Sochi F1 GP

[yellowperil]

Nice looking track, usual suspects at the front during today's practice. Must be hard for drivers to focus.

Hope all goes well at this track. Putin expected to attend.

[Don Plumley]

Nice looking venue, driver feedback good too. Man, the silver arrows are awesome but Botta's put on a real challenge until the last corner. Poor Massa, can't find a break. Kvyat over Ricciardo, Seb out in Q2, Button up in 4th. Tomorrow should be a great race!!

[livi]

And luckily some dry weather. I am no fan of rain anymore.
You can almost touch the change in Communication between Vettel and the engineer. I bet redbull is pretty disappointed golden boy is up nīleaving.

[yellowperil]

Yeah, Bottas had them right where he wanted 'em, till that last corner. Too bad!

Should be a good one.

[5String43]

Re Vettel - but where is he going? Ferrari? Has Alonzo played the cards in his hand that badly? I am completely mystified by what's going on. I have followed F1 for decades and have never seen the Silly Season so completely screwed up.

[nostatic]

Actually Bottas lost it a few corners from the end. He was driving the wheels off the car and just got unsettled a bit which led to him running wide. I think he'll have good race pace.

The whole Vettel/Alonso/Ferrari/Honda/Whomever soap opera will be sorted soon enough. I imaging that contracts have not been signed yet, and those involved are smart enough not to open their mouths and yap millions of dollars away.

[Schrup]

Originally Posted by 5String43

Re Vettel - but where is he going? Ferrari? Has Alonzo played the cards in his hand that badly? I am completely mystified by what's going on. I have followed F1 for decades and have never seen the Silly Season so completely screwed up.

I think Ferrari is making a huge mistake both letting Alonso go, & replacing him with Vettel. Their cars have been a handful even before all the drastic regulation changes. I doubt anyone else could have wrung anymore performance out of those cars than Alonso. Wasn't Seb booed last year at Monza & are they going to be able to build a car that suits his "style". Isn't that his excuse for getting smoked by his current team mate? Does Ferarri think he's the second coming of MS? I would think they would push out Kimi, he's been a disappointment.

But what do I know? I thought Hamilton was crazy to go to Mercedes.

[yellowperil]

[QUOTE=nostatic;8301975]Actually Bottas lost it a few corners from the end. He was driving the wheels off the car and just got unsettled a bit which led to him running wide. I think he'll have good race pace.

I missed that, I guess.

[Don Plumley]

In the interview Bottas said he pushed too hard early in the lap and was paying for it at the end. Looking forward to seeing the battle at the end of T1 - it's a long straight.

[nostatic]

If you watch the last lap he was blazing fast in the first two sectors then the car started to get loose in 12/13/14. Locked up into 15, then wide on 16. We was driving the crap out of the car though...

[javadog]

The wife commandeered my TV halfway through the race. It was such a snoozefest that I didn't bother to go elsewhere in the house and watch the rest of it.

Interesting to see the Russians trying to hide the lack of a full house. See if you catch it... We shouldn't have races for political propaganda purposes. I hate such countries, and I'll make a point of not spending any money that might benefit them.

Good to see my least favorite driver get spanked again by his team mate.

Onward to Austin.

JR

[yellowperil]

Yeah quite a snoozefest, track a little too sanitary maybe. Not many challenges. Still enjoyable. I seemed to have missed Ham's pit stop, and kept thinking he had to come in when Nico was 19 sec behind. Was sure he hadn't stopped so thought Nico was sure to win, until I saw the white (med) sidewalls on Ham's car.

BTW after race, Ham looked like he was not going to bother with Putin at all. He (Ham) didn't look too impressed.

[rfuerst911sc]

David Hobbs had me cracking up when he said the track was starting to get covered in " klag-sky ".

[Don Plumley]

Congrats to the silver arrows for the constructors. Masterclass. Nico coming from last to 2nd is similar to what Lewis did earlier in the season. Imagine how the other teams must feel. He really did mess up on that first corner though. Looked like he was playing with his steering wheel. I didn't see where Vettel got passed to finish behind Ricciardo - would like to see that.

[legion]

Nico seems to be losing his nerve. At the same time, Lewis seems to be acting more maturely.

Nico is lucky that the Autodrom seems to be so smooth and his tires lasted. It will be interesting to see what happens with the Olympic buildings over the next few years. It's my understanding that everything was build for the Olympics without a future purpose in mind.

[VincentVega]

x2

Boring race. It's a sad time when fuel economy impacts much of the field, it is still called racing right?

Good for Nico he was able to run the race -1 lap on the same tires but that should never happen. It makes no sense to me that a tire that lasts that long would still be competitive, wrong tire selection for the weekend. Oh well, hopefully next year is better.

The track looks pretty odd to me, especially the last few corners. It's no Spa for sure.

[yellowperil]

Beautiful surroundings, being on the Black sea and all, but the track is never going to
amount to much as far as racing goes IMO

[yellowperil]

[livi]

Nice picture!

[kang]

On any other track Nico would have had to make a second pit stop. But then he would have been on new options with the rest of the field on old primes. Hard to say what would have happened.

As it was, he started second, made as many pit stops as everybody else, and finished second.