Poll: Mexican Grand Prix 2019, Mexico City - Race 18/21
- Thread starter Shimmy
- Start date
Soldato
Haha, pretty cool with Lewis rising up. 
Permabanned
- Joined
- 8 Feb 2004
- Posts
- 4,539
Ferrari race pace and driver performance were fine. They lost on strategy calls
Caporegime
I did wonder where they were taking it. Nice touch.
Assuming Bottas doesn't score any points.
Won't matter. If Hamilton scores 4 points, and then DNF's the final races, and Bottas wins and gets fastest lap on all the remaining races, Hamilton will still have it on countback.
So 4 points for Hamilton will seal it.
Soldato
Given that Lewis has won Austin, 5 times in the last 7 years, I am fairly sure that next week won't be that difficult for him.
Versplatten may have other ideas...
Caporegime
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 33,188
They've raced multiple times this season, this track has sucked since the first race. These cars don't work at those altitudes. They are built for a specific amount of cooling, brake sizing and engine power and due to the thin air that all goes out of the window. It wasn't dirty air stopping them getting close, there were long periods guys ran within a second but after 3-4 laps rather than building a passing move they had to back out for cooling.
They combined truly bad conditions for cars with a woeful track design, final corner is accelerating in a fairly heavy turn on a track with no grip so dirty air kills there. The woefully slow and gap increasing stadium section leading in to that. A track surface that is smooth and creates little tire temp leading to graining AND no actual tire deg.
Remember last year we had massive graining for everyone, it was just less bad for Red Bull than the others. Several teams put on fresh tires, they were grained in 3 laps and despite being say 25 laps younger they were doing the same times because they weren't tire wear limited, just tire surface/track combination limited. Same today really, tires didn't deg, they just get to a certain condition within a few laps then stay that way forever.
If this track would ever work they need to rework the stadium to a single Germany like hairpin then leave the stadium, circle around the back and have a less shallow turn onto the straight. Then they need to resurface the whole thing with a surface that creates abrasion and heat. AT least the tires would work and the worst corners fixed but ultimately it's a dire track. It's still always going to be hard for brakes/engines running on the limit to run on those conditions.
Absurd track in an absurd location.
Mexico has been dire every year imo, truly dire. Not even exciting qualifying, every year it's can a team actually make these tires switch on at all... answer, not really.
Just catching up with some of the post race stuff...
Button and di Resta blaming Hamilton for the incident with Verstappen at the start. Including Button saying they didn't touch at the outside of T1. Sorry?
Given the chunk missing from Hamilton's car where Verstappens wheel nibbled at it... They're both very wrong. You can even hear the contact on Hamilton's onboard camera.
di Resta especially seems to blame Hamilton for being pushed off the track by Vettel and the incident with Verstappen... I guess he's not overly happy that Hamilton took 'his' Mercedes drive.
Button and di Resta blaming Hamilton for the incident with Verstappen at the start. Including Button saying they didn't touch at the outside of T1. Sorry?
Given the chunk missing from Hamilton's car where Verstappens wheel nibbled at it... They're both very wrong. You can even hear the contact on Hamilton's onboard camera.
di Resta especially seems to blame Hamilton for being pushed off the track by Vettel and the incident with Verstappen... I guess he's not overly happy that Hamilton took 'his' Mercedes drive.
Last edited:
Caporegime
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 33,188
Di Resta keeps calling almost everything wrong the last few races he's been at.
Vettel not being punished again is turning race starts into a free for all.
Lately more and more, not just this year but several years cars are going into T1 and just saying hey, I know it's the start, I know there could be more cars around than I can see but damn it, I want to go to a tight line from the outside so I will.... and crash.
They need to clamp down on race starts with rules. Letting SMALL stuff go because it's the start is fine. Someone brakes a bit too heavily, you get a concertina and a little contact, that's what happens when it's busy. Guy alongside you and you push them off track... errm, that's not suddenly okay driving. One is an accident, one is deliberate and dangerous. Grosjean got a ban for doing what Vettel did to Hamilton today because the consequence was a nasty crash that could have turned out very very badly for a couple of drivers. Just because the consequences weren't there the action of intentionally shoving someone off track was the same. Letting it go simply told every driver that you can absolutely do that in the future because it's a race start and rules don't matter any more.
For me they need a clamp down, something like that should have gotten a 10 second penalty and some rules around the start like, if you're on the outside line in T1 you can't just cut to almost the apex because you think no one is there, leave room, be sensible, assume there could be another car on the other side of the car you decide to squeeze. Following (and enforcing that a couple of times) that rule we would have see a lot less crashes in T1 and Vettel himself would have crashed a lot less in the last 3-4 years.
That Verstappen tagged Hamilton which caused the car to lose control a little which is what caused him to end up wide is just, I mean it's clear as day. It's what I thought happened live then from the onboard as you say you can hear it, then the result of it was just unlucky. Now for me that shouldn't be punished, that was just two drivers who were very close but trying to drive fairly. Max wasn't trying to run him off the road nor did Hamilton turn into Max deliberately. But what Vettel did was ridiculously easily avoidable and it specifically broke a rule but as said, apparently rules don't matter any more.
At the very least he should have gotten the black/white flag for it so they give him a warning to not do it again and be more careful on the starts in future and sends the same message to every other driver.
Vettel not being punished again is turning race starts into a free for all.
Lately more and more, not just this year but several years cars are going into T1 and just saying hey, I know it's the start, I know there could be more cars around than I can see but damn it, I want to go to a tight line from the outside so I will.... and crash.
They need to clamp down on race starts with rules. Letting SMALL stuff go because it's the start is fine. Someone brakes a bit too heavily, you get a concertina and a little contact, that's what happens when it's busy. Guy alongside you and you push them off track... errm, that's not suddenly okay driving. One is an accident, one is deliberate and dangerous. Grosjean got a ban for doing what Vettel did to Hamilton today because the consequence was a nasty crash that could have turned out very very badly for a couple of drivers. Just because the consequences weren't there the action of intentionally shoving someone off track was the same. Letting it go simply told every driver that you can absolutely do that in the future because it's a race start and rules don't matter any more.
For me they need a clamp down, something like that should have gotten a 10 second penalty and some rules around the start like, if you're on the outside line in T1 you can't just cut to almost the apex because you think no one is there, leave room, be sensible, assume there could be another car on the other side of the car you decide to squeeze. Following (and enforcing that a couple of times) that rule we would have see a lot less crashes in T1 and Vettel himself would have crashed a lot less in the last 3-4 years.
That Verstappen tagged Hamilton which caused the car to lose control a little which is what caused him to end up wide is just, I mean it's clear as day. It's what I thought happened live then from the onboard as you say you can hear it, then the result of it was just unlucky. Now for me that shouldn't be punished, that was just two drivers who were very close but trying to drive fairly. Max wasn't trying to run him off the road nor did Hamilton turn into Max deliberately. But what Vettel did was ridiculously easily avoidable and it specifically broke a rule but as said, apparently rules don't matter any more.
At the very least he should have gotten the black/white flag for it so they give him a warning to not do it again and be more careful on the starts in future and sends the same message to every other driver.
Soldato
Mercedes: does strategy
Hamilton: this is the wrong strategy
Also Hamilton: wins
was not expecting him to win that, great job getting those tyres to the end.
Hamilton: this is the wrong strategy
Also Hamilton: wins
was not expecting him to win that, great job getting those tyres to the end.
Soldato
I liked it to
Merc was lucky Ferrari got the pit stops wrong again.
They was watching Albon when they should have been watching Hamilton.
And they make the same mistake time and time again.
Can crofty get any louder
