The first race back at the revamped Red Bull Ring with over half of the field having never raced there who was your driver of the weekend? Massa on pole, his first since Brazil 2008, Bottas career best and a Williams 1-2, first time since 2003. Use the comments section to tell us why you vited the way you did.
All the Mercedes engined drivers did what was expected, or less, so I went for Fred, since he seemed to out drive his car again.
Same.. Alonso maximised the weekend, and even topped a FP session if I remember correctly (or it was a Williams). I think that’s the correct top 3, Hamilton might have won if he finished that pole lap and cruised to victory.
Bottas: best of the rest.
No one much impressed me tbh, so DotD can be held over methinks. All largely as expected. Lewis pulled out an epic first lap but then was pretty much line astern with Nico. Williams slipped back, Fred circulated all alone. Meh…
Actually I was pretty immersed with Ricciardo’s move on the Hulk. That’s twice in two races he’s made late ’round-the-outside passes on Force India drivers. I’m pretty sure he went around Sutil last year at 130R as we’ll. The kid can race. Pity Webber’s taught him how to start and run the first lap…
As well as being immersed with RIC, I was impressed… :/
Great move by Ric, nice recovery from losing out at the start.
My DotW is… the Williams team. They had a damn good weekend overall, showing super one-lap pace and converting that potential into cold hard pts.
Race pace, it’s impossible at this stage to beat a reliable silver arrows.
For the overall weekend, the combined efforts of Grove, Bottas and Massa get my DotW vote.
I wasn’t overly impressed with Nico or Lewis taking into account a whole weekend. I am however quite sure Nico is showing us in his first career championship opportunity that he can fight, he’s mega quick, he’s smart, he can get dirty, he can race, he can keep it together under pressure. I think it’s more and more likely he will be WDC and him managing to break Lewis at Monaco will be critical in hindsight after Abu Dhabi.
Williams now converting their pace to results shows us that it should really be Williams-Force India-McLaren in 4-6th in the WCC. McLaren will have to really be looking to next year to come back strong as a top 4 works team.
Agreed re: Nico… he’s not faster than Hamilton, but is going to try and grind it out by making less mistakes, which as Hamilton knew until late 2007, was how you win championships.
I would say that they are evens now at 4-4.. so it remains to be seen how the last 12 ‘goals’ fall. So far, ‘refereeing decisions’ have put it as 5-3 to Nico.
@ f1esty
What does – ‘ refereeing decisions’
mean ?
Oh, it’s a football analogy. In this instance, wins are goals, and car failures are the failures of the referee to award decisions (e.g. a penalty when it’s clear cut). It’s fair to say that there can be an element of luck in the referee decisions or car failures being in your favour or against it, although you can play a small part in the outcome (by your behaviour or mechanical sympathy).
So basically, I am saying that without the two retirements, Nico is coming back towards evens with Lewis, after Lewis had the momentum pre-Monaco.
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Bottas. Best non-Merc.
Bottas – 8 seconds off the Merc.. as Brundle put it, only 1 tenth per lap over the whole race distance!
Alonso – only 18 seconds off in a Ferrari!
Clearly Alonso. Second Bottas. Dud of the day – Raikonnen again – simply driving for a paycheck now. Ferrari should never have signed him and should dump him at the end of the year. His F1 career’s over.
Well, he is the oldest driver on the grid. He needs more stability on corner entry it looks like. But I agree – I can see Kimi retiring after this year or next. Same for Button, possibly Massa (after being beaten by Magnussen, Bottas).. leaving Alonso as the oldest driver on the grid for a few more years (he’s not lost any speed yet it looks like).
Brundle also casually mentioned in commentary that, after Alonso was stuck behind Hulk so many times in late 2013, he veto’d Hulk being his team mate for 2014, in favour of Kimi… not sure how serious to take that remark!
Bottas – the kid done great!
Surprised Perez did not get many votes. 15th to 6th… surely worth a vote? Even lead the race at one point… Forza Checo!!! 🙂
He could have been even higher up had he not had the 5 place grid drop!
My point exactly sir…