Poll: Bahrain Grand Prix 2018, Sakhir - Race 2/21

Rate the 2018 Bahrain Grand Prix out of ten

  • Total voters
    95
  • Poll closed .
I really enjoyed the race, lots of action from start to finish. Vettel drove around his changing strategy really well, and earned his win. A couple of observations from my perspective:

- Bottas just continues to underperform. Since the middle of last season I've said that he's making Rosberg look good - he's had long enough in that car now, and people can throw all the variables in that they like - Rosberg was a better driver in that Mercedes than Bottas is
- Max is over-driving. He seems fixated on one corner, one pass, one lap. He needs a batter manager than his Dad
- Max again - he was wrong to blame Hamilton for his puncture - that's stupid. However, I'd say that it is important to look back a couple of years. Rosberg had the same situation at Spa and was vilified when Hamilton came out second best. He also had the same position at Austin when Hamilton ran him off the road. Ultimately though, it just sounds like Max starting to build up a bank of excuses. He looks poorly prepared for the season
 
JRS said:
Heh, just reading the transcript of the press conference post-race. Seb putting one of the hacks in their place - emphasis is my own:



The only thing that would have made it better is if he'd got up, dropped a microphone and walked out right after that. Dekker is of course Dutch and therefore one of Verstappen's countrymen, which is presumably why he was attempting to get a rise out of Lewis.
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Clearly Dekker is a d******d.
 
I enjoyed it way more than I was expecting to. The finish was what so many races last year looked like we were going to get but never did.

Great driving from Vettel to get those tyres to the end and hold off Vettel.

Hamilton seemed to struggle a bit at the start. He made up 2 places off the line and then immediately lost them again on the brakes. He’s probably forgotten what it’s like to be in the thick of it. :D
 
Raikkonen getting slated by all the news I see. This morning on the radio they reported about how he ran over an engineer. No mention of lights failure or anything. Makes it sound like he did it on purpose.

Clickbaity reporting at its finest.
 
Vettel gained huge respect from me this weekend, yes he led a good race. But his comments after the race to defend Lewis were a real class act.
 
JRS said:
Heh, just reading the transcript of the press conference post-race. Seb putting one of the hacks in their place - emphasis is my own:



The only thing that would have made it better is if he'd got up, dropped a microphone and walked out right after that. Dekker is of course Dutch and therefore one of Verstappen's countrymen, which is presumably why he was attempting to get a rise out of Lewis.
Click to expand...

Damn I don't like Vettel much but props to him for that answer.
 
UTmaniac said:
Once again, the tyre compound range durability is a joke...

How can "soft" tyres last for 39 laps without Vettel having serious handling issues towards the end of the race?
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This. I'd rather they get rid of most of the stupid rainbow range and have something that they could use everywhere.

I.e bin the super soft and medium leaving the hyper, soft, and extra hard. We know the soft is essentially a medium and I'd like to see some teams gamble on the quicker tyre that will disintegrate after 10 laps and a team on the extra hard going all the way. Of course, they'd need to bin the 2 compound rule...
 
UTmaniac - Vettel *did* have serious handling issues. If he'd been fine, then Bottas wouldn't have even seen which way he went!

As far as getting teams to risk the super quick tyre - got to make a stop not cost 20+ seconds if you want to see that, and there's no way that they'll ever backtrack on the stupid pitlane speed limit now after all this time.
 
UTmaniac said:
Once again, the tyre compound range durability is a joke...

How can "soft" tyres last for 39 laps without Vettel having serious handling issues towards the end of the race?
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A joke? It made for a tense/exciting end of the race.

The different tyres chosen throughout the field turned it from an average race into a good one.

People had/have a go at Bridgestone and Pirelli when the tyres were too hard, people have a go when they are too soft. There are plenty of middle range tyres to choose from (the medium some chose), but Ferrari and some others chose to do it a different way.
 
Merlin5 said:
But did Wehrlein ever show as much star quality as Gasly, like coming 4th place after only having driven seven grand prixs?
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It's a good start but let's see if Gasly can keep it up before making any judgements.

It was a gripping race, but Bottas clearly wasn't up to the mark.
 
MooMoo444 said:
Given the race was only 50 odd laps though, would be better if they were a tad softer. One stop strategies need to be rarer, it's boring.
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Thing is, the softer tyres have got to be more than a pitstop quicker to be worth the risk using. And when pitstops take more than 20 seconds with slowing down, crawling along the pitlane, stopping, crawling back out, getting up to speed again...it's no surprise that teams would rather not stop. Especially with the risks highlighted by what happened with Kimi's stop.

Today, IMO, was one of the few times that the current tyre rules vaguely worked. At least, they provided us with an absorbing run to the flag. The old Bridgestone tyres would have happily ran at full tilt all the way home, with no great jeopardy. The full-on made of cheese Pirellis we had a while back would have never let Vettel try and do what he did. These tyres had enough speed early on to let Vettel make a gap, and just enough endurance to let him push to get that gap and then pedal the car home.
 
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