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But would Bottas win the title for Mercedes if Hamilton jumped ship?
He's currently running second in the championship so, if Hamilton was incapacitated and missed the second half of the season, Bottas seems to be good enough, especially considering that his teammate would almost certainly be told to assist him to take the title.
Hamilton is not going to jump ship next year, nobody takes that seriously. However, if he did, Merc would have Verstappen, Vettel, Ricciardo, Alonso, plus every other driver on the grid offering their services.
Nobody believes Bottas is as good as Hamilton, but Hamilton is one of the best drivers ever seen so they're not expecting his teammate to be at quite the same level. The question is whether they can find somebody better than Bottas who is not going to clash with Hamilton. Let's face it, Alonso is better than Hamilton, but Merc don't want him because of his reputation for chaos. Bottas is a solid, sensible team player, and he's capable of going very fast when he can get the car set up well. My money is on Merc deciding to keep him on.
I’d imagine that Ocon could almost match Bottas and still has a decent amount of potential on top of that.
The question right now is probably more who is the best wingman. They're better off with a driver who'll back up Hamilton's championship with a constructor's title than they are with someone who might risk undermining Hamilton whilst still not being a surefire champion themselves.
When Hamilton's seat is up for grabs, it's different. They need two drivers, and one of those needs to be capable of winning the title. So that's either Bottas, Ocon, or someone like Verstappen lured from elsewhere. Each has their own challenges: Bottas probably isn't good enough to be a clear top dog, which means risking having Mclaren's "divided and conquered" season in 2007; Ocon probably needs more experience; and transfers could be tricky—not just contractually, but in recent years especially it seems that drivers rarely switch to a new team and fire on all cylinders for at least the first half of the following season.
I'd say it's currently 60/40 in favour of Bottos over Ocon for the 2020 seat. If you were just considering 2020 I think Bottas would be clearly the preferable partner to Hamilton: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But if their goal has been to nurture Ocon in preparation for being their next champion, then they're going to need to get him a race seat next year, either in a Merc or on a tight bit of elastic somewhere else.
Let’s face it, Alonso is better than Hamilton
Meant to say "Alonso is better than Bottas".
I think that Bez has it, it's difficult to see how Ocon could fit straight in to Merc after a year on the sidelines, he will need acclimatization and if his battles with Perez at Force India were anything to go by, he'll be aggressive in racing Hamilton which could risk putting them both out of contention.
I reckon the logical move is for Merc to offer Ocon on a one year contract so that he's contractually aligned with Hamilton. Obvious seats are Williams, Renault or Haas.
Russell is the other Merc superstar in waiting. Both he and Ocon will be anxious to avoid the fate of Wehrlein, who proved to be one driver too many for Merc's talent pool.
Both he and Ocon will be anxious to avoid the fate of Wehrlein, who proved to be one driver too many for Merc’s talent pool.
Apparently quite the diva also
This is worth a quick watch. I expect the new skirts are going to be very easy to damage on sausage kerbs etc (@6:00) but basically the entire car looks to be different so hopefully will give constructors a bit of a shake up
That looks good. Bring it on if it works. Maybe this could be Williams’ last chance to get back.
Great video! So well explained. Looking for to seeing them in action! When does the Sky contract finish?
I just looked it up- 2024
First pole to verstappen.
Finger boy out qualified his team mate in a damaged car, can't see him being around much longer.
bottas is toast
Brilliant call by Merc
brilliant call from the mercs, no lose in real terms but a chance at the win....
having Mr interval chasing you down must be really unnerving
come on lewis, give it every thing 😀
he's a ****ing animal
jesus wept !!!!
tires are dead
we don't have to tell you 😀
Yes
amazing !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Woo ferkin woo! 👌
GOAT
MB can make calls like that because they know what LH can do. Awesome race.
he even surprised his team !!!!!!!!! he drives to a delta like no one !!!!
Yes! I really enjoyed that. 20 miles on the bikes then this with beer and another rude tonight. Brilliant Sunday!
what with the ferrari's ?
third to first and you need to ask !!!!!
he must gave chased down 22 seconds in 16 laps there ! absolutely phenomenal
Merc strategists from zero to hero in the space of a week. Anyone who doubted Lewis... who's laughing now? What an awesome drive from the pair of them.
Merc strategists from zero to hero in the space of a week.
the red bull chaps got lucky they put Vestappen on mediums meaning his 360 spin was not at the high speed final corner and could pit for inters with a working car!
Have Ferrari finished yet?
Great call by Mercedes and a stunning drive from Lewis.
Bottas is gone for next year I reckon. Shame, as he isn’t a terrible driver, but unless he wins a hatful in the second half, Ocon will be in the seat.
The second half will be too late if Toto's making a decision during the break. I still think a lot depends on whether there's a good non-Mercedes seat for Ocon. If so, the safe option would be to do a year elsewhere and then put him in the Merc for 2021. But where? Haas? Highly likely they'll have an available seat, but they have a Ferrari engine and they can't figure out how to make a car go faster. Williams? Again, pretty certain Kubica's seat will be up for grabs, but would they want Ocon spending a year going out in Q3 and having a private race with Russell? Unlikely. Renault? Perhaps the most viable option, assuming they don't retain Hulkenberg.
But let's face it, Bottas did himself no favours today: locking up into turn 1 with his teammate on his outside, replaying the same scenario in turn 2, and then in turn 3 not having the nous to lift just a little earlier when it was clear he'd lost position to Hamilton. The contact with Leclerc was just bad luck, but the contact with Hamilton was a bit amateurish.
But what I found curious was that although Bottas's wing damage was clearly significant, it was 5 laps before the team brought him in. From watching the highlights it was hard to tell just how much time that lost him, though it seemed comfortably over 10 seconds, but ordinarily I'd have expected him to have come in on the same lap. Would they leave him out losing time to ensure that his error landed him in it? Probably not, but… who knows? In any case, I think my pre-Hungary 60/40 in favour of Bottas has probably reversed.
I think it's not looking good for Gasly, either. Red Bull want to beat Ferrari. They need a 45 point gain over 9 races to do that, and Gasly's just not delivering. Verstappen is consistently ahead of the Ferraris and their second car should at least be right with them to knock at least one of them down the results. Today, with Max ahead of Seb, they needed Pierre in front of Charles to get the 5 point per race gain they need, but instead he's two places back and losing out to a McLaren. Much as they said they'll give Gasly time, I think they'll be smelling blood now that they've looked so competitive in the last four races. In the first few races Max was splitting the Ferraris, now he's consistently beating them. They'll know they can take second in the championship, but they'll know equally well that they can't with Gasly. The next two races—Monza especially—look good for Ferrari on paper (though how good would it look for Honda to finish ahead of them at Monza?) but Red Bull should be capable of beating them on the final seven. Kvyat's looking a bit more like a safe pair of hands this year… I'm not sure it's a safe bet, but I'd certainly be prepared to stick a few quid on Max having a new teammate by Singapore.
Oh and PS thanks Channel 4 for only putting the highlights online at gone 1am; makes for a great start to my week. FFS.
although Bottas’s wing damage was clearly significant, it was 5 laps before the team brought him in.
I expect they were hoping that by keeping him out for a few laps they'd get him into a window where he could run to the end on the hard tyre, so losing a few seconds with the damaged wing to save an extra pit stop would've been worth it. Didn't quite work out that way.
Yeah, that’s the most reasonable explanation. But when he was losing two seconds a lap from lap 1? The one-stop window was a long way down the road from there. That speed loss only takes you to lap 10 before you need to pit even if the hards manage 60 laps at the same performance as two sets of the other compounds—which of course they won’t.
Oh and PS thanks Channel 4 for only putting the highlights online at gone 1am; makes for a great start to my week. FFS.
Is that what time they came out? I gave up at 10:30pm and just went and found out the results. Glad I did now. I want to support C4 but the highlights are on TV at kids bedtime so catch up is all I have and there's no way I can avoid the result until Monday night!
I want to support C4 but the highlights are on TV at kids bedtime so catch up is all I have and there’s no way I can avoid the result until Monday night!
Do you not have a VCR?
Oh and PS thanks Channel 4 for only putting the highlights online at gone 1am
They were on earlier in the evening - I recorded it and watched the extended highlights after our girls went to bed last night. And most enjoyable it was too.
These days unless my mates dad isn’t using his Sky login I listen the radio and just watch the 5 minute highlight video on F1.com
They were on earlier in the evening
Yeah, they were broadcast at 7pm, but as per pocpoc I have kids so I never get to watch the F1 until about 10pm. And no I don't have a recorder (or anything to record: we don't have cable, satellite or even an aerial).
Normally the highlights appear on catch up around 9-10pm but occasionally for whatever reason they don't turn up until stupid o'clock. Last week's race was odd, too: after a few hours checking the iPad/iPhone apps where it was in the list but not playable, I checked the website and it was playable on there (go figure) so I had to install Flash and watch it on the Mac instead.
Very much a third world problem, obviously, but there seems to be no real reason for why some of the coverage is so hard to get hold of.
Very much a third world problem, obviously, but there seems to be no real reason for why some of the coverage is so hard to get hold of.
Well not having any means to record something does make you an edge case.
Very much a third world problem,
Sounds like a first world problem. Those of still in the third world have aerial and video recorders. OK I sometimes watch it online when there is something more important to record - like a bike race.
Oh yeah. First world. You’ll have to excuse me, I only had three hours’ sleep 😉
Do you not have a VCR?
Nope, just Freeview. I can record on to a memory stick but it's so complicated and faffy in the menus that it's not worth the inevitable disappointment when it fails to record.
Also, Mrs PP is normally watching so Love Island spin off or other similar crap on the actual TV, so sat next to her with the laptop and headphones is the usual set up.