China: post-race analysis 2017

An interesting race, although not quite the classic it might have been due to the timing of an early safety car. From a betting perspective, bad, as none of my tips came off and the derided (by me, and others) Verstappen podium odds of 4.5 did. Still, that’s the nature of gambling.

It was wet at the start. Not raining, and not soaking, but enough dampness for all save Sainz (supersoft) to start on intermediate tyres. At that stage, I was feeling quite confident that attrition might be substantial.

Off the line, Sainz was passed by everyone then spun at the second corner. Elsewhere, the Ferraris were tardy again, Vettel just about holding off Bottas and Raikkonen losing a place to Ricciardo. Hulkenberg passed Massa (the pattern I noted at Australia was pretty much repeated). Verstappen flew up the order like a hawk with its tail on fire.

Perez struck Stroll from behind, punting the unfortunate Canadian into the gravel and out of the race. (The Mexican received no penalty. To be honest, I would have given him a minor one, it was clearly his fault and ended Stroll’s race). The VSC emerged and around the same time Vettel and Hulkenberg pitted. Hulkenberg promptly spun, and his mistake was compounded by misfortune when Giovinazzi crashed on the starting straight, debris strewn across the track.

The safety car emerged, and everyone and his cat pitted. This dreadful timing plunged Vettel down to 6th and Hulkenberg to 18th (the Renault driver subsequently got a 5s penalty for passing under the VSC and a 10s penalty for passing under the actual safety car).

Unfortunately, this meant Hamilton was never really challenged at the sharp end. However, there was a very good tussle between the Red Bulls and Ferraris (particularly Raikkonen). Bottas spun following the safety car and went down to 12th.

Ricciardo was holding up Verstappen, Raikkonen and Vettel. The Dutchman scythed past and went chasing Hamilton, but the Ferraris had a tougher time of it. Eventually Vettel passed and went steaming off, but Raikkonen spent a long time bottled up (he complained of lack of power at turn 12, onto the long straight).

Speaking of which, there was a fair amount of passing but it was usually in corners rather than the tedious DRS nonsense. Indeed, identical cars (Red Bulls and Ferraris often running in pairs) found it very difficult to get past on the straight, which is quite different to recent history.

After the second pit stops (contrary to fears of tyres lasting forever, even though almost everyone started on intermediate tyres they also needed two dry sets to finish the race), Hamilton was cruising to victory, Vettel was in 2nd but too far back to make a fight of it, and the Red Bulls were fighting over the final podium spot.

Verstappen was ahead and had been miles faster in soggier conditions, but in the dry Ricciardo clearly had the pace advantage. However, the Aussie was unable to pass his team mate and had to settle for 4th. Behind them was a disgruntled Raikkonen and a disconsolate Bottas.

Worth noting that Red Bull were 40s behind Vettel, and Sainz, 7th, was nearly half a minute behind Bottas. Magnussen, Perez and Ocon were next, meaning another double points finish for Force India. Haas will be glad to score. Toro Rosso may have had the pace for a double points finish but Kvyat’s car failed him.

Also out were Alonso and Vandoorne. Not a great day for McLaren. Alonso had been in a points position, some way ahead of Perez.

Grosjean and Hulkenberg finished 11th and 12th, Palmer was 13th. Massa was a surprisingly poor 14th. One prediction I did get right was that the Williams would not like wet conditions, and even though the circuit was only a bit a damp, Massa was helpless to stop himself slipping down the order rapidly. Ericsson was 15th.

So, why did the bets fail?

Hulkenberg was a misjudgement on my part. I thought (and they did say there was a 90% chance of rain…) it’d be a lot wetter, the drivers would matter more, and he’s a skilful chap in the wet. However, even if the safety car hadn’t come out at the worst time for him *and* he hadn’t spun, it was clearly not on for him to be top 6 without cars ahead retiring. Maybe 7th. At best.

Maybe a little unlucky that none of the quarter-stakes chaps I backed to DNF suffered a failure, particularly given a quarter of the field retired. Again, had it been wetter things might have been different, but weather can help or hinder and there’s not much one can do (beyond sacrificing goats to appease almighty Zeus, obviously).

A tricky race to call, but still disappointing to have lapses of judgement. On the other hand, normal service is resumed after a rather lucky first race.

A few interesting things emerged from the race. For a start, DRS and long straights are no longer dead cert passes unless you have a massive speed difference. Identical cars or even vaguely similar cars find it hard to get past. I’m sure we’re all really looking forward to Azerbaijan, even more than we were before.

Speaking of starts, the Ferraris are laggards. Now, that may be related to an increased difference due to starting on the dirty side (Massa was on that side, and his Mercedes-powered car lost a place quickly) or be due to the engine.

Hard to say because there wasn’t a proper fight at the front, but I believe the Mercedes had a pace advantage here, as I believe Ferrari did in Australia. Who does that favour, over the course of a season? Hard to say. Lots of tight street circuits, lots of Tilke identikit tracks too.

The Red Bull is tasty in the wet. In the dry, it’s in a sort of third-place No Man’s Land, a mile ahead of the midfield but a long way off the Silver Arrows and Prancing Horse. But in the wet the Red Bulls (especially Verstappen) are at least competitive and arguably fastest. Can’t draw too strong a conclusion because the race was only damp at the start, but that’s my feeling.

I’ve been keeping slightly more detailed records this year, including running tallies of points for teams/drivers (to better assess momentum/development) and a basic total of finishes divided into points/no points/failure to finish. So far, only Mercedes, Ferrari and Force India are without a DNF, and all those teams have also had two double points finishes.

I’ll probably post the graphs in the mid-season and end-of-season reviews, and perhaps now and then, but with just two races gone it seems a bit daft to put one up now.

Here are the Drivers’ standings:
Vettel 43
Hamilton 43
Verstappen 25
Bottas 23
Raikkonen 22
Ricciardo 12
Sainz 10
Massa 8
Perez 8
Magnussesn 4
Kvyat 2
Ocon 2

All the rest are on 0 (I won’t normally go that far down, but I thought it’d be interesting at this stage of the season). Bottas and Raikkonen lost a lot of points today by a spin and poor strategy (the Ferrari was left out too long), and possibly an engine issue as well. The tight midfield is starting to shake out a bit, with Force India, Toro Rosso and Williams at the top, and Renault, Sauber and McLaren at the bottom (Haas in the middle).

Constructors’:
Mercedes 66
Ferrari 65
Red Bull 37
Toro Rosso 12
Force India 10
Williams 8
Haas 4

Tight at the top, but if Red Bull develop rapidly, could they be in contention? Ferrari and Mercedes taking points from one another makes the gap (in points) smaller but there is a substantial pace difference to overcome for Red Bull. I wouldn’t put money on it at this stage.

So, a bit annoyed with myself for some clear ill-judgement, but these things do happen.

Bahrain is the next race, and we’re off there next weekend.


Morris Dancer

Comments

  1. Not a good weekend for me betting-wise - first the Grand National and now this. I'm now relying on Kuchar to finish top ten in tonight's closing round of the Masters, where he starts 11th, so it's touch and go!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Best of luck, Mr. Putney.

    If only the rain had fallen. Still, the race was interesting we did learn a lot from it.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Monaco: pre-race 2023

F1 2014 - Second and Third Tests

America: pre-race