2017 Russian GP @ Sochi

[badmonkey]

Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention about no more Halo cage.

Right, they are leaning toward the shield.


Sent from my Midlife Crisis

[RidgeBack]

That was pretty cool. Glad FOM is doing something about getting media out to the world.

[BoldUlysses]

Welp, good day for the Tifosi.

[Stuttgart951]

Aye. Pleased.

Have to be honest, though, my heart wanted the pair reversed.

Believe Kimi wanted it bad enough to have, if I'm not mistaken, actually showed emotion during the presser.

[MagneZium]

YEEEESSS!!! Great quali result! I agree that it's a shame that Kimi couldn't squeeze those few hundredths more though.

(Main point is that Hamilton is way back in fourth, the slowest of them all, and by more than half a second while the rest are fighting over hundredths! :P )

Merc (who should've switched to Honda power...no wait) got a big symbolic loss today. And it shows:

Screen Shot 2017-04-29 at 22.29.46.jpg

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Oh yes, and obligatory for F1 forums: Hamilton seems to have been mentally crushed by Bottas.

[MagneZium]

Screen Shot 2017-04-29 at 22.40.20.jpg

[MagneZium]

Of course Sky Sports have to try to make this all about the car, having Paul DiResta 'analyse' the laps of Vettel and Hamilton side by side only saying how much better of a car the Ferrari is... Even though Bottas with the Merc was right on the Ferrari pace (a few hundredths difference) and only Hamilton was lagging way behind...!

As usual in the interviews the Sky reporter starts off by pitching Lewis several excuses (Hulkemberg 'blocking' him and the car not being good enough) before turning the mike to him, but props to Lewis for not taking the reporter's lead as he had done in years past. Instead Lewis plainly shot those childish excuses down and said he simply wasn't fast enough.

How can it be the car's fault when Bottas was just about as fast as the Ferrari drivers and Hamilton was wayyy slower than Bottas?

[RidgeBack]

WOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

1 - 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Such an exciting 3rd sector in Q3 waiting for them to see who was quicker.... EXCELLENT!

[BoldUlysses]

Merc (who should've switched to Honda power...no wait)

Oh yes, and obligatory for F1 forums: Hamilton seems to have been mentally crushed by Bottas.

Hrmm....I need to watch this presser then.

[burninator]

It's nice to go back to being excited to wake up at 4 for F1 instead of dreading it.

[auaq]

Man, brilliant lap from Kimi! If he hadn't messed up that very last corner then for sure he could've been on pole. It seemed like Ferrari were having slight issues at the last 3-4 turns while Mercedes in the last 2 turns. I don't know what happened to Bottas' as he was actually going faster only to screw up turn 14. Sucks for him. Hammy looks like he just doesn't want to race. Meh ... whatever bro.

[auaq]

Merc (who should've switched to Honda power...no wait)

Ha! I like that. I'm going to steal that quote and use it when Mercedes lose a race against Ferrari's.

[auaq]

Alonso ...

[burninator]

McLaren (who should've kept Mercedes power) starting with the embarrassment before the lights even go out

[burninator]

Massa made that last lap a lot less interesting.

[auaq]

What a brilliant race for Bottas! Well done. Kept it cool and calm despite of being under pressured from Vettel. Wished that Massa didn't interfered with Vettel. I really wanted to see the fight go down to finishing line.

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Ted Kravitz asks Lauda, "Who needs Nico Rosberg, eh?"

What???

[Haifisch M3]

agreed on Massa but Vettel didn't have to power to pass the Mercedes. Bottas was toying with him . You could clearly see it on the in-car footage from Vettel that when a straight started the Mercedes got smaller really quick. Surprising how well tires held up.

[Stuttgart951]

Eddie Jordan is such a d-bag.

[BoldUlysses]

YES! YES! WOOHOO!

Brilliant drive from Bottas under crushing pressure from Vettel. More later but YEEEEAAAH! for now.

[auaq]

Just read that Suaber has confirmed Honda PU for next year.

[BoldUlysses]

^Maybe next year we'll be writing "Sauber (who should've stayed with Ferrari power)"

[RidgeBack]

I knew he was good, glad he proved it to the world!

Great tension the last few laps but there was no ways Vettel was going to overtake Bottas with 2-3 laps left even if he had DRS.

Massa was helping a bud but it wouldn't have changed anything.

I was livid when Vettel just stayed out 30+ laps on the USs. I saw Vettel's time of 1:39 and Bottas immediately set 1:38s.... but Ferrari may have called it right.

[BoldUlysses]

I honestly thought Vettel had him once he got into DRS range. If I weren't a Bottas fan, I'd say it was a pretty boring race up until the end. Put another way, if it had been Rosberg instead of Bottas in P1, I probably would have dozed off for a couple dozen laps...

Strategically I think Ferrari did what they had to. Bottas just has a unique affinity for Sochi he's shown over the last few seasons. The real proof of his quality will be if he can put together a race weekend somewhere else, say, Canada. Or Austria.

Amazingly Hamilhoff-free F1 weekend. And I didn't mind a single bit.

[MagneZium]

Yeah, turns out even with DRS (probably even if they'd have had DRS for several laps) this is a tough track to pass on, or even get up to the gearbox. Before the podium Vettel and Bottas were talking how already 2 seconds behind back markers they were sliding around with loss of grip.

BRILLIANT drive from Bottas! Something tells me, though it's hard to decipher with all the variables, that Bottas was clearly the winning ingredient and he drove the S**T out of that car this race!!

Loving the confidence and great strategy at Ferrari (after such a long time). Almost got them the win back. Nothing they could do with Valtteri getting a much better start, but they did everything pretty much like clockwork after that it seems.

[auaq]

The start was great too. I think even Hamilton had a chance to get ahead of the Ferrari's before the first or technically the second corner. Overall, this track is hard to pass despite of having two DRS zones. It was a pretty boring race. Only the final ten laps is where tension grew and it started to get interesting. Mercedes lead by only one point while Vettel is still the championship leader.