[drmohitg]

Originally Posted by Maverift

Its not actually true. In the starting grid, P1 does have an advantage as all other things (mostly) stand equal. Not so much during restarts when others behind could and usually have fresher tires.

What you are saying is true. But in this particular scenario there were no tyre changes made and everyone was on the same parameters. I am only talking about this particular race.

Originally Posted by deetjohn

I am not able to understand what you are trying to state here. Are you saying the time gained on the DRS zone doesn't have an impact on the overall lap time and the gap? Austria got three DRS zones by the way!

I am saying that DRS gets activated only when you are within 1 second of the driver in front. In Hamilton's case, he was not in the DRS zone when he was knocking off a second off Bottas in the initial laps. When he came within the DRS zone, the team orders followed and forced him to back off or else he would have taken the lead from Bottas.

Also, there is something called managing the gap. The leading driver doesn't have set a lap on fire. He just needs to manage the gap and respond to the drivers behind. And I felt Bottas did that beautifully.

Bottas allowed Hamilton to close a gap of 6+ seconds to 0.7 seconds when the team orders followed. After that Hamilton never gave chase as heir sensors or gearbox issues made sure he held on to his position and not push the car any further. Bottas didn't really manage anything here.

[deetjohn]

Originally Posted by drmohitg

...Bottas allowed Hamilton to close a gap of 6+ seconds to 0.7 seconds when the team orders followed. After that Hamilton never gave chase as heir sensors or gearbox issues made sure he held on to his position and not push the car any further. Bottas didn't really manage anything here.

No! That's not how it evolved. Both Bottas and Lewis were brought together after the yellow flag following Magnussen's crash. The gap was like 3.5s then. Not 0.7 seconds.

And Merc did a double stack while the SC was out. Obviously no gap following that. And after the restart, both were trading fastest laps. If in one lap Lewis goes fast, it was Bottas on the next. That's called managing from the front! Bottas was no sitting duck! Calling him that looks extremely naive to me.

Especially last weekend when he didn't put a foot wrong. The call about the sensor issue came after this first SC period. And Bottas was even told he's in worse shape compared to car #44.