That was a heck of a race!

I don't think Max purposely pushed Lewis wide. He braked way later than he normally would to try to stay ahead and since they're already at the maximum speed humanly possible through every turn, there's no way Max could have stayed on track at the higher entry speed.

EDIT: with that said, should Max have been forced to give up the position for exceeding track limits to his advantage? Probably.

Could be interesting if true .

http://gptoday.com/full_story/view/804686/Audi_reportedly_buy_out_entire_McLaren_Group/

I had a house full yesterday during the last 20ish laps. Bunch of rubes that needed explanations of F1 and how things work. (The rubes are family, so what can you do?) I didn't get to hear a lot of the commentary and totally missed the post race. Although one family member wasn't amused by the kneeling that took place in Austin a few weeks ago. I believe his comments were something along the lines of not one American so what does this have to do with them.

At any rate, it seems F1 needs to tighten up the penalties when they do this short race thing. I understand the DQ for Hammy and how it applied to the sprint race but then why not apply to the actual race? And why does the engine penalty only apply to actual race. Its just a hodge podge of rules cobbled together that make no sense. It would seem that the DQ penalty should have been applied to the actual race. The way it was imposed really didn't make for a real penalty. If the penalty was for the 'race' then he would have had to make up 20 positions. In a way it was like Silverstone when the penalty wasn't a penalty.

I'm ok with the wide stuff that happened. It looked like Max missed the turn but then so did Lewis. Good no call there.

Yea, once again the penalty for Hamilton was not really a problem at all. Had it been a regular qualifying the penalty of starting at the back would have been more, but I think he would still have passed all the rest. His car was 20 KPH faster down the two straights. With such a short track, he was just passing cars that had no way to compete. He is a great driver, but he has a car that is just two steps above the rest.

20 kph speed advantage is seriously substantial, I would think that if I had figured out how to accomplish this I wouldnt show all my cards...

Everyone seemed to acknowledge that it was down to the fresh internal combustion unit. And they fully expect it to fall down to mere mortal levels of performance at the next few races.

It was only a 5kph advantage over the Red Bull without slipstream and DRS. Substantial, but not 20kph. Worth noting that Bottas was only what, 10 seconds behind? I think people make the new ICE out to be more than it was.

Edit: My mistake, looks like there was a difference of 9kph to the RB in qualifying, and a 5kph difference at the end of the straight between Hamilton and Bottas.

Something smells fishy to me along the lines of Ferrari's sudden surge in power a few years back.

Max was wide and fast into the apex. However, it looked like in the latter part of the turn he went straight for a bit when he could have easily continued to turn. This caused Max to go way wide and Luis to go even wider.

The onboard was finally released!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YPSwaVGPjQ

He took a very shallow line missing the apex and charged out of the corner keeping Lewis on the outside. It was clearly intentional so a real pain the FIA sat on it.

VER at fault clearly. HAM just sucked it up and raced on. Don't know whether you like HAM or not, but he proved to me that he is a racer. VER is still needs to grow up

Yea, I am not a fan of Hamilton the man, but his driving skills are top notch. He virtually never crashes into the wall in practice, he avoids lockups in the race, and almost always finishes. He clearly had the fasted car on track by a wide margin.

I enjoyed the grid walk by Brundle when he was looking for a driver to interview
and Stroll was the only one available, Lance …. "I've been here five years and this is the first time you spoke to me" He was quite excited I think!

Watched it twice. Looks like he turned but the car didn't respond, likely because the line was shallow. Line was shallow because Hamilton was on the outside so Max could not move over. Not sure there was more he could have done. And it isn't like Lewis was within track limits himself but when has that ever been enforced against him?

Also, I wouldn't put too much stock in Andrew Benson from BBC. He is a big time Hamilton fan boy.

I'll stick with racing incident. Both were going for the corner and neither willing to let up. Hammy would have had the pass if he had backed out and undercut. Either way, he got the pass and race win a bit later.

Wow, just wow, this years championship is golden, easily one of the most exciting in a long time :cool:

If Netflix had written the script I don't think it would have anymore twists and turns :eek:

I'm sure the Mercedes vs RBR, McLaren vs Ferrari, Alpine vs Alpha Tauri team battles and Max vs Lewis , Lando vs Carlos vs Charles driver battles will continue right until the end of the last race ;)

Only 3 more races to go and it's all done and dusted for another year!

I watched the on-board. Of course I don't know how much the wheel needs to be turned but it looked like VER was not tight on the apex and had the wheel turned and then turned it some more and kept turning it. So I don't know. He knew HAM was right there - I think this falls under hard racing. HAM is a great racer - he did this in karts - coming from behind and winning.
In any case fun to watch.

Regarding turning the wheel some more: I believe it was during the US Grand Prix weekend there was a similar circumstance which was analysed by Brundle. He pointed out this was a trick the drivers used to push another car wide without getting penalized. If someone is attempting a pass on the outside, you stay on the throttle and give the steering a quick turn away from the other car. Your car will understeer, and push your opponent wide, but the telemetry will show you steered to avoid a collision. :D "There was nothing I could do!"

That is almost Max's signature move.

Best
Les

Audi just bought McLaren?!

And Giovinazzi out, to be replaced by Zhou in other F1 news!

When racing becomes this involved with the stewards and team principals it is no longer racing. Toto needs to clamp it. No team principal should be able to contact the race stewards until after the race.