd'.
Honda need a lot of permitted Tokens, now......
quote:
Originally posted by motorcycle_mayhem
How many 'Tokens' Ferrari have spent on the engine development, I know not. I just hope they have some left.
All I do know is that without the recent relaxation of Mercedes's engine development rules (i.e the loophole the other teams have found), rules which create a very unfair Germanic playing field, I would have turned the TV off today.
At least Hamilton was made to look honest today (if only for one day), but I'd rather he was awarded the 2015 Championship now, with Rosberg as runner up. The two of them could then be excluded from the remaining races, allowing us to see some real racing for '3rd'.
Honda need a lot of permitted Tokens, now......