Bahrain Grand Prix 2014, Sakhir - Race 3/19

drunkenmaster · 6 Apr 2014 at 23:35

smr said:
Lewis was on better tyres, the softs for Rosberg fell off about 3 laps before the end, and Lewis was able to keep going on the mediums. Strange but that's how it unfolded.

Ted's explanation and frankly BS. Yeah the tyres went off in the last few laps so Rosberg couldn't continue attacking him, but he had 6-7 laps at least with a significantly faster tyre. If Rosberg had gotten ahead and made it stick say with 2 laps to go, he'd have pulled away at 0.5-1 second a lap and even if the tyres dropped off a little he'd have won the race.

I have fairly little doubt that if Hamilton was on the softs he would have got past, made it stick and finished ahead.

That isn't to say Rosberg did badly, but worse tires is just not correct. He had multiple laps with significantly faster tires and couldn't make a move stick.

smr · 6 Apr 2014 at 23:36

Glaucus said:
Worst tyre to begin with though. It was somehow keeping him behind that meant the tyres fell off with all the fighting. How on earth he kept him behind with a slower tyres and DRS for the first few laps is unbelievable. Some awesome side by side action though.

Maybe the clean air helped.

Mr Jack · 6 Apr 2014 at 23:36

smr said:
Lewis was on better tyres, the softs for Rosberg fell off about 3 laps before the end, and Lewis was able to keep going on the mediums. Strange but that's how it unfolded.

Rosberg should have been ahead before that point though; he was on quicker tyres with DRS. It's seriously impressive that Lewis managed to keep his lead long enough for that fall-off to happen.

Lewis did well in the earlier battles in the first stint too.

Oh, and Riccardo on Vettel was delightful. I was pleased to see Vettel doing the decent thing when Ricciardo was on a different tyre strategy near the start too.

Steampunk · 6 Apr 2014 at 23:40

smr said:
Did Nico get pushed off the track by Lewis today a bit too much? Looked quite aggressive didn't it?

Just thinking back, didn't Nico call in cos of it at one stage, and at the end of the race he admitted to Pinks that he wanted to hit him in the face lol. He was really angry about Lewis' driving today I think, gonna have to rewatch it.

Going round the outside of any corner is always going to get you hung out to dry by the car on the inside. Any driver from any other top team would do the same if you allow yourself to be in the position where you can get squeezed out of the overtake. Rosberg might be upset, but I'm sure he wasn't expecting a free pass from Hamilton.

Fact is, after the safety car made up the gap for Rosberg, he couldn't make the pass despite DRS, faster tyres, and supposedly a slightly better setup on the car. That was down to nobody but himself.

drunkenmaster · 6 Apr 2014 at 23:42

To be fair, i think it was mostly down to Hamilton

LizardKing · 6 Apr 2014 at 23:43

Lopéz said:
Other than their 80s successes, you know, when they had turbos.

I'm sure you can appreciate that even with that heritage it was still 25 years ago and in racing terms well that's prehistoric

Honda have shown little desire to push turbos up until very recently.

JRS · 6 Apr 2014 at 23:47

lucarocks92 said:
That Ferrari was never a race winning car though

We-e-e-ell....I listed several races that it won, so it quite plainly was

lucarocks92 said:
Alonso generally took advantage of certain situations.

Isn't that basically the same as.....winning?

lucarocks92 said:
The Chinese GP was the only race where He was properly the fastest guy on track if i remember correct.

*snippy snip*

So there u have it he has not had a race winning car since he has been at Ferrari. Any race he won it was more down to Alonso driving the wheels off a car that should not be at the front.

Right, so now we've ascertained that when you say 'not race winning' you mean 'it won races but it wasn't the fastest car'. Glad we cleared that one up.

As I've noted to sunama before - specificity is everything. If you can't make a statement without mangling the facts to suit your argument, you can't really debate anything. And thus the Motorsport forum degenerates into a series of increasingly bitter arguments where no-one quite remembers what they were arguing about in the first place but by God they're going to stick to their guns. Happy days.

Back on topic.....

Didn't bother watching the race. Reliably informed it was a belter. Still not that bothered, simply because it was in Bahrain. And I'd rather watch any old race at Monaco or Spa than an allegedly exciting one at some Godforsaken patch of tarmac in a country only hosting an F1 race for the ego trip.

See y'all in May when the series makes it back to Europe

mmj_uk · 6 Apr 2014 at 23:47

al4x said:
i still think hamilton really put one over on nico there
but much more satisfying was riccardo over vettel..webber must really have been bad!

i also want the fuel limit lifted!!

Why? the fuel flow limit is probably the reason why Ricciardo is able to beat Vettel... chances are Red Bull were using engine mapping on Vettel's car in previous years which is why (other than the first season) he was quicker than Webber in qualifying and in the race they constinually did **** like they've done with Ricciardo this season to stop him getting in the way.

Now that fuel flow is limited/monitored Red Bull can't do that which is probably why they're lobbying so hard to get rid of it.

drunkenmaster · 6 Apr 2014 at 23:53

Will be great IF Honda are competitive, if not it will sink Mclaren, if they make something epic then maybe even a "meh" Mclaren car with a great engine could win again. i think considering the formula and what the limits are, the Merc engine seems So good you can barely imagine anyone else making something much better.

I can imagine if Merc kind of hit the nail on the head then they might not have an awful lot of improvement to do and Honda/Ferrari/Renault can potentially close up that gap significantly next season.

I hadn't thought about it till Brundle mentioned it though, with Mclaren given up their Merc engine there is potentially going to be a bunch of cars all fighting to get that engine allocation.

It's ridiculously early so not making grand statements of Mercedes(engine) domination for years, but getting that final Merc engine currently looks like it could be a monumental advantage to whoever gets it and Mclaren might rue the day they decided to jump back in with Honda.

413x · 6 Apr 2014 at 23:54

the end of the race was able to be run without the worry of fuel saving. surely it aided the ability for everyone to drive flat out to the flag

413x · 6 Apr 2014 at 23:55

drunkenmaster said:
Will be great IF Honda are competitive, if not it will sink Mclaren, if they make something epic then maybe even a "meh" Mclaren car with a great engine could win again. i think considering the formula and what the limits are, the Merc engine seems So good you can barely imagine anyone else making something much better.

I can imagine if Merc kind of hit the nail on the head then they might not have an awful lot of improvement to do and Honda/Ferrari/Renault can potentially close up that gap significantly next season.

I hadn't thought about it till Brundle mentioned it though, with Mclaren given up their Merc engine there is potentially going to be a bunch of cars all fighting to get that engine allocation.

It's ridiculously early so not making grand statements of Mercedes(engine) domination for years, but getting that final Merc engine currently looks like it could be a monumental advantage to whoever gets it and Mclaren might rue the day they decided to jump back in with Honda.

would they allow red bull it? surely it would threaten the works team?

MagicBoy · 6 Apr 2014 at 23:56

LizardKing said:
not sure how well Honda will cope, there not exactly turbo experts!

Yep, Honda never made a championship winning F1 Turbo engine. Ever.

1986, 1987 and 1988 must have been a total fluke.

cu3ed · 7 Apr 2014 at 00:00

That crash though when the entire weight of the car landed on that small head bar part, that's some amazing engineering and strength on display.

Steampunk · 7 Apr 2014 at 00:05

drunkenmaster said:
To be fair, i think it was mostly down to Hamilton

True, but Hamilton wasn't complaining about it!

Steampunk · 7 Apr 2014 at 00:09

cu3ed said:
That crash though when the entire weight of the car landed on that small head bar part, that's some amazing engineering and strength on display.

It's the roll bar designed to do exactly that. Quite a few years back they added it into the mandatory crash tests and car requirements. If an F1 car can't bounce down the track on it's head, it won't be allowed to race.

CaptainRAVE · 7 Apr 2014 at 00:13

Have just caught up with the race!

Fantastic race, best we have had for a while.

First class driving between Rosberg and Hamilton. It is great to see a battle between them, although Hamilton is much quicker. Mercedes will have this wrapped up quickly.

utajoker · 7 Apr 2014 at 00:16

just watched the highlights, the pace of the mercedes is incredible, as soon as the safety car pulled in they where gone. at one point hamilton lapped 3 seconds faster than the rest on the slower tire.

The first time they have show flat out pace, it was like they where in a different formula.

Sliver · 7 Apr 2014 at 00:32

Best race of the season so far. Great wheel to wheel action from Lewis and Nico. Glad to see a new team usurping Redbull after all this time. Lewis rocked !

Leeroy Jenkins · 7 Apr 2014 at 00:44

smr said:
I must say though it's great to see that we're not talking about tyres this year, really happy about that! I mean there's some deg but the drivers aren't nursing them like last year - nothing of the sort.

It's great to see Button not talking about balance this year too!

Leeroy Jenkins · 7 Apr 2014 at 00:47

JRS said:
We-e-e-ell....I listed several races that it won, so it quite plainly was

Isn't that basically the same as.....winning?

Right, so now we've ascertained that when you say 'not race winning' you mean 'it won races but it wasn't the fastest car'. Glad we cleared that one up.

As I've noted to sunama before - specificity is everything. If you can't make a statement without mangling the facts to suit your argument, you can't really debate anything. And thus the Motorsport forum degenerates into a series of increasingly bitter arguments where no-one quite remembers what they were arguing about in the first place but by God they're going to stick to their guns. Happy days.

Back on topic.....

Didn't bother watching the race. Reliably informed it was a belter. Still not that bothered, simply because it was in Bahrain. And I'd rather watch any old race at Monaco or Spa than an allegedly exciting one at some Godforsaken patch of tarmac in a country only hosting an F1 race for the ego trip.

See y'all in May when the series makes it back to Europe

In one race he had the fastest car i believe in 5 years at Ferrari. To me thats not a race winning car. Race winning car should be able to compete for race wins at most tracks.

Being properly the fastest car on track once in 5 years is not a race winning car lol. If it was a race winning car for all those years he would have a lot more wins under him.

On top of that how many pole positions does he have in 5 years at Ferrari? I would say it's less than 10. He has never had the fastest qualifying car or race car. Ferrari winning races was simply down to Alonso getting more out of the car than what was expected from it.

A race winning car would be something like the Mclaren he was driving in 2008, constantly fighting for pole position and race wins in that car. Never had that pleasure at Ferrari.

He has never even been close to the better cars on the grid in his Ferrari. He has been let down badly by the team since he got there. If they gave him the second fastest car on the grid he would have a very good chance at winning a championship. At best he has the 3rd fastest car on the grid sometimes even lower down to 4th or 5th.