F1 2015: Round 16 United States Grand Prix

Frank Bullitt

mickdw wrote: »

I thought the mclaren was a very nice looking machine today.
Amazing how perception of a design changes when the car was racing well as opposed to being hopelessly of the pace.
Honda would appear to be finally making abit of headway.
Alonso wanting to park the car while still in points is alittle worrying.

Alonso had a car problem as far as I know.

KarlFitz01

Best race of the year by far. No question that Lewis deserved the title but got lucky today. Nico needs to up his game for next season but he looked on the pace this weekend and made some nice passes.

Throwing the cap at Nico was a bit silly from Lewis no wonder Nico threw it back.

sonny.knowles

CFlat wrote: »

I could be wrong on that but I would have thought an entirely German team would love to have a German driver win the WDC.

They are largely German in name only though, based in UK, engine plant also in UK, derived from Brawn/Honda, 3 senior management not German (Wolff is Austrian), very few German sponsors.

Cookie_Monster

Great race but the tv director tried his very hardest to utterly ruin it by missing everything, replaying moves eleventy million times and far far too many shots of pointless randomers and various celeb losers. :mad:

How is Rosberg still alive, he chokes so often

CFlat

sonny.knowles wrote: »

They are largely German in name only though, based in UK, engine plant also in UK, derived from Brawn/Honda, 3 senior management not German (Wolff is Austrian), very few German sponsors.

Apart from Ferrari arn't all the other F1 teams based in the UK? But RB is still Austrian, Force India is still Indian and lets not forget out very own Jordan F1 also based in the UK was an Irish F1 Racing team. Team principle for RB is British and a lot of senior figures in the others I've mentioned are also British.

It's also not a coincidence that when Mercedes returned as a works team in 2010 the two drivers picked were German and the reserve driver was also German.

Mercedes F1 team is as German as sourkraut.


I agree about the race director. He should be shot with sh1t. He missed all the good action yesterday. Awful stuff altogether.

flazio

Incident involving Hulkenberg and Riccardo investigated after the race. Any action taken?

mickdw

Gintonious wrote: »

Alonso had a car problem as far as I know.

Lack of power but saying he is going to retire while still in the points was poor form. In the end he just missed a point on the last lap so it was far from a lost cause.
I don't think he has the stomach for another year of development

JPF82

flazio wrote: »

Incident involving Hulkenberg and Riccardo investigated after the race. Any action taken?

No action taken. Hulks front wing broke when he pulled out from Ricciardo's slipstream which was deemed to have contributed to the collision.

ShaunieVW

Best race of the season so far, silly stuff from both the merc guys. Nico needs to vacate that seat for a better all around driver, someone who can put it up to Hamilton. We all know the outcome when the mercs are in a straight fight. I'd love to see Riccardo get the seat.

JPF82

mickdw wrote: »

Lack of power but saying he is going to retire while still in the points was poor form. In the end he just missed a point on the last lap so it was far from a lost cause.
I don't think he has the stomach for another year of development

Maybe, but it could also be that he was concerned with protecting the engine to avoid a load of penalties in the next race. For a driver rated so highly he has made some terrible career choices. He must be a divisive character. Fell out with McLaren, fell out with Ferrari in the end too. Only Renault managed him by making him king dingaling in their team.

mrsoundie

ShaunieVW wrote: »

Best race of the season so far, silly stuff from both the merc guys. Nico needs to vacate that seat for a better all around driver, someone who can put it up to Hamilton. We all know the outcome when the mercs are in a straight fight. I'd love to see Riccardo get the seat.

When he threw the hat back at Lewis, it was like he was saying I am out of here, I wonder where he would go? Ferrari would be the only one who would live up to his ambitions, but for sure he cant stay another season following Lewis around.

Myrddin

What a race, at least now we know exactly what we need to 'fix' F1...a three day hurricane, no practice sessions, & an out of sorts grid from reduced Quali

Lewis did get lucky at times during the race, but Nico got equal amounts of it too - he essentially got a free stop under the VSC, & came out in 4th with brand new slicks...& took chunks out of everyones times. He also got prirority for the pits, where Merc could have stacked the two cars but chose to let Nico stop...which gave him the advantage. Lewis AND Seb got the same then for the Kvyat VSC, so all things being equal, there was plenty of luck to spread around.

Lewis took Nico beautifully at the first turn, without breaking any rules, & was in fact lucky to take the lead because of the move (the two RB boys were a massive threat thereafter). Nico should have sacrificed first in order to hold onto second, & waited for DRS to allow him to regain the lead. By fighting hard, he dropped to 4th. I think Nico drove well, but not well enough.

The hat throwing thing (are Sky seriously calling this cap-gate??, cringe)...I think Lewis should not have thrown the cap to Nico (he also gave one to Seb too who was standing right beside him). I think he should have recognised Nico's demeanour & let him alone. I do believe though, that Lewis was just caught up in the moment & was on autopilot (he couldn't even undo his race suit electronics remember), and I don't believe there was any negative intended by throwing the hat. In saying that though, I can see why it would have really hacked Nico off, it nearly hit him in the head & the last thing he wanted was to celebrate or indeed even be near Lewis. Throwing it back though, & throwing a veritable strop in the room & on the podium made him look bad. He should have just thrown the hat back at the table, & followed Seb's lead (who, as mentioned, was a gentleman in defeat).

Throwing the hat back at Lewis really drew a line in the sand, & again while I understand why it pee'd him off...in the end he made himself look worse by reacting to it the way he did...I don't believe Lewis was anywhere near playing mind games at that moment, he'd just won his 3rd title, had been crying, and was on cloud 9...hard to imagine someone in that state finding an opportunity to display negativity.

But yeah, cracking race...Lewis destroyed Nico over the season & as such is the deserving champion. I'm glad it's over now, by and large it was a terrible, terrible season of F1...and I'm hopeful that 2016 might see Ferrari edge even closer, providing us with more of that glorious action from yesterday.

walshb

Hamilton is a hard man to like.

mrsoundie

walshb wrote: »

Hamilton is a hard man to like.

If you are Rosberg, however I don't.

mickdw

Rosberg needs to play hardball going into next year.
Time after time he allows hamilton his car width on the outside when they fight on track yet time after time hamilton runs him off the track in the opposite situation. Hamilton seems to avoid penalty for this on all occasions due to ability to understeer terribly wide at all the right places.

CFlat

ShaunieVW wrote: »

Best race of the season so far, silly stuff from both the merc guys. Nico needs to vacate that seat for a better all around driver, someone who can put it up to Hamilton. We all know the outcome when the mercs are in a straight fight. I'd love to see Riccardo get the seat.

I agree.

Rosberg is just not in the same league as Hamilton. Riccardo, Hulkenburg, Verstappen, Kyvat there's any number of drivers who I think would give Ham some better competition.

I do think though that he is now a serious force to be reckoned with in Formula 1 and maybe for a few years.

EDit

I don't think he (Rosberg) has it in him to play hardball though. I just don't see that killer instinct/arrogance in him that winners need to have (a characteristic that LH has in bucketloads, which is why so many people hate him). Did Rosberg ever have it or has it been lost by 2+ years in LH's shadow, I don't know.

Anyway, check out his post-race interview on F1.com for an insight into how "down" he is (interviewer say "bad luck" or something like that and he effectively said "not bad luck, just a lack of skill" or something like that...while it may have been honest, you don't tend to hear 'winners' questioning their ability like that)

Uno my Uno.

Nico has the speed to beat Lewis but not the race craft or skill to match him when Sunday comes around. Any time there is a 50/50 between them I know who my money is going on.

Vettel and Ricciardo are the two front runners to match Hamilton in a race, hopefully they will have cars strong enough to match him next year.

AMKC

JPF82 wrote: »

Maybe, but it could also be that he was concerned with protecting the engine to avoid a load of penalties in the next race. For a driver rated so highly he has made some terrible career choices. He must be a divisive character. Fell out with McLaren, fell out with Ferrari in the end too. Only Renault managed him by making him king dingaling in their team.

He also fell out with Renault too and went to Mclaren and then back to Renault in 2008 as they were still happy to take him back even after he had had disagrements with them.

sonny.knowles

CFlat wrote: »

Apart from Ferrari arn't all the other F1 teams based in the UK? But RB is still Austrian, Force India is still Indian and lets not forget out very own Jordan F1 also based in the UK was an Irish F1 Racing team. Team principle for RB is British and a lot of senior figures in the others I've mentioned are also British.

It's also not a coincidence that when Mercedes returned as a works team in 2010 the two drivers picked were German and the reserve driver was also German.

Mercedes F1 team is as German as sourkraut.

I presume you mean sauerkraut.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauerkraut

Not particularly German, just like the Mercedes team.

I stand my my point, Mercedes is a German team in name only.

Frank Bullitt

sonny.knowles wrote: »

I presume you mean sauerkraut.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauerkraut

Not particularly German, just like the Mercedes team.

I stand my my point, Mercedes is a German team in name only.

And money.

CFlat

Gintonious wrote: »

And money.

Yea, exactly. That's probably what makes it mostly German:)

sonny.knowles

CFlat wrote: »

Yea, exactly. That's probably what makes it mostly German:)

The only thing.

CFlat

JPF82 wrote: »

Maybe, but it could also be that he was concerned with protecting the engine to avoid a load of penalties in the next race. For a driver rated so highly he has made some terrible career choices. He must be a divisive character. Fell out with McLaren, fell out with Ferrari in the end too. Only Renault managed him by making him king dingaling in their team.

I'm aware of the 2007 McLaren fallout but I don't remember hearing about him falling out with Ferrari. I thought they wanted him to stay?

mickdw

CFlat wrote: »

I'm aware of the 2007 McLaren fallout but I don't remember hearing about him falling out with Ferrari. I thought they wanted him to stay?

Well they signed vettel early and left Alonso high and dry

Andrew76

mickdw wrote: »

Well they signed vettel early and left Alonso high and dry

The impression I got was that any pre-contract they might have signed with Vettel ages ago was that he would partner Alonso and ultimately take over the no. 1 role when he left/retires. Sure Vettel officially left Red Bull but couldn't announce where he was going as Ferrari were waiting on Fernando to make up his mind about leaving. So we could've had Vettel & Alonso this year instead - that would've been a great battle actually. I get the feeling Ferrari are dying to find a decent replacement for Kimi.

Charlie-Bravo

If

Esteban Guttierez

has a good year with Haas, then maybe he'll get bumped into Kimi's seat for 2017.

CFlat

Andrew76 wrote: »

The impression I got was that any pre-contract they might have signed with Vettel ages ago was that he would partner Alonso and ultimately take over the no. 1 role when he left/retires. Sure Vettel officially left Red Bull but couldn't announce where he was going as Ferrari were waiting on Fernando to make up his mind about leaving. So we could've had Vettel & Alonso this year instead - that would've been a great battle actually. I get the feeling Ferrari are dying to find a decent replacement for Kimi.

Yea that was more my impression too.Of course who knows what goes on in the backrooms of Formula 1.I agree with the Kimi thing.Who knows the way Alonso operates he could be back with Ferrari next year. Lol

hughie1989

I think Nico/Seb partnership in Ferrari would be very interesting, Nico certainly needs to leave Mercedes. Is Kimi really past it? I think he is a great driver

Uno my Uno.

Andrew76 wrote: »

The impression I got was that any pre-contract they might have signed with Vettel ages ago was that he would partner Alonso and ultimately take over the no. 1 role when he left/retires. Sure Vettel officially left Red Bull but couldn't announce where he was going as Ferrari were waiting on Fernando to make up his mind about leaving. So we could've had Vettel & Alonso this year instead - that would've been a great battle actually. I get the feeling Ferrari are dying to find a decent replacement for Kimi.

They aren't trying very hard if that's the case, look at all the young talent within F1 that can't get a decent drive and would do anything to drive for Ferrari.