F1 : Abu Dhabi - final race 2017

So does Haas have a chance now to jump up in constructors?
 
Kiante said:
Man, I could only imagine how the ride home is going to be. All of a sudden Alain Prost is in your face about the stop, yikes.
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Prost is due for another broken nose.

I dont think the tire changer sees any different at that point. lol
 
ONEJOB.jpg
 
Hamilton teaching and pushing Bottas. Hamilton will pounce on a mistake.
 
Hotrod said:
Mags has done a good job coming up through the field. Was at 20th now 13th.
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I think Renault missed out on one of the best wheel to wheel racing duos in the field in Magnussen and Hulkenburg. Renault made a mistake in releasing Magnussen and keeping Palmer, but I think Haas did a great deed in signing him and IMHO he's outdone Grojsean most of the time, but all of the mechanical issues in the early part of the season hurt his standings position.
 
The fix was in, imo.

Bottas was set to win this race no matter what.
 
Within the last 2 laps Hamilton's gone from within a second to down 4 seconds.
 
Ferrari should slap themselves, they had a chance, but let it slip away... Again.

Keep up with the car development, Ferrari.
 
Dang, they like a firework there! See ya Massa .
 
Reck said:
I dont get it.

Did he not win a championship? 3 full races before the season was even over? :idunno:
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Lewis said he let off after he won the championship in '15, and that allowed Nico to build up momentum that he carried into the next year. Lewis said he wanted to dominate the rest of the year and win all the races, which didn't exactly happen.

It was a pitiful end to the season. First Ferrari exploded and handed the championship away. Hamilton sealed the championship with an eighth place at Mexico and then never won a race, pole, or even led a lap afterwards. With three races to go, the championship sort of whimpered itself out. If you had suggested at mid season it would end like this, no one would have believed it.
 
Here is what I was referring to:

I asked Lewis Hamilton after the race whether this was a case of ‘well done, Valtteri, enjoy the moment, but in Melbourne it will be business as usual from me’. He admitted in the press conference that he has been celebrating his fourth title and has let his focus slip a little as a result.

What's interesting about this is that he made it clear he didn't want a repeat of 2015 when he let Nico Rosberg get a grip in the final races of the season after Hamilton had wrapped up the title and then carried that momentum into 2018.
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https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/abu-dhabi-f1-2017-finale-983300/
 
Doc Austin said:
Lewis said he let off after he won the championship in '15, and that allowed Nico to build up momentum that he carried into the next year. Lewis said he wanted to dominate the rest of the year and win all the races, which didn't exactly happen.

It was a pitiful end to the season. First Ferrari exploded and handed the championship away. Hamilton sealed the championship with an eighth place at Mexico and then never won a race, pole, or even led a lap afterwards. With three races to go, the championship sort of whimpered itself out. If you had suggested at mid season it would end like this, no one would have believed it.
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Pitiful end to the season? Now you're trolling.

You cant help circustances. Probably wouldn't have won Mexico even without the Vettel incident, definitely had the winning car in Brazil and he could have probably won last night in my opinion.

I think you have a little different scenario playing out with Bottas. I get a sense these two dudes genuinely like each other so the animosity is not there like it was with Rosberg.

Bottas is not Rosberg in terms of how close he is with Lewis or on the track, imo. I dont think Hamilton sees him as an ultimate threat.

To be honest, he should be a lot more worried about Verstappen as his main competition next year and beyond.
 
Reck said:
Pitiful end to the season? Now you're trolling.
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No, just fact. We had a hotly contested championship that simply fell apart on both ends. When it really counted, Ferrari as good as gave it away, and once the championship was settled, Hamilton never won a race, pole or led a single lap. Essentially, the season whimpered itself to a close.

Seems like everyone ran out of fight, but with 20 races it's easy to see how fatigue could gut a lot of these people.

You cant help circustances.
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No, but I wasn't blaming anyone either. Fact is, those circumstanced led to an anti climatic last four or five races. Like, it's the world championship, so individual races, especially after the championship has been decided, are essentially inconsequential, and that's what we had........ a bunch of inconsequential races.

If you back up to Baku, the competition was so intense you had the protagonists brake checking and crashing into each other on purpose, while behind the safety car, so it does not get much more intense than that. But then, after thinking it was going to go down to the last lap of the season, it was just a matter of Vettel having one problem after the next and only a question of how quickly Hamilton could put it away. That, and once we got to Spa, Hamilton always had the speed on the Ferraris, except for Singapore, where the Ferraris definitely gave it away in the biggest way possible.

I don't think there is any argument that any championship has come roaring in with so much promise, and then whimpered out with so little excitement.

Vettel's championship was essentially gutted at Japan where he only made a lap or two because of a failed spark plug. When was the last time you ever heard of a spark plug ending someone's race? Yeah, I can't remember that one either. Of course, that's simply how racing works. You can't legislate how the fates work out.

Probably wouldn't have won Mexico even without the Vettel incident, definitely had the winning car in Brazil and he could have probably won last night in my opinion.
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Yeah, but he didn't. "Could haves" are great and all, but the fact is that Lewis said he wasn't going to let off the gas for the remaining races, and wanted to dominate...........and then didn't win a race, pole, or even lead a lap. All I was commenting on is that he said he didn't want that to happen, didn't want to lose focus or motivation, and wanted to keep pushing to the end, and then didn't win a pole, race, or even lead a lap.

I think we can all agree the end of this season was not Lewis' best effort.

I think you have a little different scenario playing out with Bottas. I get a sense these two dudes genuinely like each other so the animosity is not there like it was with Rosberg.
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If nothing else they seem to respect each other enough not to play stupid games. Three years of Hamilton and Rosberg treating each other like possessed, insane, rabid adolescent children kind of turned me against both of them,

Then again, the Fins just seem to be pretty laid back when it comes to being a teammate. Kimmi has always been known for being a great teammate and so was Hakkinen.

Bottas is not Rosberg in terms of how close he is with Lewis or on the track, imo. I dont think Hamilton sees him as an ultimate threat.
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Well, Nico was a bit underrated, wasn't he? Between the end of 15 and the beginning of 16, he won a solid seven Grands Prix in a row. No one has even handed Hamilton his ass like that, not even Alonso in his prime.

Botas seemed to get caught out by tires every so often, or at least that was the excuse most of the time. I think he's had a year to figure out how the team, tires and Merc chassis work together and should be better next year. Three wins in the first year wasn't all that bad, and I suspect he will get better.

To be honest, he should be a lot more worried about Verstappen as his main competition next year and beyond.
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Depends on Renault, doesn't it? Both Red Bull drivers had an awful season for engine related DNFs. Torro Rosso was even worse. Funny how the works cars didn't seem to blow up quite so often, isn't it?

That and if Renault gets it together you will have to watch out for Ricciardo too.
 
@Doc Austin I would be afraid of Riccardo, too. He's the best racer in the field right now, hands down IMHO. His racecraft is so freakish, everyone talks about Verstappen and yes he's a special young man. Just people need to chill like Riccardo is just going to rollover for Verstappen. Riccardo may not have the raw speed of Verstappen, but his intellect and racecraft/pace is better. Verstappen's will improve when gets older, I think Red Bull has the most complete lineup.

Force India's Winter will be interesting, lets see if they can continue this march forward with Perez and Ocon.
 
Kiante said:
Force India's Winter will be interesting, lets see if they can continue this march forward with Perez and Ocon.
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Hard to imagine the team letting those two race wheel to wheel again, but they have all winter to figure it out. If you go back to Spa, can you ever remember a guy putting his teammate into the wall twice in the same race? It's to Force India's credit they finished the year without those two killing each other.

Having said that, Force India does so much with so little that I would love to see them win a (or more) race next year.
 
Doc Austin said:
Hard to imagine the team letting those two race wheel to wheel again, but they have all winter to figure it out. If you go back to Spa, can you ever remember a guy putting his teammate into the wall twice in the same race? It's to Force India's credit they finished the year without those two killing each other.

Having said that, Force India does so much with so little that I would love to see them win a (or more) race next year.
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They are not so little anymore, their budget is bigger than Williams. Meaning, Force India has the fourth (or fifth) largest budget on the grid.

Whoops, I lied. Williams brought in 79 million compared to FI's 72 million. Sorry.
 
Kiante said:
Whoops, I lied. Williams brought in 79 million compared to FI's 72 million. Sorry.
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That's what they brought in from prize money, right? But........how much did they spend?

A few years ago Monisha Kaltenborn said it cost Sauber $95 miller per car, and that was to finish 18th and 20th out of 22 cars. If that's the case, what do you imagine Ferrari is spending?
 
Like Ricciardo once said, Verstappen is young and likes to go straight in without any foreplay. lol

I think Mercedes and Ferrari are spending about $200 million per car.
 
Hard to disagree with Lewis here...Yas Marina is hardly an inspiring circuit. And needing to be 1.4 seconds quicker than the car ahead to overtake just isn't necessary: https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hamilton-yas-marina-not-suited-for-f1-cars-983268/

"The engineers say it's a 1.4s delta you need to overtake a car in front," he reiterated. "It doesn't matter what car is ahead. It would've been difficult.

"To get as close as I was shows I had good pace. But once you get within 1.2s it's like you hit a wall and the car stops. Basically you start sliding around, all four wheels. So there was a lot of rallying today."
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Kiante said:
Pascal Wehrlein would be a good driver somewhere, its a shame he's going to be forced out of Sauber.
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Yeah, but he didn't beat Ericsson convincingly enough, and Marcus brings a fat check. If the drivers are even close to evenly matched, I'de pick the one with the check to drive my car.

Sadly for Werhlirn, it's probably back to DTM. Maybe his best bet would be to take look around the Indycar scene.
 
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