97 responses to “#F1 Qualifying Review: Canada 2014 – Business as usual… sort off.”

1. Love the three lotuses on the grid. Yay, perhaps the fourth one REM ate 🙂

   • More like wishful thinking! Think Kimi would have been able to do better at Lotus than Ferrari..

     • Then why didn’t he stay there?

       • Maybe he prefers to drive a truck and get paid for it? 😛

2. Got a free general admittance pass for Saturday and decided to go, primarily to hear what the new engines sounded like. They sound similar though slightly less loud than the turbo’s from the 1980’s. With a general pass I was able to move around different parts of the circuit and it was clear in practice that Rosberg was trying different lines to find which would be the quickest, while Hamilton pretty much stuck to the same line all through practice. What that told me was Rosberg was willing to experiment and see where he could make up time, while Hamilton had already decided and was trying to get the most out of that line. Pole was probably determined b Rosberg’s willingness to experiment.

   • Very interesting comment! Thanks for sharing that observation!

   • ….. and Ferrari’s 1.5 second performance increase you spoke about yesterday Cav ?

     • The difference was between the Alonso and Raikkonen after the upgrade.

       • Don’t be bashful. Raikkonen in particular had very good race pace in FP2. I have heard that they have a new floor, it seems to be working. The heat might be killing them though.

         • ” …. I have heard that they have a new floor ”

           being Italian – they made it out of Carrara marble ….

           😉

       • @ Cav

         it must be a brilliant upgrade …..

         Fred only managed to be slightly faster than Jenson in his McShambles ….

         and Kimi was slower than him.

         Ferrari on track to – not have a clue what it’s doing – development wise for another year ?

         • Well it was shown to be an improvement on both cars by an A/B on Alonso first then Kimi in 2nd practice. McLaren… slowest Mercedes car on the straights, they must be putting on downforce to cover their lack of it..

         • Kimi was only a fraction out of two places up on the grid.. probably being distracted by slow cars on his one attempt put him back 2 places. But Hamilton’s pace on Softs has been consistently better than Rosberg, so that will be interesting in the race.

   • Very interesting observation Cav. Sort of plays into what I said the other day. Hamilton is so fast he trusts his approach where Nico knows he’s got to work hard at it to beat Hamilton.

     Added bonus is, if he is behind someone on Sunday he’ll have extra lines to play with.

     Good to hear the sounds are not that much different from the 80s 🙂

     • It could also suggest that Hamilton refuses to understand that his way isn’t the necessarily the fastest and he won’t try something new.

       • Its a good point, and what I’m about to say is not trying to argue with it, just add some more context.

         Did you notice comparing the pole shoot out side by side, that Rosberg used the same lines as Hamilton, with the exception of the hairpin, which I can’t decide Nico was deliberately a little wide, or what, but either way, that wasn’t where Lewis lost his time. So Nico clearly decided that was the faster line, so Hamilton was right. What surprised me was that Lewis got into turn 2 a bit out of shape, but was still faster in teh first sector, where he lost it in sector 2 seemed to be the exit onto the back straight I reckon, though I don’t supposed the little lock up into the chicane before the hairpin helped.

         I’m not suggesting there wasn’t merit in exploring lines, and that is wasn’t mor eprudent to do so, but it is interesting that Lewis wasn’t wrong.

     • If it has been working for him all along, why change it now, it’s not like he’s in a situation whereby he needs to break Nico’s momentum. Nico did a better lap and got the pole, so no point trying to micro analyse what happen.

       What if he had tried all the different lines like nico and still didn’t get pole, then what?

       • He’d be slower and loosing his mojo 😛

       • … Obviously Rosberg would be the better driver 😉

         • Sure he did, he absolutely annihilated him today

         • I love the Judge.

           XD

           +1

         • Geez Fortis, WTF? Man, can’t you back off a little bit??? Pretty strange; are you in love or something? A couple of days ago you got a few strokes for not posting like an ass*hole, and here you are again. Take a pill and chill.

         • SteveH….

           Do me a favour and FUCK OFF mate!!!!….

           Who are you to tell me what I can it can’t say???!!!….

           Do I need to get your approval first before I give my opinion? WTF!!!!….

           I’m a grown ass man with my own opinions, so I’m free to say what I like. What, am I suppose to say things that are in line with what you and everyone else says? Get off my damn back and let me speak my mind!!

           What was so bloody wrong with me saying, “why should he now change what he was doing now, just because he nico got pole?”….

           Cav’s assessment was rubbish!! Because he didn’t see a full lap, given he was walking all over the place! Yeah he might have seen nico using different lines in the area he es at the time, how did he know he used the same line for his qualifying run? We didn’t even see his lap on tv?

           So you stop being an ass*hole and stopping bitching everytime I say something that doesn’t meet your approval!!!

         • Someone has ‘little man syndrom’. Let me give you a hint, rhymes with Sortits96.

           Lol.

           Dude, that kind of anger is not in proportion to the comment that inspired it. Really reflective of some undealt with issues.

           #immasculatedmuch?

           XD

         • @ Fortis. If I bitched every time you posted something that didn’t meet my approval I’d be posting as much as you – and I don’t want to do that. Why do you constantly rubbish others’ opinions? Really man, if you are grown up learn to control yourself.

       • But nico didn’t do a better lap. Lewis made a mistake. Without his tire lock he’d have pole.

         • That’s so not true….

           Based on the “observation” it was the fact that he wasn’t willing to try different lines so as to see if he could go faster (despite being faster in FP2&3 as well as Q 1&2) and nico did, that’s why he lost out. 😳😳

         • Ahh… trying a bit too hard. Lewis had better pace in FP2. Should be exciting. One or two stop? Any ideas? The softs looked to be wicked fast for a long time, if NBC’s graphics are accurate.

         • So, Nico did a better lap……….

         • No, Nico cheated by not just driving the same lines he’s always driven. It’s not fair to be bright enough to think that with the new engines and aero rules that what you’ve done in the past might not still be best… 😉

           (I should probably best make it clear to certain posters on here that this is a JOKE and rude and offensive replies are not appropriate…)

         • Indeed, Lewis locked a brake into T8, and lost pole there. Canada is so tight (see Red Bull and Williams drivers covered by 0.04), that one little mistake can lose you a tenth and pole position. I was just over a tenth out on pole prediction at F1F but again got the order wrong…

           The thing that caught my eye was Vettel pulling out a blinding S2, faster even than Hamilton’s with his brake lock up. I had him down for 4th and thought that was optimistic, and wasn’t confident on that in Q1 or Q2…

         • Lol. So he did a better lap – timing says it all

       • @still I surprise….

         That’s rich coming from the man who’s clearly angry because he couldn’t make it to the top of the sport.

         Maybe if you hadn’t written off that can and been unable to pay the $100k you needed to repair, maybe, just maybe you would’ve made it to Formula Ford 😳😳😳

         Yea I got little man syndrome, but I’ve got a ……….. To back it up

         • Oh me, oh my… I certainly did get a small chuckle form that. lol

           Listen Sortits, all your chocolate fanboi fantasies aside, you really do need to take a Xanax or something.

           You are quite the unhinged one, aren’t you son…

           Enjoy the race. 😉

         • But it’s great entertainment

       • @still I surprise

         I like my chocolate white not dark😜😜

         @steveH….

         I really don’t care much for what you’ve got to say, I’ve said all I needed to. So feel free to continue having this conversation with yourself.

         • My operative theory is that you will have this urge, nay, necessity, to respond to this comment, if you catch my meaning, if you get my drift………

           Off topic, race starts in an hour. This will be good; great track, great competition, great weather, and FOM seems to be getting the sound a bit better. Enjoy everyone.

   • So he beat him to pole and you think it’s probably because he was willing to try different lines and Lewis didn’t, oh come off it.

     • or maybe Lew Lew had something in his eye ?

     • -Yawn-

       • Thanks, you read my mind.

     • Sometimes I do wonder…

       The point Cav was making – and it is a good one – is that Nico didn’t just assume that what worked for him in the past is still valid with the new engines, chassis and tyres. He experimented, learned and put that learning to good use.

       This isn’t the first time it’s been pointed out that Nico is prepared to work hard and learn while Lewis just assumes he knows how to drive a car as fast as possible.

       It may even be that Lewis wouldn’t benefit from doing that – he drives by instinct which is something that is very difficult to overlay learning on.

       You can also take from it that Nico is having to work really, really hard to keep up with Lewis. He’s having to rely on working hard to make up for what he lacks in innate pace. Whether he can do that in enough races to overcome Lewis over a whole season is debateable but I know he’ll feel immensely proud if he does, and probably immensely deflated if he doesn’t – the sheer amount of work he must be putting in can’t be easy.

       • How about this chain of thought to what Cav said….

         There are 14 corners on the track and he said he was able to move around freely. Now let’s assume he was able to get to 7 corners throughout the 1hr FP3 practice. That leaves 7 parts of the track he hasn’t been to so as to compare what lines each driver took or tried…

         Who’s to say, the remaining 7 parts of the track, Lewis wasn’t trying different lines and Nico stuck to the same ones that gave him the best time. Now you can’t say for sure, that it was in those areas that he tried different lines, that gave him pole position.

         Now look at the times for all the FP’s and qually runs, Nico was slower than Lewis in every single one of them. Now for his pole lap, he hooked up all his sectors perfectly on both runs and he got pole. So by saying that he was working harder and Lewis wasn’t, because he stuck to what worked for him and wasn’t willing to change his approach, is just ridiculous.

         Listen to the radio conversations he was having with his engineer, continually asking where was he losing time and everytime he did that, on the next lap, he blitzed the previous time. So is that the actions of someone who wasn’t willing to learn and try something different, so as to get the best possible time?

         On his first run in Q3, he was up on Nico in the first 2 sectors and lost time when he came up on Seb in sector 3, his second Q3 lap, he was up a 10th on Nico’s first sector and lost that time when he had a small lock up in turn 8 in sector 2. So up until then, he was actually doing better times than Nico, so clearly what he was doing all along, was working.

         So Cav’s assessment doesn’t really paint a true picture of what happened. He didn’t lose pole, because he didn’t work harder or refused to try different lines, because the sector times in both Q3 runs, were faster than Nico’s until he encountered traffic (Seb) and locking up in turn 8. He later told Sky he also ran a little wide in turn 6.

         Nico got pole, because he did 2 better laps, the only 2 better laps he has done over Lewis so far this weekend.

         As for using inappropriate languages, let me apologise for that. But it really piss me off, that I can’t give an opinion without someone trying to micro-manage what I should say. I didn’t say anything inappropriate at that time, so I don’t see why he felt the need to attack me. If you look at the thread, Don didn’t find what I said inappropriate and I know if he did, he would’ve said something, we exchanged reasonable replies to each other. So for him to start with his rant at me, really annoyed me. Why didn’t he say something when people were calling me names or swearing at me? Didn’t see him say jack! But the moment I say something he doesn’t like, he thinks he should pull me in line! Hell no!!…if he doesn’t like my opinion, counter it with his own, don’t come at me asking me if I’m in love or acting like an ass*hole. Lewis my driver of choice, so I will challenge or agree with opinions that I feel is unfair.

         I will continue to give me opinions where and when I see fit. The only person who can tell me to stop doing so, is The Judge and until he does, I will continue.

         • I think we will just have to agree to differ on this.

           It may even be that Lewis tried the lines in FP1 and got them sorted within a couple of laps. My gut feeling is not though, he seems to rely on instinct but instinct isn’t always absolutely the fastest way to go.

           This really has a hint of Prost/Senna, Nico isn’t quick but can think his way to nearly match Lewis.

           I don’t want to get drawn in to the other stuff, all I’ll say is that I get the impression you take offence a bit quicker than is intended and over-react. What I like about this site is it is fairly chilled and people debate with arguments rather than aggression. I’m sure you have great opinions and great points to make but it is difficult to see them past the way you present them. Some people will try, others will just not make the effort.

         • @ Fortis96

           what total and utter irrational bullshit you speak ……

           😀

         • @manky….

           Why, is it because it’s not as rational and intuitive as yours or everyone else’s, who are quick to fall in line with the general theme?….

           That old saying comes to mind….”in the land of the blind….”

           Thankfully I’m not blind😁😁

         • no Fortis your not blind

           just totally deluded …..

         • @manky….

           Thank you, I’d rather be deluded than blind. At least I’m still able to see and walk my own path.

           A broken clock still gives the correct time once in 24 hrs

         • Yo, fanboi Sortits.

           The saying is, “Even a stopped (or broken) clock is right twice a day.” – Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

           It was used recently (and correctly) by a poster on JAF1, Scuderia McLaren. A pretty smart and funny dude. No doubt you caught that post, as I did.

           Anyway, use it correctly. You just look like an idiot.

         • @ Fortis. Not to beat a dead horse, but, in case you didn’t understand what Still wrote, a broken (or stopped) clock actually gives the correct time TWICE in 24 hours. The way that works is the clock is correct for one instant in the am (anti meridian, or morning, as we call it) and is again correct for one instant in the pm (post meridian, or afternoon as we say); the meridian is when the sun is vertically overhead, also called ‘noon’. The reason this happens is time, inevitably (as far as we know), advances and time will coincide with the stopped clock twice a day.

         • We talking digital or analog with hands Steve? Just kidding, know what you mean.. And digital would be dead anyway, nothing on screen 😛

         • @ Don Quixote. Yeah, I thought about that and also a 24 hour clock. But you do know what I mean.

           The race just finished. Fantastic!!!!!

   • Interesting observation, but from what I saw, Hamilton missed pole because he locked up briefly – the margin was less than a tenth.

     • That is true (re the lockup) but do you think that because Rosberg nails his first lap he puts Hamilton on the blackfoot a bit? So rather than fighting with himself to better pole he is chasing Rosberg and that is causing him to overcook it?

       • Well he did admit like in Monaco, he didn’t do the job on his first lap. But if you look on the first lap, he was up on Nico’s time in both sectors and then he came up on Seb in the last sector, where he lost a lot of his time.

         Hats off to Nico, he got pole. But the race is tomorrow, that’s where the points are awarded.

         • I know. Makes the race so much more exciting 🙂

           BTW, did you see that Vettel is now on his 5th CE for the season which means grid penalty next time. This has made me think, the latter part of this season will see drivers out of place as their equipment fails them and they have to start from lower grid positions. Will be interesting to watch (don’t anticipate seeing the two Merc drivers there though)

         • Don….

           What we might see is a repeat of what happened to him on 09, when he had to sit out a lot of free practices because he ran out of engines.

           It’s only race 8 and given Renault’s parts being so fragile, he’s going to be in for a torrid time.

           I’m wondering if Mark Webber is somewhere in a dark room sticking needles into a voodoo doll😃😃

         • LOL at the voodoo doll 🙂 😀

         • Re Vettel and CEs
           Is the number he’s used down to failures or are these parts that have been upgraded?
           Also, is he allowed to use older CEs in practice then put the newest one back in for qually and the race?
           If it is just due to upgrades and he can use the older ones then this would probably explain why he doesn’t do well in practice as they’ll be saving the better units for when they need them.

   • Interesting observation Cav

   • So basically you’re assuming that he just turned up to the track with everything pre-planned, that he was just going to run the same line no matter what? Did you watch the previous 2 FPs as well and made the same assumptions?

     Did you happen to think that Nico needed to try all those different lines that you observed, because he needed to make up the time he kept losing to Lewis (who stuck to the same lines lap after lap) up until qualifying?

     You do know, that Nico was not quicker than Lewis in any of the FPs and qually runs until he did those 2 laps?

     Did you also factor in that Lewis made a mistake on his 2nd qualifying lap and him encountering traffic in sector 3 of his first flying lap, both of which I might add, was faster than Nico’s? Or you didn’t see those?

     Did you happen to see and compare the lines both drivers took throughout the whole entire FP3 and qually for every corner?

     You said that pole was “probably” decided by Nico’s willingness to experiment, so could it also be probably that he got pole, because of Lewis encountering traffic on his first run and also running wide in turn 6 and locking up in turn 8 on his second run?

     Before you label me and have a go, I’m just asking questions, because these are variables I’d like to know if you had factored in, before you made your assessment.

     • Your take on this is very interesting. I read it to mean that Nico has to work his backside off to keep up with Lewis which should be a compliment to how good Lewis actually is. You are taking it as an insult to Lewis…

       They are different people, they work very differently. Lewis is faster, plain and simple. It’s just that Nico seems to have more potential to improve, it’s just that as he starts from a lower position which means he is unlikely to succeed over the whole season.

       It isn’t an insult to Lewis, far from it, it’s a compliment that others need to put so much effort in to beat him.

       • I didn’t take it personally, I justy offered an opinion and by doing so, I got attacked for no reason at all.

         There was no offensive language or anger used in any of what I said, just look at what I wrote, there was humour as well as sarcasm in what I wrote. So I found it a little offensive for him to go off on me like that.

3. Nice job, Mr. Myburgh!

   Some interesting story lines that come to mind include:

   1) This is two excellent Saturday performances in a row by Mr. Rosberg. In Q3 in Monaco and here, he was faster than Hamilton after the first runs were completed. It’s an important strength of Nico to accomplish that, as it puts Lewis on the back foot, and shows Nico has championship caliber talents.

   2) Williams have done an excellent job in setting up / developing their car for this weekend. Third through sixth positions all turned essentially the same laptime of 75.5 seconds… the total difference from 3rd to 6th is only about 4 hundredths of a second. So Williams has the qualifying pace of the Red Bulls here today.

   3) After looking good on Friday, Ferrari remain ~.9 to 1 full second off the pace of MB. And Kimi struggled in Q2, and had to use two sets of Super Softs to ensure he got through to Q1. He only ran once in Q3 to conserve a set of tires. While Kimi appears to be repeating 2012 by having to work hard with his team to get the car suited to his style, and his Monaco race pace showed they’re close, they may still not be there yet. But Ferrari’s big upgrades for Canada put them ~3 to 4 tenths behind the podium pace here.

   4) James Allen predicted Thursday on BBC 5 Live radio that this was a race where Force India and Hulkenberg may compete for the podium on Sunday, as this track’s characteristics better suit Mercedes powered cars. Both FI drivers failed to get out of Q2. Unless we hear that gremlins affecting both cars’ performance, then one must speculate as to whether FI have the engineering resources to keep earning good points for the remainder of this season. Is this race illustrating their 2014 seasonal performance pivot point?

   5) For Williams to step up and run alongside RBR in qualifying is very impressive. But points are only earned on Sunday. Does Williams have the race pace of RBR? More importantly, Williams’ race strategy calls have been very poor this season, whether the trackside engineering teams were led by Rod Nelson, or more recently by Rob Smedley. If they have similar race pace as RBR, they will need to be sharp on their strategy to have one of their drivers climb upon the podium tomorrow afternoon.

   • There also may be fuel consumption issues with some teams.

     • Cav – I think there may be consumption issues with every team.

       Sorry I can’t recall where I read it – but an engineer was saying that recovering energy via the MGU-K was more difficult in Canada.

       Normally you could off set this by using extra fuel to keep the turbo spinning and recover this deficit via the MGU-H.

       But with consumption being very high – this wouldn’t be an option in Canada.

       • Actually, this is probably the one thing that makes me happier that I picked Lewis for the win, despite putting Nico on pole in the predictor.

         Nico has been consistently heavier on fuel than Lewis over the season so I would suspect he’s still in a good position for the race. It also looks very promising for the Williams boys as they seem to be best of all in previous races.

         The energy recovery issue is just that there aren’t many braking zones on this circuit and they tend to be big stops. I would suspect that the batteries can’t take the full amount of charge that would be generated during a stop from high speed such as for the hairpin and final chicane.

         Batteries heat up when they are charged, and I would suspect there are similar issues with the charge management circuitry.

         A series of lower charges to the battery allows it to recover before the next braking event. Where a large amount of current is generated I wouldn’t be surprised if the battery control circuitry has to cut off charging part-way just to protect the battery pack from overheating.

         • and if I recall – Red Bull have been consistently poor at fuel consumption ?

           added to their lack of straight line speed – doesn’t bode well for Seb or Danny Boy.

         • I have a feeling RB are probably using 100kg and burning it all up to try and get the top speed out of the Renault.

         • Or it’s costing them as they are running more downforce as their usual modus operandi/natural car characteristics.

       • I think Lewis is better at changing to the lift + coast style for the race, earning him 6 or 7 seconds per race and with the benefit of using 3kg less fuel. That could be critical here.. as it was in recent races..

         Williams – I hope they don’t just lift + coast in the Red Bull draft all day. It’ll bring them a solid result, move them ahead of McLaren and challenging Force India, but there is a podium there for the taking if they can attack the Red Bulls on the straights…. imagine if Bottas took it and not Massa! If only they could overtake a Mercedes at the start…

   • I’ve got the hulk only as 10th and Perez out of the points…

     • That puts you ahead of JA on two points, 1) blog quality, and 2) predicting the performance of FI in Canada…

4. To add one other thing – both the Caterhams and Saubers were slow and unstable and the Marussia looked better than both. It might be time to think about Kaltenborn giving up her role as team principal.

   • Monisha doesn’t build the cars. They simply don’t have any capable engineers, because they’ve all been bought out by Merc. And most other teams suffer from the same problem. It’s only a matter of time until Merc throws enough millions at Newey too and we can close the curtain on F1

     • “Monisha doesn’t build the cars”

       And neither did Dominicalli or Whitmarsh.

     • “It’s only a matter of time until Merc throws enough millions at Newey too and we can close the curtain on F1”

       Bwahahahahahahaha.

     • Bying out is not a term I would use with the current state of Sauber. Their engineers will just walk because of the lack of resources.

     • It’s a shame Sauber never got properly rewarded in prize money for the stonker of a car they produced in 2012, that even Red Bull was copying from. Pound for pound easily the best on the grid that year…. hence all their staff being plundered for 2013, and they are in the doldrums ever since.

       DC on the BBC said the rumour is Van der Garde’s cash is currently keeping the team afloat.. probably alongside Gutierrez, who can’t be there for performance (only 1 race in Japan he showed peak performance.. his Monaco mistake was costly, as it’s hard to pass there anyway – Hulk kept everyone back on worn supersofts). Sutil brings some money, and now that his car isn’t handicapped he is comfortably trouncing Esteban.

       I expect VDG in next year, possibly with Simona if she can get enough cash to see off Sutil. Sirotkin can be the tester if Russian sanctions abate. Force India are similarly at the end of their cash pile, having gone backwards from second or third best team in Bahrain.. I can see Slim gaining control there and bringing Gutierrez into the stable. But would they be crazy enough to replace Hulk with him?!

   • I wonder if SuperMax would have managed to reach Q2 had his final run not been cut short by Ericson’s accident. He wasn’t far off as it stands, albeit aided by Maldonado not being able to post a serious challenge.

     It’s a shame there isn’t a way that drivers who are already passed the accident zone can’t continue and finish their laps in those circumstances. Indeed, wouldn’t waved yellows have been a more appropriate response at that point in the session?

5. Called it…

   😀

   What a nice overall manoeuvre from NR In the last fortnight Rosberg managed to beat him at ‘Senna’s home track’ Monaco, mentally disrupt him, embarrass him from LH’s rhetoric, get Lauda and Toto on side publicly, get the media on side, provide plausible deniability re Mirabeau, and drive it home with a pure faster lap at Hammy’s favourite track in Canada. All with making sure Hamilton HAS to smile and tweet how much he loves Rosberg, while Rosberg just drives the sword in.

   LMFAO.

   Now that’s a champion in the making. You really see a driver once they have their first op at a WDC car. Well I am liking what I see in Rosberg.

6. things were looking good for Williams to get into the

   The what?

   TJ13 – do you ever read this stuff?

7. Forgive me, but posting the grid without the qualifying times is unhelpful.

8. Fortis96 – have you run through our 8 articles a month quota at The Telegraph?

   • Not sure, let me check……nope, I’m on number 7 at the moment…..

     Maybe you’re mixing me up with someone else mate, I don’t read the Telegraph, the Financial Times is more to my liking.

     • If your posting is anything to go by, you don’t even have the mental capacity to comprehend the FT’s date, let alone all the jumbled letters malarkey on its pages…
       We should call you Mark Webber – you would finish third in this year’s Merc.

       • Are you sure about that hippo?

         Well I guess the fact that I’ve got a 1st Class Hons in accounting and finance and currently doing my Masters in Finance, really says I don’t have the mental capacity at all.

         But I’ll leave you to your opinions. I’ll take the Mark Webber name, but once a hippo, always a hippo.

         Enjoy the race.

         • A first class what? *LOL*

         • @ Fortis96

           any cunt can get an Hons in accounting – it’s fucking easy ….. DUFUS

           😀

         • Gents.. let’s not get personal pls. Lets debate but keep it clean.

         • Honours degree.. and sure most people can walk a degree, but to get first class you still have to put the work in at least.

       • 3rd in this year’s Merc is reserved for Chilton!

9. Fat Hippo – “It’s only a matter of time until Merc throws enough millions at Newey too and we can close the curtain on F1″

   Seems Newey has resigned a multi-year deal with Red Bull which was announced today. Anything else your crystal ball has told you?

   • So, I wonder if we’ll now see a RB Americas Cup entry?

     • I bet that is somewhere near the mark CTP

   • Quite a few people they bought out last years had valid contracts, too. They just threw money at their teams and most of them are in need of such right now.

10. Looks like Rosberg will get a net 25 points on Hamilton after his mechanical issues. Good for him, to be a WC you need good fortune and that’s what Rosberg has at the moment (both with not retiring because of mechanical issues and stewards letting him off the hook despite setting a fastest lap after missing a chicane completely).

    Interestingly though, for the very first time both Mercedes have looked vulnerable. That’s a first, and perhaps a sign of encouragement for the other teams, or at least just for Rosberg as Hamilton now has 2 DNFs to Rosberg’s 0.

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