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Whats wrong with Bottas' car?

18:4 its pretty impetuous.
it'd be surprising if anyone would get faster.

the haas drivers fighting

Grosjean invents a new track.

Congratulations to Mercedes for winning the Constructors Championship!

Well done!

Will Bottas try to sneak the fastest lap at the death?

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I think this second place will hit Botttas hard. Hopefully his new found confidence will keep him focused but he will be frustrated both by the start and the apparent lack of pace compared to Lewis.

Amazing 5th 1-2 in a row for the eternal underdogs. Mercedes Petronas AMG F1.

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This was really good race than I thought. Mercedes 1-2 was a given. Vettel was driving really good but the flat spotted probably costed him the podium. He looked much faster than Charles. I think after Haas STR were the next best team. They missed out on some points. AR and RP probably gone little backwards in midfield battle

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Well, I don't think it is over for Bottas just yet. 7 points isn't a big difference given they both keep finishing 1 - 2. I don't think Hamilton is that strong at Monaco. Not that Bottas is either really. But Bottas keeps up his very solid qualifying performance, the overtaking opportunities there are next to impossible here. Then there is Canada where although Hamilton is known to be strong there, Bottas is hardly weak and looked far better last year. I still expect that Bottas will be able to find a way to beat Hamilton in one or two of the next few races somehow, although probably not by much at all. Bottas just needs to qualify behind then he's sorted

Ferrari need to get their heads right, why is Leclerc being held up if they're going to let him pass anyway? Why after they have already decided that they will move the slower driver over earlier in the race is Vettel getting held up by Leclerc before being let past?

Absolute mess there at the moment strategically, looks like they dont know what they're doing.

not just Ferrari.

Renault needs to figure it out, they have gone backwards with Danny ric as a driver this year. They wanted to get closer to red bull but they are getting beat by the B teams.

Racing Point, stroll notwithstanding, has gone backwards as well.

Williams...

Can someone explain to me the pitstop and tyre strategies of Ferrari ? And explain it to Binotto too, who doesn't seem to get any idea of what he is doing. They obviously replaced Arrivabene by Arrivanada...

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Domination from Mercedes - Hamilton put pretty clear daylight between him and Bottas pre and post-safety car. I don't get why a few are saying Hamilton was lucky with the safety car, can someone enlighten me please?

A good drive from Verstappen and a solid drive from Gasly which might give him some confidence.

Ferrari are a shambles on the pit wall.

Not sure what the Haas drivers were playing at after the safety car, they've lost out on some points there.

Bad weekend for Alfa and RP.

Interesting weekend in a lot of ways. Ferrari are now vulnerable to Red Bull, so the fight for 3rd should get intense. I believe Max is now 3rd in the standings, unless I've made yet another data error (check the group pick game thread for more...!), and that should be a major red flag for Ferrari that they need to up their game. Slow to swap drivers both times, weird strategies (that luckily came good) and generally looking lost on the technical side. No question they're one of the best out there, but Mercedes are romping away with this one.

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Verstappen 66
Vettel 64
Leclerc 57

that could be an interesting battle. At the start of the season I thought Hamilton would be WDC because the two Ferrari drivers would take points from each other, but now it might be the case that Verstappen finishes third because they take points off each other.

Which rather undermines a lot of predictions in a lot of games, as well as the general media and fan perceptions going into Melbourne. In one sense this year is remarkably unpredictable, but at the same time on a race by race basis it's liable to become boring to some.

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It was far to late

He seems to have done a Rosberg and gone all out for Qualifying.

Nah not for me

Hamilton performed to his maximum today. I think Bottas woke him up by taking pole yesterday and Lewis will not allow Bottas to lurk close to him in the standings much longer. He won't want a repeat of 2016. It's similar to those years with Rosberg in that the strength of Mercedes will potentially keep things artificially close between their drivers no matter what happens so Bottas is a threat to Lewis as long as he can hang in there close in the points. If Lewis can re-establish dominance over Valteri, this could become a record-breaking season for him as Mercedes have clearly achieved a level of dominance over the field that is perhaps not quite what it was back in 2014-2016 but is large enough to make it hard for the others to challenge them. If Bottas wants to actually win the WDC, he will need to find a way to improve his race pace.

Ferrari have reached blooper-reel status. What exactly are they doing out there? Vettel got off the line quickly but he flat-spotted his tires in that first corner scrap and he was slow throughout the first stint. Despite this fact, Ferrari left Leclerc to sit behind him and lose time (and damage his tires) for nearly 13 laps! What kind of indecisive leadership allows that to happen? Then, in the next stint, Vettel was put on Mediums and was quick straight away; making up ground on the leaders. Right as Vettel hit his stride, they pit Leclerc, put him on the Hard tire and had him come out directly in front of Vettel to hold him up. It took about 5 laps for them to let Vettel by after losing the best life from his tires. I literally think they got everything wrong today and at this point, I think they should simply stop making decisions like this. Just let them race each other. Tell them that you will not move one for the other and they are 100% free to race. The championship is over now for Ferrari. They are no match for Mercedes whatsoever and I actually firmly believe that Red Bull will have them beat by the second half of the year. Just let the drivers race and stop embarrassing yourselves ffs.

Max continues to perform brilliantly and I believe that he is absolutely ready to fight for the WDC now. He's fast, consistent and his judgement has improved dramatically. Red Bull is destined to replace Ferrari as the #2 team by the end of the year IMO. The Honoda engine is performing quite well indeed and they are improving the car rapidly.

Yes I asked the same question how was Hamilton lucky when he had the race won anyway?

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Yes but for both drivers.

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Possibly if he's considering whoever leads after the first lap is going to win?

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He already has said he wants the performance of the clutch on the start explained to him by the engineers at Merc.

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Lewis didn't benefit from "luck" in any way shape or form. He had the race won from the first corner and was never threatened at all. It's as if some people feel obligated to generate some sort of "luck" narrative every race...

His tyres were de-laminating before the SC came out and was destined for a stop.

So to help Mercedes did a pitstop for Bottas when he didn't need it!

Lol. That's an even more comedic spin. Yeah Lewis was in big trouble there...

If you have even a remote interest in the facts; both he and Bottas's tires were pretty worn but they both had a big enough margin to stop and come out ahead of the rest of the field. It was a no-brainer to pit both drivers and have fresh rubber for the last 20 laps or so.

Great drive by the Merc Boys. It seems they can get a 1 2 at every race.
As for Ferrari, they are in a mess. They are simply not in harmony. One side of the garage is competing with the other to the extent they forget they are racing the rest of the field. Signs of poor leadership.

Did Rosberg actually do this or was it just speculation? I seem to remember it being mentioned with regard to 2014.

This could explain Bottas' strong qualifying performance with respect to Hamilton in the first five races but not convinced yet. Will have to see how it develops over the coming races.

The 1 stop race wasn't on, Verstappen was confident that even Leclerc wouldn't be able to 1 stop using the hard tyres, Bottas would have been in severe tyre difficulties, the lap after it showed Hamilton's delaminating tyre he managed to do the same lap time as Bottas so Bottas' tyres were hardly any better.

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PF1 Pick 10 Competition

2013: 5th Place
2014: Champion
2015: 3rd Place
2016: 4th Place
2017: 9th Place
2018: 7th place

Wins: Canada 2018, Abu Dhabi 2017
Podiums: (8)

Regarding Hamilton's pace after the safety car, I thought Bottas had used an extra set of softs in Q1. Is it possible his softs weren't fresh?

Yeah the one stop wasn't on. If there was no safety car and Hamilton pitted but Bottas stayed out, then he would have risked being caught in no mans land with Hamilton chasing him down and leaving it too late to make a second stop without losing position.

they definitely weren't, now that you mention it. I recall Dutch commentary saying he was bolting on a set of used tyres at the stop.

If I recall correctly, neither Merc had any fresh softs going into the race.

Sky commentary suggested Bottas was just giving himself space and preparing his battery for a fastest lap attempt. I've not looked at lap time to check that out.

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Can anybody here explain what the luck was?

I was wrong with what I initially wrote. I thought he was going to come out behind the Leclerc.

They look pretty new in this pic:

That is not Bottas nor Hamilton. Unless I'm seeing different things in my screen