[Makin Rulesz]

Good race under mixed weather conditions.



Great drive by Max to get to the podium starting from 16th on the grid.
Ferrari lost it by not allowing Vettel through the struggling Kimi. Clearly Vettel was faster and stuck behind Redbul and Kimi, meant he lost lot of time initially.
Shame on Honda to retire both the cars

[deetjohn]

Well! It was Ferrari' turn to return the favor to Mercedes by bringing Vettel early for slicks. Lewis was completely unchallenged at the front after that. That call helped us to see some great wheel to wheel racing though. Vettel on Dan and Kimi was really good.

Looks like DRS doesn't have the same effect like before and drivers had to resort to some 'organic' overtaking moves. It was hard but more enjoyable when it came off nevertheless.

Kimi had an afternoon to forget with constant complaints and falling off the position like that. Ferrari too didn't help with the pit calls again. Think he should have been called in earlier to jump the RBR.

As expected, Max did well on quite a few occasions in these changing conditions. He put his tyre wrong only when Vettel came to pass and made it very easy for the Ferrari.

Its very close between Lewis and Vettel this season. So far we have been devoid of racing on track between these two only due to wrong strategy calls.

We are in for a great season! Can't wait for Easter weekend.

[ecenandu]

Originally Posted by ecenandu

Nico's last years pole lap 1:35:402 will only put him 19th on the grid this year.

This years fastest race lap 1:35:378 by Lewis Hamilton is faster than last year pole lap. .

See the race pace of the leaders for the last 20 laps, they both were pushing really hard.

[Ramon]

Originally Posted by slicvic

Only the highlights of the previous session are being displayed.

Anyone else with links ?

I had watched the race Live in the same today.

[asr245]

Well...overtaking seems to be back, real overtaking, not the open DRS & drive pass!

Vettel on Kimi was good, was even better on Daniel. Vettel v/s Max would have been fun but didn't play out that way. Max seems to be the chosen driver of the day but he was complaining too much about the Haas when under attack from Daniel. What was the Hass supposed to do? Back off by 2 secs or more to let them pass? He too has the right to race. I bet if Daniel and Max were in different teams, Daniel would have risked a lot more to pass Max.

The good thing is that Ferrari (of Vettel) seems to be on pace of Mercs on race pace. Kimi needs a wake up call. Maybe offer him more money for each win/podium or race ahead on Lewis.

PS: New F1 owners need to come up with a season pass on the web or something for F1 soon. I am not going to buy an HD TV and subscribe for SS HD just for F1. Any clue if Hotstar works out of the country (say US)?

[frostbite911]

Wow, What a race. Brilliant stuff. Nowhere near the Kimi-Schumi era of racing, but given how F1 has been the past few years, yesterday's race was something special. If this is any indication of how the 2017 season will turn out, I'm in.

Everyone is talking about Max's attack to the top, but I'd like to bring to everyones notice how Esteban Ocon also did a great job making his way from the bottom to a points finish. Also to be noted is Sainz's decision to start on slicks and keep his car in the points. Brilliant stuff indeed

[amitoj]

Good race, although many times the action was caught only on replays. Hamilton drove such a perfect race that the broadcasters didn't even bother giving him much footage!
Verstappen's complaining aside, it was thrilling to see him come up the grid from 16th.
And what was Kimi complaining about?
So far, this season is going to be a thriller, if Ferrari can keep their game up.

[Scorpion 10]

Congrats Lewis, a flawless drive it was.

I won’t say it was a strategic error from Ferrari to pit Vettel. Who knows what would have happened if there was no safety car deployment. That was unfortunate and it really did hurt Ferrari. As viewers, missed another chance to watch Lewis and Vettel attack each other from Lap 1. Heart was in my mouth when I read message from Race Control that stewards are investigating Vettel's start

Max, the rain master? Well I guess, another superb drive under tricky conditions.

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by Scorpion 10

.....
I won’t say it was a strategic error from Ferrari to pit Vettel

And you'd be right, it wasn't. They made the right call in the circumstances and if Giovinazzi hadn't binned his Sauber, Seb would've got the jump on Lewis and a good chance at winning the race. He ended only a handful of seconds behind as it is. Sets up the season nicely. Well-matched cars, Ferrari seems to have a slight tire-deg advantage and Seb demonstrated he can race!

message from Race Control that stewards are investigating Vettel's start

Never made it to investigation if I remember right. This year, the first message is an event has been 'noted', then investigated only if it's deemed necessary and penalties handed out if clear fault can be established. Much better than the inconsistent idiocy of yesteryear.

[jfxavier]

Originally Posted by frostbite911

Wow, What a race. Brilliant stuff. Nowhere near the Kimi-Schumi era of racing, but given how F1 has been the past few years, yesterday's race was something special. If this is any indication of how the 2017 season will turn out, I'm in.

Originally Posted by deetjohn

Looks like DRS doesn't have the same effect like before and drivers had to resort to some 'organic' overtaking moves. It was hard but more enjoyable when it came off nevertheless.

Originally Posted by asr245

Well...overtaking seems to be back, real overtaking, not the open DRS & drive pass!

I am also fairly optimistic about the 2017 cars regarding close racing/ overtaking from what we have seen so far.
Some brilliant passes without DRS.
DRS is nowhere near as effective as it used to be. Looks like the driver's bravery will be rewarded with a fantastic pass.

Originally Posted by Makin Rulesz

Shame on Honda to retire both the cars

Alonso retired due to driveshaft failure (McLaren part).
It is understood that the LHS driveshaft was already renewed earlier in the weekend.
Possible that these faults could have been picked up if they ran more during the pre-season test or maybe the vibrations that caused the failure are PU induced.

Originally Posted by Makin Rulesz

All the credit to Alonso for taking such a dud car to so high up in the grid.

Alonso is definitely one of the fastest drivers out there.
Drivers and fans tend to exaggerate their skills a bit.
Data does indicate that McLaren and Honda have made progress since Australia. See the quali gap to the leaders in Aus. & China. Of course the frustrations come from high expectations from the team as well as ALO.

Reliability issues are nothing new while introducing new technology in racing.
If you consider the example of TJI itself, Mercedes had issues with their Pre-Chamber Ignition and they used their 2015 Canadian GP ICE upgrade to correct it.
Ferrari had this technology introduced at the same GP and they struggled with it in 2015 and only got it sorted with ICE changes in 2016. It took them 1.5 years maturing the tech to reach Mercedes level though.
Renault has been having issues since they introduced the tech. in 2016 and they got it corrected later.

Various issues with the pre-chamber ultra-lean combustion are well known and it seems Honda are saddled with drive train torsional vibration from resonance as well on top of it.

Honda are extremely disappointed that the PU is the cause of most of the reliability/performance problems. Hesegawa san is bluntly owning up to their failings. He said to the Japanese press that they realized that they had big problems with the ICE around year end and probably that’s when they started to analyse and sort out the issues. Till they introduce an updated engine spec to solve the problems they will try to improve the performance of the current spec but I am fairly certain that the performance gap cannot be bridged by that.

Heard that Mercedes and Force India are overweight and McLaren Honda are supposed to be so far underweight that they were worried they'd have enough room for ballast to reach the minimum mandated weight.
Suspect that a lot of this weight saving has come from the PU and auxiliaries. I guess they can afford to beef up the parts now that they know what can go wrong.

[deetjohn]

Alonso might as well stick his resume on the sidepods of that McLaren Honda. His every radio message is now a 'come and get me call'.

Originally Posted by jfxavier

I am also fairly optimistic about the 2017 cars regarding close racing/ overtaking from what we have seen so far.
Some brilliant passes without DRS.

DRS is kind of working as expected now isn't it? Aids overtaking but doesn't get the job done. The driver has to take the initiate and be brave. The third car in the DRS train is quite badly affected is what I read. So, if Vettel is following Kimi who is following Daniel and both Ferrari got their DRS open, Vettel' advantage is much more diminished now.

Originally Posted by jfxavier

Honda are extremely disappointed that the PU is the cause of most of the reliability/performance problems.

From what I hear, Honda' big problem is the MGU-K. They don't have the same effectiveness in harnessing energy and assisting the combustion engine like others. So, they need to tune up the combustion engine which in turn makes it more thirsty. The classic case of between the devil and the deep blue sea. The car was so exposed in the long straights of China due to this. The difference in speed towards the end of that straight between the McLaren and Mercedes was so profound, the former looked like it was standing still when Bottas passed Alonso.

[SilentEngine]

Originally Posted by amitoj

And what was Kimi complaining about?

He apparently had some issues with engine power earlier and then they left him out on track with old tyres far too long which left even Red Bull's Christian Horner wondering what they were trying to do!
From the overall look of things it appears Ferrari team is not capable of focusing on both their cars.

[Fullrevs]

That was quite a fun race to watch. Hoping for the Hamilton vs Vettel fight to go till the race race to determine the champion. The Ferrari looks equally matched in race trim and they have a tiny bit to go in qualifying.

Watching Vettels move on Daniel was a treat to watch. If the former hadnt gone in early for dry tyres during the VSC, he had an extremely good opportunity to win the race.

A real shame for Alonso and Mclaren to stop on track while running in 7th place. Bahrain this weekend should further cement the pecking order. Circuit layout could be more suited to Mercedes but cooler temperatures being a night race could give the Ferrari a little bit more of an edge.

[a*ed]

Originally Posted by deetjohn

The third car in the DRS train is quite badly affected is what I read. So, if Vettel is following Kimi who is following Daniel and both Ferrari got their DRS open, Vettel' advantage is much more diminished now.

This is to be expected since the speed of the 2nd car and 3rd car would be the same compared to the 1st car who would be at a speed disadvantage since his DRS will be OFF. This would happen only when car numbers 2 & 3 are within 1 second from the car in front.

[Makin Rulesz]

Progression of Max from 16th to 7th in the opening lap. I wish there are more wet races in this season

https://youtu.be/WBRhuhU5WHM