[shibujp]

Ferrari conspired to beat themselves on this one. After a very confused qualifying program yesterday, Vettel did make the crucial pass on Verstappen to slot into second. The Ferrari team should have left no stone unturned to keep him there at the minimum and possibly win the podium. However ever with a botched getaway Verstappen was able to get out ahead of Vettel.


Flawless drive by Hamilton and the Mercedes team after a stupendous qualifying drive. The race itself was a pretty tame one after the pitstop poker between Verstappen and Vettel with the most action being provided by a certain mercurial Mexican overtaking his rival not once by thrice in the race!

Digging themselves out of this one is going to be one hell of an ask for Ferrari.


Drive on,
Shibu.

[reignofchaos]

The season appears effectively over now. In-spite of a strong challenge from the red team this year, its game, set, match LH & Mercedes.

[FURY_44]

Was a boring race with Hamilton brilliantly controlling the pace from start to finish.

Such a shame Force India didn't have a strong finish. Thanks to Perez. Gutted!!!

[F150]

Originally Posted by F150

Pole position is very important here, as the chances to overtake are close to NIL.


I think the Redbulls will spring a surprise here. Not very good news for Ferrari and Vettel.

Excellent call by Redbull to bring in Max when Vettel was stuck in traffic.
Ferrari has the car but they are seriously lacking in strategy.

As predicted the Redbulls have outperformed Ferrari.

Max Verspatten is a future champion provided he has the car to compete. The way he pounced on Lewis from no where, when he has crossing the back markers shows Max's caliber.

Ferrari's days are over, I think their golden period ended with Michael Schumacher.

[ashwin.terminat]

A masterful drive from Lewis on a circuit that was supposed to play to Ferrari's strengths. The absolutely sensational pole position yesterday when everyone least expected it and a picture-perfect race on Sunday.

I'm a diehard Ferrari fan but the way Lewis has been driving this year has been nothing short of phenomenal. Considering both Championship contenders have had one DNF this year, Lewis is still 40 points ahead. He reminds me of Marc Marquez from MotoGP. Making the best of what is expected to be a bad day and still end up on the podium.

Vettel and Ferrari, on the other hand, have been quite the opposite. They take what are meant to be really good days for them and then make it really hard. This is probably behind the 40-point difference right now. To add, Lewis also has various off-track commitments and isn't as reclusive as Vettel - but is still able to give his 100% every single weekend.

Perhaps the article the other day was right, Vettel is having to using up more of his mental bandwidth trying to understand Ferrari's strategy which is in stark contrast to his Red Bull days where he could just focus on driving the car to the best of his abilities.

The season looks bleak for Ferrari this season too. It's the same as last year, things falling apart in the second half of the season and unable to follow up on a strong first half showing.

[nair]

Sad sad couple of days for any Ferrari fan. How did they lose out on a sure shot second place on a supposedly Ferrari favouring track? The biggest enemy for Ferrari right now is their strategist.

And things are not being made easy for Ferrari by Lewis Hamilton. What a champion! His pole lap for qualifying was incredible. Lewis is in the right headspace and form to claim his 5th championship. Max beating out the Ferrari's and Bottas with a car with engine issues is a testament to his awesome talent as well as the incredible chassis on that RBR.

Is the championship a foregone conclusion for this year? Certainly seems so.

[motorworks]

I could not understand how Ferrari planned their strategy in Singapore! Sure, they waited until a window that made sure that Vettel did not run in to much traffic when he came out, except Perez. But why the ultrasofts? Everyone in the top 6 bolted on softs! 2nd pit stop would have been disastrous considering its very difficult to overtake in a street circuit! And how did they not cover for Max? I think in all fairness Vettel should have at least finished 2nd. Lucky for him the guys behind him did not push him too much, there was a big gap to Bottas and he was slow as well, else Ricciardo would have may be caught up to Seb!

[deetjohn]

Lewis looks to have completely broken both Vettel and Ferrari. The latter is throwing away valuable points when it ideally should be clawing those back to cut that lead which looks so big right now.

That was an imperious lap from Lewis on Saturday! And this is supposed to be a bogey track for Mercedes! Just wow!

And he didn't put a foot wrong on Sunday too. Lewis was easily able to pull back a lead after the backmarkers squeezed up the leading pack towards the end of race. There was simply no answer from anyone.

To me the current relative performance looks as given below.

Lewis: 5/5
Mercedes Strategy: 5/5
W09: 4.75/5

Vettel: 3.5/5
Ferrari Strategy: 3/5
SF71H: 5/5

The boys from Maranello is not doing justice to the machine they've.

[GTO]

I don't know what Lewis has done, but he sure has matured as a driver. The man is in top form and we are watching a 'legend'. The entire team is rallying around him, while his team-mate will never pose a challenge (Schumacher, anyone??).

Lewis was as impressive as Ferrari was disappointing. What a horrible showing by the red cars. It's hardly a surprise that they haven't won a driver's or constructor's champion in a decade. First, they couldn't win with the best driver on the grid. Now, they can't with the best car (or at least a car that's on par with the best car).

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by GTO

I don't know what Lewis has done, but he sure has matured as a driver. The man is in top form and we are watching a 'legend'. The entire team is rallying around him, while his team-mate will never pose a challenge (Schumacher, anyone??).

Lewis was as impressive as Ferrari was disappointing. What a horrible showing by the red cars. It's hardly a surprise that they haven't won a driver's or constructor's champion in a decade. First, they couldn't win with the best driver on the grid. Now, they can't with the best car (or at least a car that's on par with the best car).

Absolute Rockstar, Lewis!
Legend status is on the way. He still has 5-6 years of racing left, hopefully, and his race entries and wins are matching up to beat Schumacher's record. 22 more to go, and close to a hundred race starts left to do it in.
Howver, the question remains whether Mercedes can continue to provide the kind of dominant cars as Ferrari were able to in 2000 to 2004. Way more regulations, and a focus to make F1 "un-boring" for the viewers. It will be much more difficult for anyone to break Schumacher's record than it was for Schumacher to make them.

[Mohan Mathew A]

I see no comments about what Perez did. It was an atrocious act. Yes, he was frustrated but it happens in narrow street races and being a Formula 1 driver one should be able to handle it.

I think a drive thru penalty was too little.

Otherwise a very boring race. I really don't know how Vettel ended almost 30 seconds behind Verstappen after coming out of the pit almost neck to neck. Was there a problem with the car?

[ashwin.terminat]

Originally Posted by Mohan Mathew A

I really don't know how Vettel ended almost 30 seconds behind Verstappen after coming out of the pit almost neck to neck. Was there a problem with the car?

Ferrari gambled by putting him on ultrasofts compared to the others around him who were on softs. I presume the hope was, he would be able to cut through the field, build a gap and then pit again for fresh rubber and make up some places again. He would have ideally lost a lot of performance with around 12-15 laps remaining but couldn't pit because he would have lost a lot of places.


He was lucky Bottas was as far back as he was with Kimi hounding his gearbox.

[Mohan Mathew A]

Originally Posted by ashwin.terminat

Ferrari gambled by putting him on ultrasofts compared to the others around him who were on softs. I presume the hope was, he would be able to cut through the field, build a gap and then pit again for fresh rubber and make up some places again. He would have ideally lost a lot of performance with around 12-15 laps remaining but couldn't pit because he would have lost a lot of places.


He was lucky Bottas was as far back as he was with Kimi hounding his gearbox.

I missed that. Why did Ferrari do that, so they were planning on 2 stops. Maybe they were hoping for a safety car situation, otherwise pretty much everyone was on a single pit stop strategy

[sgiitk]

Ferrari seem to have lost their mojo. Need a better strategist to manage the strategy and pit stops. For one - did Vettel have to pit that early, and why did he switch to the ultrasoft. Everyone else used 'soft'. Looking at some of the others Vettel could have done another ten laps.

[vb-saan]

Brilliant weekend for Lewis! In the end Vettel was looking almost like he has conceded the championship already. And it looks like Ferrari is doing everything they can to gift a win to Mercedes.