Who was your driver of the 2014 Brazilian Grand Prix? This takes into account not only race performance but the whole weekend. Please use the comments section to tell us why you voted the way you did.
thejudge13
F1: Daily International News roundup, inside whispers and insight together with thoughts and opinion
With the 21st vote, I picked Vettel. Perfect lap in Q3, 3 PBs to beat a McLaren, which as Jenson proved in the race, was no match for the Red Bull today. Notable improvement in performance by Gutierrez as well.
Can’t really vote. Saw so many good drives…
Credit where it’s due, Nico finally gets a DOTW vote from me.
Though Jenson was a very strong contender.
If Button goes this year, I for one am going to miss him.
His issues/downsides are well known and discussed in these chambers, but when he does have a car in which he has confidence, he is an absolute pleasure to watch. Perfectly controlled aggression and precision.
Rosberg’s pace has been news to me this year, and he did well to control the pressure this weekend. It can’t have been easy to have Hollywood Just Right There Filling His Mirrors for the whole race….
Sure it was easy, if he’s to be believed, he had Lewis under control, despite seeing his 7.5s lead wipe out completely.
There is a theory that it might have been deliberate. Lewis had two identical spins ove the weekend and ideally Rosberg needed a Lewis DNF or at least a drop into minor points. What if he tried to bait Lewis into ruining his tyres or spinning off again, knowing that he was faster through S2 and HAM would not be able to overtake easily, even if he caught him. That latter bit was ultimately proven to be the case.
So are we saying that Lewis caught the Rosberg Monza bug? I’m not sure Lewis is the type of driver you’d want to bait out on a racetrack. Conceding a such a margin that was gifted to you, with the hope that Lewis would spin off again, makes no sense whatsoever.
Why doesn’t it make sense? Nico knew that if he kept the gap open at more than 5sec, Lewis would eventually be told to conserve and roll home in second. Allowing him to gain would increase the chance that he overcooks a third time and ruins his race for good. It’s not as outlandish as it furst look and like all of us Lewis has to bend his knees when taking a shit. He isn’t god. In terlagos has been one of the tracks he’s not been very good at in the past. The only realistic chance was trying to bait him into an error. Else it was clear that he would finish 2nd anyway, if not even first.
Like I said, I’m not buying into conspiracy theory or the need to somehow show how smart Nico is, the lap times showed it, he didn’t have the pace.
Just like all the pundits said, Hill in particular, “had lewis not had that spin and come out in front, he would’ve driven away from Nico”
There is a theory that it might have been deliberate
It’s a theory but it’s mildly absurd.
Absent his spin Hamilton would most likely have passed Rosberg in the pits first time round.
It would take huge confidence in his pit crew to risk the same thing happening at the next pitstop – a single second’s delay by one of the wheelmen (not exactly unknown this season) could have cost him the race.
The most logical explanation is that Hamiton was simply a bit faster in race conditions.
As I said, it’s a theory and as such it can be wrong. I was only putting myself in Rosberg’s shoes. It is something I would have tried. He was consistently faster through S2 all weekend so he knew Lewis could not easily overtake, even if he caught him, and Lewis’s spin in the race was already his second. So needing a Lewis DNF, I certainly would have tried to bait him into overcooking it, rather than risk that he just settles for second. Even if HAM would have overtaken him later it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. He’s going to Abu Double with merely an outside chance, with or without the additional 7 points from Brazil.
How much outside is his outside chance? Lewis has to finish P2 to guarantee it. So yeah, it’s not in Nico’s hands, but only just out of them. It could be worse, it could be single points … then Nico would need to win, and Lewis finish lower than P6.
Vettel was 15 pts back of Alonso in 2010 (and 7 behind Webber), and that was a single points decider. Effectively Hamilton’s lead is an 8.5 pts margin, adjusted to single points. Ok, obviously there are many differences … the RB6 was fastest, but not W05 fastest. If both Mercs finish, and both have trouble-free races, then Lewis will win the title. Only reliability/contact/controversy is likely to see Nico as champion this season.
Perhaps in the final stint – when he knew his tire life was better than Lewis’ after Lewis had caught him up – I could see that he might deliberately do that, but there’s no way he would’ve wanted Lewis to close to less than a second just before the 2nd pit stops! He had the gap at 2 sec’s at the start of that stint, but it was less than a second when he pitted, and then Lewis went a full second quicker on his next lap. Lewis was on course to jump him, so I doubt that was part of any plan on Nico’s part. Lewis was faster on race pace, but track position was king in Brazil.
Ok, but @FH, how does this jive with your theory that Rosberg has been told to throw the championship for Lewis? Surely if that was the case, in the last 10 laps Rosberg could’ve done a massive lock-up (wink, wink) and gone straight on at one corner, and Lewis would’ve been through.
Or did Lewis spin on purpose, such that Mercedes could orchestrate a very tight finale in Abu Dhabi?
Fact is, there was nothing in the incidents before, and none today. Lewis blew his chance to jump Nico in the pits. He was on course to do it. Thereafter Nico drove very well, made no mistakes, and absorbed all the pressure from Lewis. Not so sure he deliberately let him into the DRS window, but I’ve no doubt that he was fine letting Lewis burn his tires getting the gap down from 7 seconds. Still, I think Nico would’ve rather maintained the gap at 2 seconds, and should’ve been able to do so, given his better tire life at that stage. So he did great in not allowing Lewis a sniff (great middle sectors always, negating any chance for Lewis to get him into turn 1), but I would think he’d be a little concerned that he was again down on race pace vis-a-vis Lewis. Still, all in all, that was his best drive of the season, and his best complete weekend too.
FH, surely you are starting to scrape the barrel with conspiracy theories.
I got a free sandwich the other day… Is that a product of a conspiracy?
I’m sure you’d like a free sandwich.
As for DOTW; HAM messed up, MAS was a clown show, ROS wasn’t that much quicker.
Leaves me with a hairy-faced man from Frome.