[rohitoasis]

Boy oh Boy.. Heartbreak for Hamilton. Real tough luck. Interesting duel between the red bull Duo. So much drama on the track.

I was really expecting neck to neck fighting between the Mercedes drivers till the end of season.


With Rosberg possibly extending his lead, my interest for rest of the season is waning.

[tharian]

RedBull should have continued racing after Hamilton 's exit. Would have been an interesting race till the end.
Havent seen an engine blow in a while. The Malaysian heat seems to have an affect.

[arunphilip]

Red Bull 1-2, Rosberg 3rd, Hamilton DNF

Race Result

Image credit: F1 Fanatic

Championship Standings

Image credit: F1 Fanatic

• With Hamilton's engine blowout, Rosberg extends his championship lead to 23 points
• Mercedes fail to secure their inevitable WCC in this race (which happened to be their title sponsor Petronas' home GP)
• Mercedes's chance to equal the record-winning race streak for a team comes to an end for the second time (they were earlier in a similar situation before both cars were taken out in the 2016 Spanish GP)
• Ferrari seem determined to secure the last spot among the top 3 teams!
• A very successful race for McLaren, and they have now comfortably eclipsed Toro Rosso - good news as they go to Suzuka for Honda's home GP
• The Williams - Force India tussle continues to be a closely contested one
• Haas must be wishing the end to their 2016 campaign was as happy as their start - it is telling to note that they've not scored a point since the Austrian GP, and have not scored a point in their last 7 GPs. Prior to that, their points came in just the first 4 GPs.
• Jolyon Palmer scores his first point for Renault - at a time when there's a lot of speculation about Renault's 2017 driver line-up

Coming to opinions, I felt Rosberg's penalty was extremely harsh. If I were conspiracy minded, I'd have said that Derek Warwick as president of the BRDC wanted to harm Rosberg's chances after seeing Hamilton's exit. But such an unfounded statement would be a disservice to the man.

Even so, inconsistent stewarding seems to be a recurring bugbear of F1. I still recall Jules Bianchi tapping someone 3 times while overtaking him for Manor Marussia's first points in the 2014 Monaco GP - and no one fussed about that.

Originally Posted by ecenandu

Hamilton seems bit salty after his engine blew up. Especially those comments from him to the press. He seems to forget that in 2014 Abudhabi, Rosberg's MGU failed.

Everytime Hamilton gives me an opportunity to think he's matured, he goes and proves otherwise quite quickly!

Originally Posted by ecenandu

Good drive from Ricciardo, his battle with Max in turn 5-6 was crucial, has he given his place up, he would have given up the win, given Hamilton went out of the race the very next lap with an engine blow up.

I enjoyed that battle tremendously, given both drives are very good at attacking and defence. The onboard shots from Verstappen's front wing just added to the excitement.

I'd have been really curious to hear the radio traffic after the last VSC between the Red Bull pit wall and their cars. Even if not for team orders, just to hear how their respective race engineers were advising on tactics.

[ecenandu]

Hamilton seems bit salty after his engine blew up. Especially those comments from him to the press. He seems to forget that in 2014 Abudhabi, Rosberg's MGU failed.

Anyway, looks like its Nico's championship to lose but who knows, one DNF for Nico can turn the championship around once again.

Good drive from Ricciardo, his battle with Max in turn 5-6 was crucial, has he given his place up, he would have given up the win, given Hamilton went out of the race the very next lap with an engine blow up.

[shibujp]

It was Senna v/s Prost, Schumacher against Mika Hakkinen and co, Alonso against Schumacher and now Verstappen v/s Vettel. A young challenger getting under the skins of old timers and winning the mind game. Vettel seemingly had an eye out for Verstappen in the first corner and came out worse for the wear.

But great recovery by Rosberg to finish where he did and take advantage of Lewis Hamilton's misfortune to finish stronger in the championship race. And that piece of wheel to wheel racing between Verstappen and Riccardo was just fantastic.

Drive on,
Shibu.

Originally Posted by ecenandu

Hamilton seems bit salty after his engine blew up. Especially those comments from him to the press. He seems to forget that in 2014 Abudhabi, Rosberg's MGU failed.

Perhaps he is running his engines just that much harder than Rosberg?

Drive on,
Shibu

[arunphilip]

Vettel gets 3-place grid penalty for Suzuka and 2 penalty points

Source: http://www.formula1.com/en/latest/he...art-crash.html and http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2016/10/0...rosberg-crash/

“Having thoroughly reviewed the video and having spoken to the driver concerned, the Stewards determined that although the cars involved in the incident were all moving at relatively similar speeds, the driver of Car 5 [Vettel] made a small error entering to the inside of Turn 1 that led to the contact with Car 6 [Rosberg],”

“As a consequence, Car 6 was caused to spin from second place and lose multiple positions, which the stewards determined was predominantly the fault of the driver of Car 5.”

On another note, Haas were fined €5000 for the front-left wheel coming off Esteban Gutierrez’s car.

[ecenandu]

Originally Posted by shibujp

I
Perhaps he is running his engines just that much harder than Rosberg?

Drive on,
Shibu

Yeah, Hamilton took the the first stint very easy. And with Max's early stop under virtual safety car made it bit tricky for Hamilton, he had two options, one to extend the hard tyre till the end so effectively a single stop. Or push hard and extend his lead to be a pitstop ahead. In fact, he was pushing hard when his engine went bang on the main straight.

Here is my take, had he been bit more aggressive in the first stint he would have got a better gap to Max. It is always easier with the hindsight. But it is nice to know the Merc are vulnerable, push them hard and they might break under the pressure, in this race quite literally.

Regarding maturity, Nico is way ahead. Remember 2014 Abudhabi finale, when ERS failed he was lapping pretty slow and was about to get lapped by Hamilton. The team decides to retire him before he gets lapped but he chose to continue . Never give up until its over. Another example, 2014 British GP Q3, Nico overtook Hamilton(who aborted the run citing the track is too wet to improve) to do the final quali run and took pole.

I believe Nico is as good a driver as Hamilton is. We haven't given enough credit for him. I really hope Nico will win the championship this year.

Originally Posted by arunphilip

Vettel gets 3-place grid penalty for Suzuka and 2 penalty points

Vettel did a Kvyat Remember the torpedo? Its quite funny that what goes around comes around.

[Monolithic]

Originally Posted by arunphilip

Vettel gets 3-place grid penalty for Suzuka and 2 penalty points

A lot of inspiration from Kvyat or maybe from F1 2016 game.

But did Verstappen get any penalty for what he did at Spa? I find that very similar to what Vettel did today.

Overall, a very interesting race. This season keeps on improving as we progress.

[GTO]

Amazing race with plenty of action!

My heart went out to Hamilton, a failure at this stage in the championship is a body blow. I feel that mechanical failure shouldn't decide the championship. Sad. But what was even sadder were his cry baby comments after the race.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijG8OXTF2d4

IMHO, Rosberg was taking too many risks. While the accident at the start wasn't his fault, he should have avoided the collision. Even his move on Raikonnen was risky - both incidents could have taken his car out.

Loved the racing between both the Red Bulls. Pure wheel to wheel stuff!

McLaren Honda sure is making progress. Great recovery by Alonso who starts at the back, but finishes ahead of his team mate! Man, he sure is worth every dollar / euro that the team is paying him.

[gtonsing]

One race I miss and it turns out to be a great race with many twists and changes and lots of drama!
Hamilton is a kid and he shows it every now and then, especially when he is losing. But his engine failure was very sad.
Super happy for Sahara Force India to continue to be at No. 4 in the Constructors list. But no place to be relaxing - Williams is not far behind!
*Looking for videos of the race now

[MCR]

Originally Posted by GTO

Amazing race with plenty of action!

My heart went out to Hamilton, a failure at this stage in the championship is a body blow. I feel that mechanical failure shouldn't decide the championship. Sad. But what was even sadder were his cry baby comments after the race.

Loved the racing between both the Red Bulls. Pure wheel to wheel stuff!

McLaren Honda sure is making progress. Great recovery by Alonso who starts at the back, but finishes ahead of his team mate! Man, he sure is worth every dollar / euro that the team is paying him.

Yes. Absolutely loved the race. A good race after a really long time. But the timing of the Ad's were pathetic.

LH is a known cry baby (unfortunately). He always wants the maximum out of the car (setting for max power) and expects super reliability, which is surprising! Though Mercedes AMG are expected to give him a very good functional car, they themselves acknowledged that there were no errors showing up before the failure and it was sudden. Niki Lauda has brushed off the comments saying it was "stupid".

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/for...x-blowout.html

There was no joint press conference by Mercedes and they commented on twitter it to me "mutual".

Absolutely loved the way Ricciardo defended his position and full marks to Redbull for allowing the drivers to continue the wheel to wheel racing

[jfxavier]

Brilliant stuff from Red Bull and a breath of fresh air for Ricciardo, who had the bad taste of memories from Barcelona and Monaco washed from his mouth with the shoey.
Looks like there was no real need to pit Verstappen and it was very much to give Ricciardo an even playing field that they brought them both in. The racing between the two just before Hamilton broke down not only was the best of the event, it won Ricciardo the race as it gave him first priority in the subsequent pit sequence.
And a result F1 needed, though once again courtesy of a Mercedes failure rather than on outright pace. Probably due to being pushed to the max. as they were trying to get Lewis in and out in front of the Red Bulls without having to challenge them on track.
The poor starts for Mercedes continues. This time for Nico, which triggered the series of events on the first lap.
But what starts the McHondas are having these days. Fantastic
Possibly their lighter/ smaller turbo charger has got something to do with it.
Their power output seems quite good for the compromised PU they are running this year and once they manage to get to the extreme lean burn arrangement (possibly in 2017) it should bode well for the sport as they should be competitive.
Lewis seems to be permanently plagued by PU issues and Grosjean with brake issues.
5 wins for Hamilton now required assuming Rosberg makes it to the end of all the races. For Rosberg 1 win and 4 2nds will do the trick.

[jfxavier]

https://youtu.be/tLwYPRHvU_s

Look at the onboard video from ALO at the start.

What a monster

You can see the Renault squirming and wriggling due to lack of traction under hard accleration around T2, But the master goes by without drama to find his right opponents to battle.

[ecenandu]

Originally Posted by jfxavier

You can see the Renault squirming and wriggling due to lack of traction under hard accleration around T2, But the master goes by without drama to find his right opponents to battle.

True, he had a great start. He was on soft and the squirming Renault was on hard, though.

[polopm]

Originally Posted by jfxavier

Brilliant stuff from Red Bull and a breath of fresh air for Ricciardo, who had the bad taste of memories from Barcelona and Monaco washed from his mouth with the shoey.
Looks like there was no real need to pit Verstappen and it was very much to give Ricciardo an even playing field that they brought them both in. The racing between the two just before Hamilton broke down not only was the best of the event, it won Ricciardo the race as it gave him first priority in the subsequent pit sequence.
And a result F1 needed, though once again courtesy of a Mercedes failure rather than on outright pace. Probably due to being pushed to the max. as they were trying to get Lewis in and out in front of the Red Bulls without having to challenge them on track.
The poor starts for Mercedes continues. This time for Nico, which triggered the series of events on the first lap.
But what starts the McHondas are having these days. Fantastic
Possibly their lighter/ smaller turbo charger has got something to do with it.
Their power output seems quite good for the compromised PU they are running this year and once they manage to get to the extreme lean burn arrangement (possibly in 2017) it should bode well for the sport as they should be competitive.
Lewis seems to be permanently plagued by PU issues and Grosjean with brake issues.
5 wins for Hamilton now required assuming Rosberg makes it to the end of all the races. For Rosberg 1 win and 4 2nds will do the trick.

I think the championship is going Rosberg's way unless the gods and the men decide to light up his engine fuse. Lewis was totally in command and could easily set the pace when he wanted and it was sheer frustration that got to him at the end to make the comments. But I don't think the slamming is worth while . Especially when he is fighting against the tide.
Chuffed to bits to see Alonso and Button have great starts. The McLaren looks to be the most improved car of the lot and can easily take the fight to FI and Williams. 2017 should definitely be good to them.