Spoiler Alert F1

[njee20]

To my immense surprise I did manage to avoid it, which was nice!

[GroupC]

Good to see F1 back (which also means that the motorsport season as a whole will be on the go now / soon) but overall a disappointment. Ferrari won by exploiting the rules to their advantage and this exact thing has been happening in various formulae for many years: sometimes you get a good result, sometimes you don't, depending on who you favour. It does spoil the outcome however, I feel. There have been much worse miscarriages of justice because of pitlane / pitstop / safety car / VSC rules (or the lack of, or their misinterpretation, and so on) and it's a kick in the teeth for all concerned, except the victor, when it happens. Especially if you've paid good money to go and watch.

The biggest disappointment for me however, as a fan of racing and not one particular F1 driver over another, was that LH had no reply once behind Alonso. Motor racing for me is all about overtaking, unpredictability and excitement and this race didn't deliver. Apart from some very short minutes that is, such as Haas's almost synchronised wheel-shedding moments.

But isn't that the nature of any sport anyway? Most of the time it's dull / pedestrian and once in a while we get something like the last few laps at Monaco in 1992. I was there...  

[keithbythe sea]

Yeah good to see F1 back and I agree with all of the above.

Surely a £1 prize should go to the aerodynamicist who comes up with a package that works in "dirty air". Then we would have some on track overtaking. And after all it would work for 19 of the 20 cars in the race. Just a thought!

[Caz]

This is the only sport I'm interested in and really thought Hamilton was down over.  Surely Vettel did one lap less than Hamilton.   

[njee20]

Eh? Of course he didn't.

[GroupC]

Just while we're on the subject of aerodynamicists, just a few years ago I stood within arm's length or spitting distance (which I didn't) of the great Adrian Newey, slumming it in the public enclosures at Oulton Park watching his son Harri compete in a lower-formula race(possibly F4, would have to check).

And he was not at all happy when his child dropped well down the order after making, as Murray Walker would say, a right porridge of the start from an excellent grid position. (if I remember rightly). Needless to say autographs were not asked for.*

After that little bit of gratuitous name-dropping I'll let the original topic take back over.

* I mean his not mine.

[njee20]

It's a bit of everything. Luck, strategy by Ferrari, errors by Mercedes in their calculations and Vettel knowing the rule book inside out. We've seen the latter before - remember him overtaking Button (IIRC) in the pit lane at China a few years ago.

[Newportnobby]

This is the only sport I'm interested in and really thought Hamilton was down over.  Surely Vettel did one lap less than Hamilton.   

@Caz Actually Hamilton was down under not 'down over'
(I know what you meant though)

[Razzmataz]

It's pleasant to see a real discussion on the subject. The BBC forum and others are full of wingers.

I actually think sport should emulate real life where one has good and bad luck. One has to grasp the good luck and fight through the bad luck. Real life is unfair and the rules/laws don't always do the job they are supposed to. Live with it and get on with the job.

I tend to root for the lower orders. Nice to see Vandoorne keeping op with Alonso. Nice to see Alonso a bit happier. Generally good to see all the drivers being mature irrespective of what they have been dealt. I'm sure Haas will put this race behind them and continue to improve, hopefully boosting the event Stateside. Williams, so frustrating. Force India slipping down, still someone has to go down in order for others to improve. And the poor Torro Rosso/Sauber guys, when will their turn come.

I do think it would be a good idea for Liberty to try and tackle the lack of overtaking.

Razz.

[njee20]

You can't really account for luck, and that's the crux. What would have been the correct thing to do in this instance? Stop all cars exactly where they are? Full safety car immediately? There will always be some winners and losers, just so happened it cost Hamilton in this instance.

The obvious issue arising from this is the minor loophole that because you're stopping in the pits you can go hell for leather in the approach and exit because your delta is still well short of the requirement under VSC. Again, fair play to Vettel for knowing and exploiting that.

Re: overtaking, you need to get rid of all the aerodynamic accessories and increase mechanical grip, take inspiration from cars from 20+ years ago. You'll never get overtaking otherwise, although Australia is always bad for it.

[GroupC]

Don't forget that Schumacher won the British Grand Prix some years ago by driving into the pitlane to take his penalty, and taking the chequered flag whilst doing so. Some would say he "got away" with that one, some would say it wasn't fair.

And conversely, he lost a Belgian GP win because his plank was too thin, probably after driving over a few too many kerbs. If the plank of the last-placed driver was too thin would he be punished, or would anyone care either way? Again, some would say it was a correct, black-and-white application of the rules, some would argue it was an unnecessarily harsh punishment.

I'm not going to argue either of those either way and don't want to start a big debate over races from what is now many years ago!

The point I'm making is that whether or not those decisions were right or wrong, whether an issue was within or outside the rules, whether rules are applied correctly or not, (all of which is a whole other subject for each case), whether a team knows the rulebook inside out and uses it to best / quickest advantage or not, and so on and so on, it all just goes to show that sometimes races work out, sometimes they don't, for any number of reasons.

Good racecraft  - knowing you can gain time by driving quickly into and out of the pits while under VSC - is as much a part of being a winner as driving fast.

If I was LH I'd perhaps be thinking that in the course of an average season you get a bit of good luck and a bit of back luck, randomly sprinkled - and I'd want to get the bad luck out of the way at the start of the season (Haas may benefit from this viewpoint too!!). Obviously life doesn't necessarily work out like that but it'd work for me. Accept it and move on. Second place is still second place and gets you lots of valuable points.

So is your cup half empty or half full, Lewis?

[njee20]

Which ultimately is what he said.

The Schumacher thing in 98 was a bit of a joke really, that's infinitely more morally grey than what Vettel did.

For posterity and because it shows a) great knowledge of the rules and b) great skill, here's Vettel's double overtake (I'd forgotten it was two) in the pitlane, under the safety car in China 2016. I'm by no means a Vettel fan, but fair play to him!

[Caz]

This is the only sport I'm interested in and really thought Hamilton was down over.  Surely Vettel did one lap less than Hamilton.   

@Caz Actually Hamilton was down under not 'down over'
(I know what you meant though)

Should have been "done over" 

Re Hamilton vs Vettel, my feminine logic says that as Vettel was behind Hamilton and then went into the pits but came out before Hamilton had got completely around the circuit surely Vettel is then nearly 1 lap behind Hamilton when he came out and surely had to catch him up and pass him to be in front.   

[njee20]

And your feminine logic would be correct if that's what happened, but it's not.

Vettel was behind Hamilton. Hamilton pitted so Vettel was in front, but with a gap of less than a pit stop on a 'full speed' lap. VSC came out, Vettel putted, but because Hamilton couldn't drive at full speed he didn't catch Vettel, with Vettel emerging first.

[Caz]

I stand corrected, thank you