Coz Hamilton tires were still relatively new too. If they pitted him, he would be further behind and would not be able to overtake coz the Ferraris were also on new tires. By not pitting, he is at least ahead of 1 Ferrari, so that was the right call.

Hmm not really true as well, coz actually Mercs go for the only chance of winning by not pitting Bottas, gambling that he would have enough tires to fend off Seb. If they pitted him, again similar case like with Ham whereby he would end up further behind and cannot overtake the 2 Ferraris with also new tires. He might be even behind Ric.

Well that's their frustration talking. Instead of making accusations like that, they should figure out how to do better starts in the future because both incidents happened due to them not starting as well as the Ferraris and got punted!

Ham behaved like the diva that he is though, leaving the customary interview spot/session.


Anyway agree that this is the F1 we all craving for! Several cars with similar speeds battling hard at the end. The biggest looser though here are RB & Renault engine as they obviously now lags a bit far behind the top 2. They gonna get murdered in Monza if things stay the same.

It's a pity Leclerc run of points ended. Battle in the midfield is very close though for drivers and constructors.

Probably Merc is thinking about Ham as well so how to maximize Ham points as damage limitation plus taking a chance to minimize Sebs points, hence they opt to try gamble winning with Bottas and Ham at least 3rd place podium (which is slightly less point difference as compared between 1st to 2nd). Unfortunately for them, Bottas tires could not hold up in the last 5 laps so ended up loosing to Seb while Ham at least able to get 2nd. So at the end of the day, at least Merc still maximize whatever they can for Ham.

Yeah a case can be suspected for Kimi taking out Ham but doesn't make sense for Seb taking out Bottas in France, especially since the outcome for Seb was a damaged front wing that also put him on a back foot. Anyway Merc should only have themselves to blame as in the last 3 races, they actually did not start off the line as quickly as the Ferraris, hence they're vulnerable to the Ferrari attacks.

It's good if Honda can finally be competitive. Would be interesting to see how RB will fare next year with Honda.

That is a good idea actually. Let Leclerc to learn a bit more but next time in a midfield team against a bit better driver in KMag and see whether he can again raise his game higher. In the mean time, maintain stability with the old Kimi as the 2nd driver again. This might happen if Ferrari can win the constructor title.

Maybe they've gone a bit too far with the DRS zone.

That's almost like in DTM then. In DTM, each driver is allocated certain number of times for DRS use but like in F1, they can only use it on certain straights and not everywhere.

I still prefer no DRS at all like in the olden days.

But they should remove all those bloody speed bumps first!

So Mercs has secured their drivers for next year or two. Now only left Ferrari & RB to settle.

Seb must be kicking himself! He stole Ham's thunder in Britain but Ham takes it back with some interest to boot in Germany!

But I'm a bit pissed by Mercs team order to hold position. I was already anticipating a close fight between the top 3 for the final sprint to the finish but that team order really ruined it for me! Maybe Ham indeed still had the pace but we would never really know would we? Anyway again shows that Bottas still lacks that daring killer instinct to fight hard at critical moments. Probably if it was Seb/Alonso or even Rosberg/Ric in the other Merc, they would have overtaken Ham during that restart.

What's with Ham's hair though??

It's not bad luck or cursed, it's a driving mistake, just like Singapore last year.


Hopefully next race Seb can strike back. He should not let the points gap gets bigger than 1 race or else bye2 title again.

Old Hockenheim was better IMHO.

Yeah he needs to strike back so not to let the points gap grew by 1 race or more coz that will be too tough to catch up.

From where you get that 35kw advantage information?

I doubt it's that much. If really that much, Ferrari will be way in front already, even Kimi will be in front of Ham. This kind of difference was happening during the 88-89 McLaren Honda and 92-93 Williams Renault domination era where the difference to the second placed teams were easily over a second during qualifying time. I think in terms of engine power both Ferrari & Mercs are still about on par, or just slight difference.

Yeah but that blast thru the forest on the old track was just more glorious!

Ferrari in Kimi's hand was surprisingly pretty quick in the wet and almost got pole if not for getting stuck in the spray behind other cars. Seb somehow was not as quick. Anyway in this kind of condition, Ham is still the best, not just about the car bu the driver too. So yeah tough task for Seb in the race today whether wet or dry, and Ham looks more likely to extend his points lead even more unfortunately. Hopefully Bottas and Kimi could spoil Ham's party during the start.

Very boring race apart from the incidents with Bottas. So boring that I dozed off a few times.

Last race Seb screwed up and now his team shoot themselves in the foot with poor pit stops for both drivers. I think this is it, Ham is already about 1 race ahead in the points and will take some disaster from them for Seb to catch up. If Ham does win again this year, it's like Seb & Ferrari are the one who 'gifted' him the title by always messing up. Maybe just the team title is more realistic for Ferrari now.

Coz Kimi is not as fast anymore, that's why he's just a wing man now and cannot get anymore wins despite having a winning car.
For Alonso, at least it's not the driver but the car. If he's in a Ferrari or any other winning cars, surely he would have more wins.

Well it's obvious that McLaren also doesn't have a strong chassis as they claimed to be. So RB winning with Honda is not really just because of Honda but also because RB builds better chassis. McLaren itself has been going downhill before Alonso joins. But yeah, Alonso keeps ending in the wrong team all the time. If he was more patient and stayed with Ferrari, he obviously would have been more wins, maybe have won a title.

His biggest mistake was fighting with Lewis & Ron during his first year at McLaren, trying to sabotage Lewis in Hungary during qualifying. If he did not do that, he would not be penalized in that race and he would have been champion at the end of 2007. Then his 2nd biggest mistake was leaving Ferrari for McLaren fr the 2nd time.

This post has been edited by 6UE5T: Jul 31 2018, 11:10 AM

In McLaren case, I think it's also largely due to arrogance of McLaren team, typical of a team which was so successful in the past. They just didn't want to accept that they are not as good anymore in developing the chassis so try to put Honda as the scape goat which partly true also (nobody denies that Honda that time was also very underpowered). It's simply Honda did not design well to begin with and develop fast enough while McLaren (and also Alonso) do not have enough patient to wait for more than 3 years for Honda to come good. McLaren is partially to blame also for not having a better chassis. I think Alonso's capability to outdrive a racing car to some extent masked McLaren chassis weaknesses. It's just not meant to be I guess, and it can be RB's luck if they win races next year as they bear the fruit of Honda's and McLaren's pain & sacrifices.

To me it's just a pity that a team as glorious as McLaren and a racer as outstanding as Alonso are languishing at the back, therefore risking to loose Alonso to other racing series.

Yup coz Williams also has been on a downward spiral much longer!

Yup the fundamental chassis design plays the biggest part of the whole development journey. There's only so much that a driver can do to help development. If the initial design is already not competitive to begin with, it's impossible for just in season development from driver input to catch up, especially in the last few years whereby development is also much more limited for the sake of cost saving. Even during Senna's era, when the initial chassis design was already not competitive enough, it's difficult for him to challenge for the title as proven in the 92 season. Nowadays is even worse since the cars are a lot more hi-tech and driver plays a lesser winning factor.

Can be a wrong move by Ric. Seems like its about money that makes him move.

So who do you guys want to fulfill the RB seat? I wish Alonso would go there but I know it's wishful thinking coz RB would not want to pay his very high salary demand and Honda would not want to work with him anymore. So it's either Gasly or Sainz.