Keith Tanner said:Lewis had at least one DNF from an engine failure, and there was only a 5 point difference.
Sure. All the Lewis haters made fun of him for crouching beside the car cursing his luck. Whiner. He should have absorbed horrifying failure like a man...
Streetwiseguy said:Keith Tanner said:Lewis had at least one DNF from an engine failure, and there was only a 5 point difference.
Sure. All the Lewis haters made fun of him for crouching beside the car cursing his luck. Whiner. He should have absorbed horrifying failure like a man...
On that note, did anyone hear that Ricciardo punched a hole in a wall in Austin? Apparently nice guys get mad, too. https://www.news.com.au/sport/motorsport/formula-one/daniel-ricciardo-put-his-fist-through-a-wall-after-us-grand-prix-blowout/news-story/09d1e6b686f3bc6cf30d8c19f63d1b4e
I don't recall Lewis punching anything,
bentwrench said:Ian F said:racerfink said:Ferrari has placed all it’s money on the wrong horse, so to speak.
I don't know about that, but it's cool to see Kimi can still do it.
Makes me wonder what the outcome would have been if Kimi was the primary driver! He did not get his nickname for being a spoiled brat.
The first turn said it all for me.......
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Does Ferrari have the best engineers and managers? No. To Win a WDC you have to have the best. So if Hamilton took over the team that doesn't change that the engineers. People are pointing the finger at Vettel, but he had the best car the first 5 races. After that Merc caught up and clearly have the best car on the grid, because the people behind the scenes are the best in the business. At this point it really doesn't matter if Ferrari wins because they have it locked up.
Let's talk team orders; when Max, Nico, or Vettel, say no we aren't going to listen, they win the race and become runners towards the championship. Bottas approach of listening to team orders, doesn't win you championship. It was ridiculous in Austin with the Manufacturers championship decided and the million to 1 odds of Vettel of winning the drivers championship you have Bottas pull over. Sorry, but he is at merc because he is a second fiddle. Hamilton benefits from it.
In reply to trigun7469 :
If Bottas was that good, then why did he slow so much at the end, and get passed by Vettel? It's not as if he was on some unusual race strategy- he just had to stay in front of Max, which didn't work, too.
By letting Lewis by, it at least kept Seb behind him, and gave him a shot for 2nd, or the overall win. Neither of which Valteri was a threat to take from anyone. I wish that was not true, but the on track performance of Bottas is only REALLY good at once race. Other than that, Lewis has been clearly faster everywhere.
Vettel was supposed to be the second coming of Mike at Ferrari, where a real top team was built around the best driver. We are still waiting for that to happen. Would that happen for Lewis? Dunno. But it's appearing to not be happening for Seb. And Seb's mistakes are not exactly helpful, nor is the blame game. It's hard to point out where it really went wrong, and who it really caused it to go wrong. It did happen, though. So one can conclude that Seb isn't being like Mike.
I could imagine Mercedes playing the politics - doing just enough to make it look like they're fighting, but not quite enough to secure the WDC for Lewis just yet. The longer Vettel has a mathematical chance to beat Lewis, it's better overall for the sport. Vettel getting past Bottas would serve that.
In reply to alfadriver :
As said by Ian, Merc is just trying to make it looks like it's a close battle when it's light years away. Maybe Liberty made a call and knew Bottas would follow orders (lolz) My point was to Keith that Bottas will be nothing more then a 2nd driver, and the stats back up Nico being the better of the two drivers. Bottas isn't going to wake up next season, and I think Leclerc could be a spoiler for him finishing in the top 3.
I don't think that Vettel is the next coming of Mike, because he doesn't have the best engineering and management like Mike did and like vettel did at Redbull. It's incredible that Vettel dominated with a team that wasn't a engine manufacturer, that doesn't happen often. Lewis coming into Ferrari doesn't turn people into Brawn, Adrian Newey, and Todt. People may be attracted to work with Lewis because he wins, I think the problem is Maurizio Arrivabene, the talent and structure on how Ferrari makes chooses. Unless they rules change there is not benefit for Lewis to go to Ferrari.
In reply to trigun7469 :
One needs to ignore the dominant periods for Williams and McLaren to suggest that non engine teams are not dominant very often. Or the entire time Cosworth won championships over Ferrari.
With the current powertrain, that's very odd. But over history, it's pretty normal- the only engine maker who has really dominated for any consistency for the whole car has been Ferrari, as Merc is JUST the hybrid era. Most other championships, including periods of domination, were chassis buying engines.
But I don't buy the conspiracy that Merc would play into Liberty's hands like that. I think that is searching for reasons.
Bottas was closer to Seb in points than Seb to Hamilton. If you think for one second that they’d have Bottas give points away to Seb...
Merc isn't making it look close. TV pundits are. Merc is concerned about the constructors championship, which is in pretty good shape, but is not locked down yet. Heck, if Seb keeps it up, we'll be talking about the three way battle for drivers second place by the last race of the season.
Also, is that hurricane going to mean wet this weekend, or is the race too far inland, or it will have blown out by then, or what?
*puts on slightly larger glasses* Looking at the race history, Merc could probably have put Hamilton in P1 if they had opted to conserve their tires after the VSC. It's clear that Hamilton took too much out of his tires attacking Raikkonen from laps 18-22 when he could have waited to push in clear air. Waiting until lap 38 to pit after the first set of softs went over the cliff didn't help any either.
Mercedes had rear tire troubles early in the season but developed a new rear wheel that acts as a radiator of heat, and their performance improved. For Austin, they changed the design at the last minute to avoid a protest from Ferrari and thus the blistering was back. If they can figure out a way to cool the rear tires without being considered a moveable aero device, they will start beating Ferrari again. Watch for it in Mexico
In reply to loosecannon :
I read about the change, but didn't see the back story. Interesting.
Makes it even worse that they didn't bring Lewis in early for his second tires- no practice, pound and a half more pressure, and now hotter tires. I'm starting to fall in to the "Merc shoulda known better" camp.
loosecannon said:Mercedes had rear tire troubles early in the season but developed a new rear wheel that acts as a radiator of heat, and their performance improved. For Austin, they changed the design at the last minute to avoid a protest from Ferrari and thus the blistering was back. If they can figure out a way to cool the rear tires without being considered a moveable aero device, they will start beating Ferrari again. Watch for it in Mexico
Interesting. I saw a photo of a Mercedes with a very ornate rear wheel, that explains it.
Designing the wheel to pump air should be considered a legit technical innovation, not grounds for a protest. That's "but it's not far because we didn't think of it first!" territory.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
I thought a number of "turbine style" wheels from the 80's and 90's were designed to draw air from inside the wheel?
Keith Tanner said:loosecannon said:Mercedes had rear tire troubles early in the season but developed a new rear wheel that acts as a radiator of heat, and their performance improved. For Austin, they changed the design at the last minute to avoid a protest from Ferrari and thus the blistering was back. If they can figure out a way to cool the rear tires without being considered a moveable aero device, they will start beating Ferrari again. Watch for it in Mexico
Interesting. I saw a photo of a Mercedes with a very ornate rear wheel, that explains it.
Designing the wheel to pump air should be considered a legit technical innovation, not grounds for a protest. That's "but it's not far because we didn't think of it first!" territory.
The reason Ferrari is complaining is because Red Bull did something similar back in 2012 that was ruled illegal.
Ian F said:In reply to Keith Tanner :
I thought a number of "turbine style" wheels from the 80's and 90's were designed to draw air from inside the wheel?
Yup. It's not ground-breaking by any means.
z31maniac said:Keith Tanner said:loosecannon said:Mercedes had rear tire troubles early in the season but developed a new rear wheel that acts as a radiator of heat, and their performance improved. For Austin, they changed the design at the last minute to avoid a protest from Ferrari and thus the blistering was back. If they can figure out a way to cool the rear tires without being considered a moveable aero device, they will start beating Ferrari again. Watch for it in Mexico
Interesting. I saw a photo of a Mercedes with a very ornate rear wheel, that explains it.
Designing the wheel to pump air should be considered a legit technical innovation, not grounds for a protest. That's "but it's not far because we didn't think of it first!" territory.
The reason Ferrari is complaining is because Red Bull did something similar back in 2012 that was ruled illegal.
And because they didn't think of it first 
The Mercedes wheel had holes for airflow between the inner side flowing to the outer side and those fins or bumps on the wheel acted as radiator fins. Mercedes showed the FIA that the air flowing out was not for aerodynamic reasons or benefit but Ferrari isn't convinced. Red Bulls version was clearly to create an outwash for aerodynamic reasons and was banned.
In reply to loosecannon :
And the FIA DID approve what Mercedes was doing- https://www.motorsport.com/us/f1/news/fia-wheel-rim-controversy-mercedes-ferrari/3200766/ but Merc decided to pull the wheels to keep from having Ferrari to protest them.
This will surely be coming up for a big discussion, as it sounds like others want to be able to use holes to regulate tire temps, which isn't to create a wake coming out of the car.
Reading other articles.... well, the FIA has an interesting job. They have to see if the air will change the aero on a vehicle basis- because if it is- then it's not legal. If it's not, but just managing the heat, it's ok.
I seem to recall this was legal because most of the air was for cooling purposes.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
IT was, but it was withdrawn after it's one and only race (which it won) because A) Other teams (Lotus especially) were telling massive lies, like 'it's dangerous because it's throwing rocks at the following cars' b) it would have started another technology war c) it was bound to be outlawed ASAP and finally d) Bernie was in the process of gobbling up the rights for F1 as he could see/shape the future and didn't want to rustle too many feathers at that time as he wanted to stay in the good books of both the FIA and the teams.
Yeah, I know the history. It was just the first thing that came to mind when "but it's for cooling!" was used.
rob_lewis said:I'm trying not to be biased in that opinion, but wonder if others have seen the same.
I agree with your assessment of Vettel vs Hamilton. I posted a similar view a while back. I never thought of Vettel as a team building kind of guy. Hamilton had his issues early with some lies and unsettled behavior on track and off. Vettel has seemed consistent with his behavior. It was just that Mr RedBull liked him and made his teams focus their efforts to build cars for him. They changed the Torro Rosso for him and gave him Webber's front wing. At Ferrari I think the team isn't willing to toss everything aside to make Vettel happy. I try to remember both guys are still young men. Vettel can grow we will see.
I think that if you built thefantasy F1 team it may look great on paper but result in terrible performance and strategy.
There are no superstars at force India yet they have for years been in the fight.
Bottas is fast we are just in the era of F1 that the MB/Lewis domination. I said many pages ago that I rate Rosberg higher now that I see how far back Bottas is.
This is like Mike Schumacher at Ferrari, Sebastian Loeb at Citroen, Valentino Rossi at many teams. The look of drivers at the end of a rally stage when they heard Loebs time is the same look I see on Bottas, Vettel, and the RB Bros. Just stunned at Hamilton's speed.
I think Hamilton would win a WDC in a Ferrari, MB, or RB in the past two years.
You'll need to log in to post.
