Poll: Chinese Grand Prix 2018, Shanghai - Race 3/21

[Mr Jack]

At the end of the race there was a fourth person from Red Bull in the award ceremony for the trophies. Who is it and why are they there?

Fourth person? Do you mean the guy collecting the constructor's trophy for the race? There's drivers 1-3, plus a representative from the team of the winning driver. I don't know who they were this time but they're usually engineers or big wigs.

 

[CaptainRAVE]

Verstsppen = Maldonado 2.0

It is certainly going that way.

 

[UTmaniac]

You know, the more I think about, the worse I think Red Bull treated Kvyat.

The big difference is though, Max has delivered F1 wins under various circumstances.

 

[pastymuncher]

You mean being in the right place at the right time? It was hardly a masterstroke, the timing of the SC and their position on the lap was in their favour.

Yet Hamilton and Kimi stayed out. So yes, I think you can say it was a masterstroke by Red Bull. They took a gamble no one else was prepared to take and it paid off. The only people that were unable to take that gamble were Vettel n Bottas.

Timmeh summed it up perfectly. Mercedes could have done it with Hamilton and Ferrari could have done it with Raikkonen but both chose not to and they paid the price by having a pair of cars right behind them on fresh tyres so yes a masterstroke by Red Bull. I would call that a masterclass in race strategy.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Poll added.

Caught the CH4 highlights and I’d agree that it needed the SC to spice up the race... however, how often have we said that? Overall I thought it was a good race, lots of overtakes, a few stupid errors (lolMax) and a decent result for Alonso

 

[CaptainRAVE]

7 for me. Decent race, a little artificial. Better than a procession.

 

[4K8KW10]

Why didn't Kimi and Seb go for 2 stop races with the ultra-softs?

 

[delta0]

Winning constructor always gets to have a rep, usually it’s just a randomer from the team

Fourth person? Do you mean the guy collecting the constructor's trophy for the race? There's drivers 1-3, plus a representative from the team of the winning driver. I don't know who they were this time but they're usually engineers or big wigs.

Thanks that is what I suspected. I knew they did a constructors winner at the end. I hadn’t realised they did one for every race.

 

[Mr Jack]

The big difference is though, Max has delivered F1 wins under various circumstances.

In a better car. It's not like Max has been taking the Red Bull out of its league, Ricciardo is the benchmark against which to measure them, and Ricciardo has the measure of Max.

Kvyat drove the Red Bull in 2015 to it's best result of the season, and - astoundingly - beat Ricciardo on points that year. When he was sacked, he'd got Red Bull their first podium of the season the race before last.

Don't get me wrong, I think Max has shown he deserves a seat at Red Bull, he's an exciting prospect - if erratic right now - but I don't think Kvyat deserved to lose his. At all. On the contrary, he'd driven brilliantly for Red Bull. To boot him out unceremoniously after four races of the season was solidly unfair and shoddy form from Red Bull.

 

[4K8KW10]

In a better car. It's not like Max has been taking the Red Bull out of its league, Ricciardo is the benchmark against which to measure them, and Ricciardo has the measure of Max.

Kvyat drove the Red Bull in 2015 to it's best result of the season, and - astoundingly - beat Ricciardo on points that year. When he was sacked, he'd got Red Bull their first podium of the season the race before last.

Don't get me wrong, I think Max has shown he deserves a seat at Red Bull, he's an exciting prospect - if erratic right now - but I don't think Kvyat deserved to lose his. At all. On the contrary, he'd driven brilliantly for Red Bull. To boot him out unceremoniously after four races of the season was solidly unfair and shoddy form from Red Bull.

Kvyat hurt Vettel who brought 4 world championship titles to Red Bull - they did what they had to do - to show some respect to the one who gave them so much.

 

[Armageus]

I give it 2/10.

Because Red Bull's two cars got extremely unfair advantage over everyone else for the victory battle. When the safety car decision was displayed, the two leading drivers were already on the starting grid, so no chance for them to go for tyres change.

Extremely unfair for Max ten seconds penalty.

Maybe Ferrari can issue post race investigation because Max's mistakes are almost every race and ruin others' chances.

Obvious troll is obvious

At least stig tries

 

[4K8KW10]

Obvious troll is obvious

At least stig tries

I am never happy with how the race control operates with the safety car - they usually deploy it late and then hold it for too many laps - thus waste lots of real racing.

In this particular case - they deployed it late, the cleaners left some debris on the circuit, and the safety car again remained too much time there.

 

[Mr Jack]

Kvyat hurt Vettel who brought 4 world championship titles to Red Bull - they did what they had to do - to show some respect to the one who gave them so much.

You mean Vettel who they brought 4 world championships, surely? I find this a ridiculous argument, frankly: to favour an ex-driver over one of their own is simply a poor show.

 

[Flibster]

6/10
Just because the first 2/3 of the race was dismal. Safety car and strategy shook things up enough for it to be a 6.

 

[bayo000]

I gave it a 10. Best race in a long time so might as well.

 

[Mr Jack]

I gave it a 7. Perhaps compensating for giving last race an over-enthusiastic 8

I missed the start, unfortunately, because there was an error in setting the alarm and we got up too late. Looks like a decent start from reports. The first half was mediocre, not much happening, but Mercedes took Ferrari with good strategy and then the Toro Rosso's embarrassed themselves and the race woke up. Ferrari and Mercedes both made poor calls and let Red Bull carve through the field. Max was his usual combination of muppet and master and this time Vettel got the wrong end. Ricciardo drove a blinder, and Hamilton was unlucky to lose a place to Kimi in the chaos but in any case didn't look in great fettle.

All-in-all a solidly entertaining race, and promising for the season.

 

[413x]

It was nice there were the overtakes from DR, including some exciting looking ones, but it was because of the luck/timing/good judgement of the incident and team decision. It's why F1 is a bit gash - you only get this sort of excitement when there's an external influence that mixes stuff up. So in this case having one of the better cars on far better tyres meant they were basically inevitably going to overtake/get to the front... is that actually exciting? Or was it just going to happen given the tyres the cars ended up on?

Better than nothing, but not omgepic.

It's why I only see f1 as entertainment. I don't care too much about the fairness anymore. If an unnecessary safety car makes the racing exciting I'd rather that than watch an hour procession.

Soon as you dont care about the fairness (and f1 is hardly fair anyway) its much more entertaining.
I don' tthink the SC was necessary.
It made the race.
Vettel and Bottas were unlucky
Red bull got it wrong
Mercedes particularly got it wrong with Hamilton.
Thats my read

 

[wesley]

https://streamable.com/udd45
https://streamable.com/1q0oh

Cheers

 

[CaptainRAVE]

Our 2 red bull fans have voted

How on earth was that 10/10

 

[Quartz]

I enjoyed the race. I have two observations:

Verstappen is heading towards being this year's Maldonado.

Mercedes strategy sucks. That's twice they've stuffed Hamilton's race.