Japanese GP Debrief: Rosberg Waltzes as Hamilton Falters

[Andy 'Mars Bar' Graham]

Btw talking about blocks, what do we think about the most horrendous block of the year performed by Nico on Lewis in Barcelona?

I think Nico was covering the position well before the braking zone, not realising that Hamilton had such a run on him. If Nico wasn't having the engine mode setting issue, would have been a perfect block

Also the worst block of the year was Max down the Kemmel Straight on Kimi

Meh, I can cope with Max for 20 years. There are better drivers like Ocon and Vandoorne making their way up the ranks

 

[GAIAjohan]

But Ricciardo has outscored, outraced, and outqualified Max. Therefore he's outperformed Max

Also, you have to remember that's Red Bull ****ing up Monaco and (unkowningly) putting him on the worse strategy in Spain when he was in control (costing him a podium)

So really the head to head should be this

Wins- DR 3-0 MV
2nds- DR 3-5 MV
3rds- DR 1-1 MV

Oh and malaysia? If Hamilton did not have an engine failure MV wouldve passed RIC.

But you cannot Talk in should have and would have. You have the Total results. End of..
Should haves and would haves and if's are good in the autobiography of Mark webber.
If I wouldve trolled vettel more often,
If the Williams of the past was a better car

 

[Andy 'Mars Bar' Graham]

Oh and malaysia? If Hamilton did not have an engine failure MV wouldve passed RIC.

Would have he? So why didn't he pass Ricciardo beforehand then. He had a perfect opportunity to do so

 

[Appie Kuipers]

Carlos Sainz is to become the better one

Sure, when he is alone on track.

 

[racelover]

Sure, when he is alone on track.

Awesome reply....

 

[[DNA] Rico Nosberg]

But Ricciardo has outscored, outraced, and outqualified Max. Therefore he's outperformed Max

Also, you have to remember that's Red Bull ****ing up Monaco and (unkowningly) putting him on the worse strategy in Spain when he was in control (costing him a podium)

So really the head to head should be this

Wins- DR 3-0 MV
2nds- DR 3-5 MV
3rds- DR 1-1 MV

Max is in this Kvyat buildcar for 4 races less, max is in his 2nd year f1
Max came from karts into f3 into f1
Max is breaking all the records..
but you seem to forget everything.

No hard feelings, but who do you support then?

 

[Deleted member 130869]

How times change. At one point, being 27 years old was considered very young to win a F1 title.
Ayrton Senna was racing go karts when he was 18.
Debuting in F1 at 21 was once ludicrous.

 

[Andy 'Mars Bar' Graham]

No hard feelings, but who do you support then?

I'm a huge Ricciardo fan and a Vandoorne fan!

 

[GAIAjohan]

Would have he? So why didn't he pass Ricciardo beforehand then. He had a perfect opportunity to do so

Because of strategy and speed, and if you didnt see MV was clearly faster there I would visit an optometrist. And clearly RB wanted to play it safe. But If the race wouldve continued as it went on LH would be 1st, Max 2nd and DR 3rd..

In Spain RIC was faster, true. But thats all if's and would have beens.

You dont buy anything on if's, however you seem to do... Ricciardo doesnt 'get' that win in Spain and Monaco, nor does Verstappen get that win in malaysia.

At this moment their statistical results are pretty much equal.. with DR having the edge in qualy.

The promotion of Stoffel takes too long, huge talent, but he's just sitting there:

Too bad McLaren is doing this while they should replace at least one Old fart..

Saying Ocon is faster than MV is just weird imo:
The Karting results are in favor of MV,
F3, well Ocon may have won that season but:
1. Ocon was in Prema Power team which is just a better team
2. Ocon had the Mercedes engine, Verstappen the VW
3. Ocon had single seater experience from FR2.0
4. MV retired several times at the beginning of the season, thats where Ocon won the championship
5. If you take a look at the races where they finished both, MV was better
6. Just rewatch the Norisring races

 

[paracletus]

While i don't agree (among many) with the infamous "kemmel" move, sunday's block on LH was ok... marginal but within limits. With inferior machinery it is necessary to get a bit creative on track or there's no chance to stay ahead.
Very skillful racer -- If MV gets the right machinery, a good bet for at least one DC at some stage of his career.

 

[Mark Aalberts]

I'm a huge Ricciardo fan and a Vandoorne fan!

At least one thing we have in common.

Those are my fav drivers to and I think Stoffel is very underrated by the mass and McLaren, just like Max I think Stoffel is highly talented and very skilled. Relentless at time but both very clever racers, next year Alonso is going to have a though time with this guy. Just surprised that he isn't given a chance earlier on, should have been in F1 by at least one maybe 2 years already.

And about the "if's" in the end there is only 2 statistics that really counts, how many races did you win and how many championships did you racked up. Lets have this discussion again in 10 years and see where these new prospects eventually have ended up in their career.

 

[Deleted member 130869]

McLaren is notorious for "wasting" young drivers. It's nice the guy will finally have a shot next year.

 

[Erwin Greven]

Would have he? So why didn't he pass Ricciardo beforehand then. He had a perfect opportunity to do so

IF is F1 spelled backwards.

 

[Andy 'Mars Bar' Graham]

Because of strategy and speed, and if you didnt see MV was clearly faster there I would visit an optometrist. And clearly RB wanted to play it safe. But If the race wouldve continued as it went on LH would be 1st, Max 2nd and DR 3rd..

In Spain RIC was faster, true. But thats all if's and would have beens.

You dont buy anything on if's, however you seem to do... Ricciardo doesnt 'get' that win in Spain and Monaco, nor does Verstappen get that win in malaysia.

At this moment their statistical results are pretty much equal.. with DR having the edge in qualy.

The promotion of Stoffel takes too long, huge talent, but he's just sitting there:

Too bad McLaren is doing this while they should replace at least one Old fart..

Saying Ocon is faster than MV is just weird imo:
The Karting results are in favor of MV,
F3, well Ocon may have won that season but:
1. Ocon was in Prema Power team which is just a better team
2. Ocon had the Mercedes engine, Verstappen the VW
3. Ocon had single seater experience from FR2.0
4. MV retired several times at the beginning of the season, thats where Ocon won the championship
5. If you take a look at the races where they finished both, MV was better
6. Just rewatch the Norisring races

Vandoorne got some experience, when he out qualified Jenson in Bahrain. He's also been doing Super Formula as well. He's super quick.

You make an interesting point about Ocon, and I want to change mine now. Verstappen is faster than Ocon, but Ocon is better. Ocon is awesomely consistent. In GP3, he won only one race to Ghiotto's five, but he still won the championship. Ocon gets good results on a consistent basis, which makes him extremely good. He makes no mistakes (apart from one or two mistakes). However, I disagree with some points you made. Mercedes is no better than Volkswagen in my opinion. It wasn't like Max was the best VW runner, as Blomqvist who finished 2nd also used VW engines. Experience in other forms of single seaters doesn't really mean anything. You need experience in that certain Formula. Ocon was just as new as Verstappen was in F3

Also Max's early season retirements were more down to him crashing, so he kind of cost himself the championship there

 

[Andy 'Mars Bar' Graham]

IF is F1 spelled backwards.

Not it's not. F1 spelt backwards is 1F, not IF.

 

[Andy 'Mars Bar' Graham]

Those are my fav drivers to and I think Stoffel is very underrated by the mass and McLaren, just like Max I think Stoffel is highly talented and very skilled. Relentless at time but both very clever racers, next year Alonso is going to have a though time with this guy. Just surprised that he isn't given a chance earlier on, should have been in F1 by at least one maybe 2 years already.

Agree with this. He's underrated though because people are just bitter that Button is no longer driving. They don't understand how good he was in GP2.

And about the "if's" in the end there is only 2 statistics that really counts, how many races did you win and how many championships did you racked up. Lets have this discussion again in 10 years and see where these new prospects eventually have ended up in their career.

Could be a very exciting ten years, we could see many new champions!

 

[Mark Aalberts]

Vandoorne got some experience, when he out qualified Jenson in Bahrain. He's also been doing Super Formula as well. He's super quick.

You make an interesting point about Ocon, and I want to change mine now. Verstappen is faster than Ocon, but Ocon is better. Ocon is awesomely consistent. In GP3, he won only one race to Ghiotto's five, but he still won the championship. Ocon gets good results on a consistent basis, which makes him extremely good. He makes no mistakes (apart from one or two mistakes). However, I disagree with some points you made. Mercedes is no better than Volkswagen in my opinion. It wasn't like Max was the best VW runner, as Blomqvist who finished 2nd also used VW engines. Experience in other forms of single seaters doesn't really mean anything. You need experience in that certain Formula. Ocon was just as new as Verstappen was in F3

Also Max's early season retirements were more down to him crashing, so he kind of cost himself the championship there

I watched every single race of him in F3 including live timing, you really would like to know about all his DNF's that year? Its really funny because people always tend to think that seeing DNF in the list means that most likely the driver had a lot of problems caused by himself. Just be honest, did you followed F3 that year? I bet you didn't.

Here you have the exact reasons for each and one of his DNF that year. Silverstone and 2nd race Pau was due to himself, 3th race of Pau can be debated and the rest is/was mechanical failures. After Pau his career took a flight, his real career basically started during the Norisring weekend and before that only 2 big mistakes by himself.

In order:
Race1 -Silverstone Race1 - Suspension (Max fault)
Race4 -Hockenheim Race1 - DNF due to electrical failure
Race5 -Hockenheim Race2 - DNS due to electrical failure
Race8 -Pau - Race2 - Spin (Max Fault)
Race9 -Pau - Race3 - (Ocon squeezed Max into the pitwall causing a bend wishbone, raced with bend wishbone which eventually snapped and made him crash. Official warning given to Ocon)
Race10 -Hungary - Race1 - DNF due to Clutch failure
Race20 -Moscow - Race2 - DNF due to defective alternator
Race26 -Nurburgring- Race2 - Engine failure (Engine replacement caused him a 10 place gridpenalty for the next 3 races)
Race28-Imola-Race1 - Crash - Suspension (Max fault)

Max was in a new team with VAR, they didn't had good enough F3 Euro Series experience which hampered the team especially in some of the mechanical failures like the electrical problems they had during the Hockenheim weekend which they couldn't solve in time and caused a DNS for race2. Also the clutch gave problems for them. Besides of that Max suffered from a Engine failure when he was leading the 2nd race at Nurburgring. Not only he lost that race, he also was given a grid penalty for the next 3 races of 10 places due to mounting a new engine. The best part is, he took those penalties in Imola and was still on the podium in race 2 and 3. There you have the IF and what could have been.

Prema was an established team, they knew all the ins and outs compared to VAR for who it was all new with inexperienced drivers at that point. Looking at what VAR and in particular Max has achieved that year considering the amount of mechanical failure they had to deal with I think they couldn't have done it much better than they did. take next in consideration, New team, New driver that steps into F3 straight from karting in what was anticipated as one of the most competitive F3 fields in years. Ocon is good but......

Not that it changes anything for you, just saying.

 

[Andy 'Mars Bar' Graham]

I watched every single race of him in F3 including live timing, you really would like to know about all his DNF's that year? Its really funny because people always tend to think that seeing DNF in the list means that most likely the driver had a lot of problems caused by himself. Just be honest, did you followed F3 that year? I bet you didn't.

Here you have the exact reasons for each and one of his DNF that year. Silverstone and 2nd race Pau was due to himself, 3th race of Pau can be debated and the rest is/was mechanical failures. After Pau his career took a flight, his real career basically started during the Norisring weekend and before that only 2 big mistakes by himself.

In order:
Race1 -Silverstone Race1 - Suspension (Max fault)
Race4 -Hockenheim Race1 - DNF due to electrical failure
Race5 -Hockenheim Race2 - DNS due to electrical failure
Race8 -Pau - Race2 - Spin (Max Fault)
Race9 -Pau - Race3 - (Ocon squeezed Max into the pitwall causing a bend wishbone, raced with bend wishbone which eventually snapped and made him crash. Official warning given to Ocon)
Race10 -Hungary - Race1 - DNF due to Clutch failure
Race20 -Moscow - Race2 - DNF due to defective alternator
Race26 -Nurburgring- Race2 - Engine failure (Engine replacement caused him a 10 place gridpenalty for the next 3 races)
Race28-Imola-Race1 - Crash - Suspension (Max fault)

Max was in a new team with VAR, they didn't had good enough F3 Euro Series experience which hampered the team especially in some of the mechanical failures like the electrical problems they had during the Hockenheim weekend which they couldn't solve in time and caused a DNS for race2. Also the clutch gave problems for them. Besides of that Max suffered from a Engine failure when he was leading the 2nd race at Nurburgring. Not only he lost that race, he also was given a grid penalty for the next 3 races of 10 places due to mounting a new engine. The best part is, he took those penalties in Imola and was still on the podium in race 2 and 3. There you have the IF and what could have been.

Prema was an established team, they knew all the ins and outs compared to VAR for who it was all new with inexperienced drivers at that point. Looking at what VAR and in particular Max has achieved that year considering the amount of mechanical failure they had to deal with I think they couldn't have done it much better than they did. take next in consideration, New team, New driver that steps into F3 straight from karting in what was anticipated as one of the most competitive F3 fields in years. Ocon is good but......

Not that it changes anything for you, just saying.

You know I did actually go through all of Max's retirements in F3 I still think he hurt his chances by early mistakes and incidents but agreed he was unlucky with latter retirements

However, while he was unlucky, who the **** actually cares. Hamilton has been unlucky this season, Sainz was unlucky last season. Ocon was a worthy champion and he was consistent as hell as I explained earlier. Being in the "best" team means nothing if you're not talented. What makes Ocon more impressive is he won the championship on his debut season, beating an experienced teammate in Latifi, and beat van der Laar (another Dutchman) and Fuoco. Sure he had single seater experience beforehand, but that doesn't mean **** all at times. For example, Gasly jumped in GP2 at the end of 2014 and was very bad and he had single seater experience beforehand. Experience means nothing unless you have experience in that category

Also you make it out like VAR were completely new. They had one and a bit years in Euro F3 before Max, which is enough time to get up to speed. Also teams aren't important so much. Prema joined GP2 this year and are on their way to beat far more experienced teams like ART and DAMS straight away

 

[Mark Aalberts]

You know I did actually go through all of Max's retirements in F3 I still think he hurt his chances by early mistakes and incidents but agreed he was unlucky with latter retirements

However, while he was unlucky, who the **** actually cares. Hamilton has been unlucky this season, Sainz was unlucky last season. Ocon was a worthy champion and he was consistent as hell as I explained earlier. Being in the "best" team means nothing if you're not talented. What makes Ocon more impressive is he won the championship on his debut season, beating an experienced teammate in Latifi, and beat van der Laar (another Dutchman) and Fuoco. Sure he had single seater experience beforehand, but that doesn't mean **** all at times. For example, Gasly jumped in GP2 at the end of 2014 and was very bad and he had single seater experience beforehand. Experience means nothing unless you have experience in that category

Also you make it out like VAR were completely new. They had one and a bit years in Euro F3 before Max, which is enough time to get up to speed. Also teams aren't important so much. Prema joined GP2 this year and are on their way to beat far more experienced teams like ART and DAMS straight away

So i was right, just looking at results but not knowing the exact facts.

Anyway that last part is actually pretty important, Prema is a bigger team and they where changing parts for almost every weekend to make sure they didn't ran into troubles like VAR did with the electrical issues they suffered and mainly clutch problems they had during the first half of the year. VAR couldn't afford to just change parts every weekend. But then again, going trough results or actively follow a season are 2 different things. If you follow actively you will get to know much more about all the smaller details and puts a result sheet in complete different perspective. Its the "IF's" thing we discussed before. Time will tell who is right but Ocon for now has to sit place in the waiting room and see how Max is streaming away in the distance, hopefully he can catch up with him.

 

[Andy 'Mars Bar' Graham]

So i was right, just looking at results but not knowing the exact facts.

Anyway that last part is actually pretty important, Prema is a bigger team and they where changing parts for almost every weekend to make sure they didn't ran into troubles like VAR did with the electrical issues they suffered and mainly clutch problems they had during the first half of the year. VAR couldn't afford to just change parts every weekend. But then again, going trough results or actively follow a season are 2 different things. If you follow actively you will get to know much more about all the smaller details and puts a result sheet in complete different perspective. Its the "IF's" thing we discussed before. Time will tell who is right but Ocon for now has to sit place in the waiting room and see how Max is streaming away in the distance, hopefully he can catch up with him.

Agreed Max is in a far better position in F1, but the future will be awesome no doubts!