I thought this was a really dull race until the rain started to fall, and then it came alive. Vettel sliding off reminded me a bit of when he buckled under pressure from Button in Montreal 2011, but Hamilton wasn't right behind him then - just closing at a rapid pace and doubtless his engineer would have warned him about very fast Mercedes and Kimi already being overtaken. I think the action on Hamilton was proportionate. His engineer though? Terrible! He's supposed to be a calm instructor but that was chaotic. Mercedes might have made the right calls today or lucked into them, but there's still clearly a problem with running real time strategies and then making the call from the pit wall.
I think Bottas would have probably got Hamilton before the end, but it was a sensible decision. After all, we mostly moan and laugh at Red Bulls clashing together, or Force India's doing the same. Mercedes wanted to guarantee the 43 points - whether they'd have done the same thing if the positions had been reversed we'll never know.
Was there an extra heavy burst of rain at some point? Just before Vettel went off, Kimi went wide a few times. LeClerc went off and so did Perez. I couldn't see anything, but it felt like there just might have been one of those extra heavy bursts that storms give before they begin to dissipate. Feelings of Vettel choking under pressure aside, he'd taken that corner 5 or 6 times in similar conditions and had no problems with it. Those crashes almost look like slow motion - they're at half the race pace yet the driver has virtually no control.
