United Kingdom: post-race analysis
Bloody good race.
Dramatic start, dramatic end, crashes, strategic cock-ups and two
green bets. Huzzah! Once again, Great Britain shows the world how to
do this sporting malarkey.
Nasr’s car failed
even before the start, unfortunately. Of the rest, only Verstappen
started hard.
Off the line both
Williams were off like a scalded cat, Massa claiming the lead and
Bottas (after briefly and brilliantly fending off Hamilton) nabbing
the second spot. Meanwhile, Hulkenberg got a very good start as well
and was fifth by the end of lap 1.
But the drama didn’t
end there. Before the first lap concluded the two Lotuses struck one
another, and both were out, also collecting Button and Alonso (Button
was out, Alonso managed to keep going).
Hamilton managed to
pass Bottas, but then a safety car came out so that the assorted
debris could be cleared. When the safety car came in, Hamilton tried
to aggressively pass Massa but locked up, which enabled Bottas to get
past him.
Bottas did appear
faster than Massa at this stage of the race. After a brief delay
whilst Williams decided what to do, the cars were allowed to race but
Massa was not instructed to let his team mate through. The Finn got
close, but Massa didn’t crack, and the top four circulated in
order, close together, for the rest of the initial stint.
After the initial pit
stops Rosberg remained stuck behind Bottas, and Hamilton emerged
ahead of them. The Briton was flying, and when Massa pitted he
emerged in second place, with Hamilton leading.
The Ferraris had clawed
past Hulkenberg, who had slid down the order after his great start,
but were a mile and a half behind the leading quartet, Raikkonen
ahead of Vettel. Ricciardo was forced to retire due to a reliability
failure, Verstappen also exiting the race after crashing.
A Virtual Safety Car
emerged at one point. This allowed Sainz’s car, which he’d rather
unhelpfully parked some way from the marshals, to be collected. The
VSR also lets gaps stay basically the same because cars drive within
a certain limit, rather than congregating behind a physical safety
car, and it can be ended sooner because it doesn’t take a lap for
the safety car to return to the pits, nor do cars unlap themselves
(which is a nonsense).
And then the British
weather intervened.
It started raining.
Enough to annoy drivers, but not enough to necessitate new tyres. And
then it rained some more. A few drivers (Raikkonen, who had just been
passed by his team mate, Alonso and perhaps Ericsson) came in for
inters. The Williams suffered in the slightly damp conditions, and
Rosberg swept past Bottas and then Massa.
Raikkonen was lapping
about eight seconds a lap slower than others. It was a gamble which
had failed.
Rosberg, now second,
was 10s or so behind Hamilton, but catching him by 2s a lap, until he
was 1.7s behind. Hamilton complained of no grip from his tyres (both
on medium). And the British rain saved the day. With inspired timing,
Hamilton pitted for inters. It seemed too dry, or at least too soon.
It wasn’t. Hamilton had timed it to perfection, and as the rain
fell and Rosberg pitted, the tiny gap had grown all the way to 10s
again, and this time there was no closing it.
Vettel also pitted that
very same lap, leapfrogging the two Williams (who must feel a shade
unfortunate after such a strong race actually seeing them go
backwards from the grid) to get yet another podium, his sixth (I
think) of the year.
Raikkonen had worn out
his inters, having pitted too soon, made another stop for some fresh
ones (he was far enough ahead of Perez not to lose a place), and
trailed home a disappointing 9th. At the end, Kvyat’s
superior downforce was helping him against the struggling Williams
and very nearly passed Bottas. In the end, the Finn kept 5th
and the Russian was a good 6th.
Hulkenberg got 7th,
and Perez 9th, which is reasonable. The Force India B-spec
car does look to be an improvement, but with so many retirements
(7/20) it’s hard to be certain just how much better it is. The Red
Bull was faster (definite in the wet, perhaps also in the dry), and
the Toro Rosso seemed roughly comparable. Impossible to say how the
Lotus stacks up against the new Force India, however.
And who got the final
point? Some chap called Fernando Alonso, who scored his first point
of the year. Nice to see McLaren enjoying a tiny bit of good luck.
Here are the updated
driver standings:
Hamilton 194
Rosberg 177
Vettel 135
Whilst Vettel’s not
quite out of it, it would take either a lot of reliability failures
for Mercedes (they’ve had zero, I think, so far) or for the Ferrari
team to put two engines in the back of Vettel’s car.
Constructors’(4th
to 8th):
Red Bull 63
Force India 39
Lotus 29
Sauber 21
Toro Rosso 19
Very good day at the
office for Force India, who see their lower-placed rivals score
nothing, and they scored equal points as Red Bull, maintaining the
gap ahead but extending it over those chasing the team. The old Force
India was handy in a straight line but struggled with aerodynamic
stuff, which matters quite a bit at Silverstone. Retaining 5th
is important because, as Allan McNish pointed out recently, the 5th
place gives a team a decision-making seat (because F1 makes no bloody
sense only five teams get heard, and several of those appear to be for financial/historical reasons). If Toro Rosso get it, that’d give
Mateschitz et al. two seats.
For those who’ve
followed my tips for a little while, this is the best (going by
hedged) race weekend since Monza 2009 when I offered something mad like 5-6
tips and more than half came off (including an 8.8 winner, I think,
on a Brawn victory). This season’s been weird for betting,
flat-lining red for ages, and a few good races just now.
After complaining of
some bad luck earlier this year, I’ve certainly had some good
fortune of late.
For my record-keeping,
this is the mid-season point, so a review or two will be thrown up
between now and Hungary, which is in three weeks.
Morris Dancer
Just to correct myself: Hungary is the final race of the first half (there's a gap where Germany should've been, hence my error). Not that my record-keeping is very exciting for other people, but the review (unsure if I'll do one or two) will be after Hungary, not before.
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