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.
