[arun_kun]

Story of KIMI

[Maky]

Originally Posted by Octane_Power

My fantasy GP predictions are screwed with the results today but I couldn't care less. Kimi on the podium!! Woohoo! Brilliant drive by The Red 7.

Ricciardo is one lucky guy. Just managed to cross the line! Now only hoping that he gets his qualifying right in the races to come.

Another superb drive was by the amazing Fin, Bottas. Drove flawlessly to keep that position from Vettel. One mistake and he would have served it to Vettel on a plate, like Rosberg did to Kimi or was it Vettel to Rosberg?

-Bhargav

Me too! Very happy to see RAI back on top...kind of : P. I wonder what was wrong with Vettels mindset today he clearly threw away a P2 and possible win.

Hail King Hamilton.

[Hatari]

Now that was an exciting race. Great strategy by Ferrari. Shame about the brake issues at the end, would have been even more exciting to see Kimi vs Nico, who for a change was letting his driving do the talking. He really did master the 'lunge' into T1!

Originally Posted by anachronix

There was great racing all through the grid and it was particularly sad to Alonso in that Mclaren fighting to unlap himself, Honda had a nice reference point with the performance of the power trains from last year and more importantly Mclaren's access to the more powerful Mercedes unit they were using last year. Its natural you would expect them to do a better job over the winter. Dont know if Alonso fans want to wait till the end of the year to see if Alonso made the right move out of Ferrari!

Now though, I am glad he is gone!

I thought Nico and Kimi's race performance was at par. Great attacking drives from both.

I think we are underestimating the effect of the major rule change over the winter of engine development. No one knew Mercedes would agree.
I feel the reason Honda went so aggresive on the PU was because McLaren had a reference point to Merc power. Thats why they need much more time to get things right. Honda knew they would not be allowed development in the first year, hence another reason for the aggresive design. But ofcourse, such a start was not expected.

Credit to Ferrari this season for getting things right. The technical team have done well. The push from the top boss was clearly missing these past 7 years.

As an Alonso fan i'm prepared to wait much longer for that elusive 3rd WDC, knowing in early 2014 that Ferrari was not going the correct way. A gamble was needed.

Hindsight ofcourse is a wonderful thing.

[Fullrevs]

Now thats the Kimi I know. I hope he keeps it up at every GP. Had there been maybe 3 or 4 laps more, Kimi may have caught up with Lewis as well. Makes me wonder if Kimi's prime tyre run should have been shortened. It wasnt Vettels day, too many errors all during the race.

The Lotus cars were quite quick and they seem to be going through a resurgence. Bottas drove a great race in keeping Vettel behind. Nothing seemed to shake him off. Pity for Massa not being able to make the grid. He drove a really conservative race in the end and was a pity he lost out to Perez after all that tyre saving. Maybe the 3-stopper for Massa would have been better.

Now the real F1 season starts for me with Barcelona coming up next. Simply love the European venues.

[kiku007]

What a refreshing race. Seeing Kimi win is just so much fun

What was the reason for the cars under-body scrapping the tarmac so often, creating quite a lot of sparks? Was the surface uneven?

[SilentEngine]

Originally Posted by zenren

Vettel's mistake indirectly helped Kimi since he didn't end up wasting time passing Vettel while catching up Rosberg. He couldn't have said "Get that Ferrari out of my way."

If Kimi lost a couple of laps overtaking Vettel, it would have helped Rosberg retain the second place since Kimi would have caught up with Rosberg only around the last couple of laps.

No doubt Vettel's mistakes helped Kimi little, and it forced Ferrari to maximize Kimi's points after he became the leading Ferrari driver in the race. I am looking forward to a race where Kimi gets to start ahead of Vettel and see how Vettel responds to that. Kimi's race pace has always been good. Even in last two races, he was nearly on same pace or faster than Vettel.

Kimi's middle stint on prime tyres was really the key, where he was lapping significantly faster than Rosberg and Vettel and on same pace as Hamilton. According to Arrivabene, they were planning similar strategy with Vettel, but changed because of Vettel's mistakes. If Vettel had managed to stick to that (without mistakes of course), who knows, may be he could have challenged Hamilton in the end.

http://en.f1i.com/news/9947-vettel-m...rrivabene.html

[iamendangered]

Originally Posted by kiku007

What was the reason for the cars under-body scrapping the tarmac so often, creating quite a lot of sparks? Was the surface uneven?

Titanium skid blocks on the cars underbody is the cause for the fantastic sparks

excerpts from an article :

" F1's governing body the FIA ruled that cars must be fitted with the skid blocks since the beginning of the season but it has only become a talking point as the sparks were highlighted by the dark of Bahrain's night race.

FIA technical director Charlie Whiting says making the blocks out of titanium makes the cars safer, stops teams from gaining an advantage and creates more sparks, "which some people think will look a little more spectacular ".

article link : http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/formula1/32375705

[asr245]

Somewhat interesting race!

Kimi stayed out too long on those mediums in 2nd stint. 1-2 laps more and he would have had Hamilton and swiped that silly smile of his face.

Rosberg - wow! nice aggressive overtaking. Didn't think he had it in him. But still slower than Hamilton. It seems he always has to conserve fuel and look after his tyres more than Hamilton. That's one reason why he's unable to challenge him. Can't he figure out what he needs to change for this?

Good to see Bottas defend all the way till end from Vettel. The way Vettel closed the gap, I thought Bottas would be easy meat.

Does anyone think RBR might have screwed-up promoting Dani Kyat instead of Vergne? Do not remember results from other races but he was far behind Ric this race and he was 4 points to Ric's 18.

[blackwasp]

Originally Posted by anachronix

Brilliant race! Sloppy drive from Vettel and brilliant drive from the ICEMAN.
I still think Ferrari should have stopped Kimi a lap earlier before the final stint, Ferrari would have had a chance to fight for the win.

Yes, Kimi was driving great and pitting a lap or two earlier could have gotten him the win. But I am surprised why Vettel was getting slow. Towards the end of the race, Vettel was held up by Bottas for many laps.

Now that Ferrari can manage tyres better and especially Kimi, can we hope for a 1-stop strategy from him ? He tried that in India -2013, but not successfully. This will prove very beneficial in Monaco, where it is very difficult to overtake.

Originally Posted by GTO

I love evening - night races (our time).

+1 to that.Finally I was able to see the race live, 17:30 start is not always possible to see live for me. Also I'd see F1 live anyday than IPL - no offence cricket fans.

[polopm]

Originally Posted by asr245

Somewhat interesting race!

...

Does anyone think RBR might have screwed-up promoting Dani Kyat instead of Vergne? Do not remember results from other races but he was far behind Ric this race and he was 4 points to Ric's 18.

Yes, I think Kvyat has stepped in early. JEV would have been a saner choice. But they needed to take risks. I guess Max would be a good swap for next year with Kvyat.

It was a bit nice to see Alonso un-lap himself on the newer tires. Honda will take another 3 months to get anywhere close to P7. They should be good for next year, though.

[mayankk]

Pretty interesting, that, all things considered. The pit stops were some of the most entertaining ones in a long time.
Rosberg was quite fun to watch on t1, very aggressive. However, my main gripe is still with mclaren. Not just the drivers who seem resigned to a mediocre year, but the team as well! Their stops used to be class leading! Alonso working so hard to unlap himself as a matter of pride, I suppose, it was saddening.

Was really surprised by the 3+ second stops from Mercedes too, effectively handing over, occasionally, more than a second to Ferrari every stop.

I do sense that kimi worked a lot harder than either of the mercs to get where he did, understandably, but will he be able to keep doing that through the course.

And yeah, hammer time!

[zenren]

Originally Posted by Fullrevs

Had there been maybe 3 or 4 laps more, Kimi may have caught up with Lewis as well. Makes me wonder if Kimi's prime tyre run should have been shortened.

Originally Posted by asr245

Kimi stayed out too long on those mediums in 2nd stint. 1-2 laps more and he would have had Hamilton and swiped that silly smile of his face.

I think Ferrari did it much closer to perfection than we think. Those really slow laps we saw in turn helped save fuel which is another limiting factor in the race. Ferrari ensured that the fresh softs were not sacrificed for fuel saving by staying on mediums a couple of laps more than what would have been ideal from tyre strategy perspective. Kimi ended up using more fuel than others by the time he caught up with the Mercedes pair due those lightning fast laps. It was pretty close in the end with respect to Kimi’s fuel usage and I’m not sure if he would have been able to push as much if he started one or two laps earlier due to fuel limit.

Originally Posted by asr245

Does anyone think RBR might have screwed-up promoting Dani Kyat instead of Vergne? Do not remember results from other races but he was far behind Ric this race and he was 4 points to Ric's 18.

Red Bull is like a man who hit a jackpot with the first Lotto ticket he bought. They think that every ticket would return the same jackpot. Ricciardo's performance last year cemented this belief and they are buying as many tickets as they can to get more profits.

Experience is something Red Bull gives zero value to, as is evident in their line up. Between Kvyat, Vertappen and Sainz, they have a combined experience of 1 F1 season and I'm sure this is adversely affecting them in their development more than they know. When the car is perfect and reliable, these youngsters can push it to the limits. However, when the car is unreliable, only the more experienced drivers can circle around enough times without blowing up an engine. If one driver has that experience in a team, the youngster can learn from it and even improvise. When both are new, there is no reference point and they appear clueless. They should only expect the same level of performance from Kvyat as from the Toro Rosso drivers, since all of them carry similar experience.

[Fullrevs]

I think its time Red Bull stop thinking its their car that will make the drivers shine. Yes F1 is a lot more car oriented compared to the F1 of the 70's and 80's when the drivers also made a difference but you still need a top driver in your team today. They could have looked outside of their talent pool and tried to hire someone with some experience. I bet they miss Mark Webber a lot nowdays. Another example I see is Lotus, with a decent driver they could probably have had a lot more points.

I always knew from the start that leaving all their hope on Daniel Ricciardo wasnt smart. He is looking really experienced with his other 3 counterparts when he himself is only 3-4 seasons old.

[Octane_Power]

It was great to see Rosberg drive so aggressively. Martin said during the race "Rosberg is driving very Hamilton'esque today".

During the podium interview he said this to Jackie Stewart "I had fun overtaking the red car several times" (or something like that).

He is clearly the underdog at Mercedes but I hope he can give Hamilton a good fight and win a couple of races and not make it too easy for Hamilton.

-Bhargav

[SilentEngine]

Originally Posted by blackwasp

Now that Ferrari can manage tyres better and especially Kimi, can we hope for a 1-stop strategy from him ? He tried that in India -2013, but not successfully. This will prove very beneficial in Monaco, where it is very difficult to overtake.

Monaco is a one-stopper for everyone, so no real advantage there. Also it's a risky strategy and it needs a lot of things to come together for it to work. If it fails, it can go horribly wrong as happened in China 2012. A late safety car would also spoil the race as others on fresh tires would overtake with ease.