F1 2021 – spoilers here

In better news the new commentator, who’s name I have forgotten, is sounding less and less like an overenthusiastic local radio DJ as time goes on, big improvement on Bahrain.

and the stewards have given Mazepin…..

…a three place grid penalty…

even though he qualified last….

Jesus wept, his Dad isn’t funding the FIA as well is he?

Carlos Reuterman is in a bad way in hospital. Not covid, some stomach problems

Reutemann story here:
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/carlos-reutemann-hospital-intensive-care/6505265/

Diagnosed with liver cancer a few years back, has been very sick since then, now has intestinal bleeding. Does not sound good.

In better news the new commentator, who’s name I have forgotten, is sounding less and less like an overenthusiastic local radio DJ as time goes on, big improvement on Bahrain.

He still pronounces “maintain” as two words tho

Yeah I agree he’s got way better. Pleased to have DC as second man too, rather than Billy Monger. Bahrain was awful.

(Mercedes trackside engineering director) Andrew Shovlin was just saying that if you put all his pole laps together in a video it would last two hours. And that just shows what he has achieved.

seems bottas is not expecting to get a contract extension

Bottas will be polishing his cv tonight. That was appalling

the merc is a beast in the hands of hamilton

un **** believable!!!!

Wow Hamilton classy aggressive and classy work.

Too good, his lap delta consistency is remorseless!

Mercedes need to move Bottas on – if he want to be treated like a winner he needs to drive like one. He can’t do stroppy blocks on Lewis if he’s nowhere near the same pace.

That is a strategy you can only consider if you have total faith in your driver.

I think Bottas just lost any chance of keeping a seat at a top team.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner, speaking to Sky Sports: “I don’t think we could [have done anything differently]. In fairness, hats off to Mercedes and Lewis.

“They were just quicker than we were today. We were surprised they didn’t go for the early undercut. [At the end] We knew he was probably going to catch us.

“They just looked like they had a quicker car today. They were able to follow so closely. They had nothing to lose when taking that pit stop into the clean air.”

the law of unintended consequences…. rule changes to help high rake cars narrow the gap has made the merc a racing car par excellence.

This seems to be the only saving grace of the new aerodynamic rules from a Mercedes perspective. RedBull et al may not have lost as much performance, but it does seem to have allowed other cars to follow more closely without turbulence, which would make sense given the high rake and the floor cutouts.

the law of unintended consequences…. rule changes to help high rake cars narrow the gap has made the merc a racing car par excellence.

The rule that everyone initially said was going to affect high rake cars more remember

https://t.co/qGJtO2wUth pic.twitter.com/cXa3u3N2QZ

— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) May 9, 2021

Can’t be long for Mercedes now, old Valterri

https://www.planetf1.com/news/valtteri-bottas-team-orders-spanish-gp/

Always pleasing when the geeks doing the sums back home behind their laptops produce a strategy, and the team act on that recommendation. That’s a seriously high functioning team.

Can’t be long for Mercedes now, old Valterri

I don’t think they’ll drop him mid-season…too disrupting for the team.

You’d have some sympathy for Bottas’s stubbornness if (a) he hadn’t spent the entire race being clearly slower than Hamilton, never mind the strategy, (b) he hadn’t spend the past few years proving he’s not going to win a championship, (c) he’d managed to get the fastest lap given that he had fresh tyres and the fastest car on the track, and (d) he’d managed to put up more than half a dozen corners’ defence before his bullishness got kicked into the dust anyway, but it’s a tough stance to pull off when you’re getting rinsed race after race and unfortunately he’s just made himself look a complete dick.

The “you’re gaining two tenths on Verstappen, at this pace you’ll catch him on the last lap” radio message was hilarious. I’m not sure whether I winced more at that or at his driving. Meanwhile Hamilton seems to have found yet another level.

That aside, for once I have high hopes of needing the edge of my seat for Monaco. A possible swing to Red Bull and Max is two wins down so he’ll be merciless; meanwhile the midfield is as tight as you like and everyone’s going to have to find their way past Mazepin (assuming he doesn’t stuff it into the barriers at Loews on the first lap). Five quid on multiple safety cars and another five on some sort of fireworks that set the season properly alight. In fact possibly at Ste Dévote on lap 1.

You’re forgetting that they know that they could drop Russell in that car and he’d be no worse immediately. My guess is Bottas has already been told he’s unlikely to be in that car next year and has decided to throw a hissy fit.

So in the alternate scenario Lewis could have stopped the lap after Max’s first (slow) stop, emerged in the lead and then he clearly had the pace to pull a full pit stop clear of Max, come in for fresh Softs a few laps from the end try to set fastest lap and gain an extra point on top of his 25 from the weekend. Did the Merc strategists really get it right?

So in the alternate scenario Lewis could have stopped the lap after Max’s first (slow) stop, emerged in the lead

Wasn’t the problem that if he had pitted after Max’s first stop that he would have come out behind Perez?

With hindsight I reckon he’d have got past Perez easier than Bottas 😀

So, if STW thinks Bottas must go, who does it think should take his place and give Hamilton a run for his money ?

To me it seems Hamilton will beat anyone, even if they are in the same car. So anyone joining Merc will end up being moaned at just like Bottas seems to be now.

Bascially Bottas has one job and thats to give Merc the constructors championship – which he has done every year. Merc can only have one winner, which they do. So why would Merc spoil this.

The only driver who beat Hamilton was Rosberg, and that caused problems for the team.

If I was Toto Id leave the line up as it is, that way they win the constructors and the drivers championships.

If I was Toto Id leave the line up as it is, that way they win the constructors and the drivers championships.

I agree, for Mercedes it’s a winning formula, Bottas has pretty much been a team player in a “team/not a team” sport for ages now, I’d forgive a bit of truculence every now and again, it must be pretty frustrating.

Bascially Bottas has one job and thats to give Merc the constructors championship – which he has done every year. Merc can only have one winner, which they do. So why would Merc spoil this.

Exactly. Merc are very happy with Bottas. He’s very close to Hamilton in qualifying, which means they have two cars to play with for strategy. He’s not as good a race driver, but Hamilton is one of the very best drivers ever, so that’s not a disqualification. He works well with the team, that’s their main concern. It’s possible that Russell will turn out to be better than Bottas, but putting him in there mid-season is a huge risk. It’s much safer to stick with Bottas and there’s pretty much zero chance that Merc will dump him mid-year if he’s regularly qualifying and finishing races on the podium.

I think Bottas’ frustration is understandable. It must be bloody soul destroying to have possibly the GOAT as your team mate.

But he is being remunerated pretty well by Merc (circa $10m a year) and realistically would he have won yesterday if he’d been Merc No 1 driver? Without Lewis, Mercedes would have no victories this season.

Oh and can someone sort out the track layout at Barcelona. There is literally a better track already there, they just need to delete the nobby little chicane at the end of the lap.

Yeah, agreed, Bottas is still the right guy in that seat, he just made himself look a bit daft trying to make a point when he’s not having the season to back that point up, even if it is only round 4. But as noted above, it must suck being in the same car as either Hamilton or Verstappen and occasionally you’re going to want to convince yourself that you’re equal to them. Silly way to do it, though: either you get passed in the space of a few corners and your point is completely undermined, or you manage to keep him behind and wreck Lewis and Merc’s race completely. Lose/lose.

So in the alternate scenario Lewis could have stopped the lap after Max’s first (slow) stop, emerged in the lead and then he clearly had the pace to pull a full pit stop clear of Max, come in for fresh Softs a few laps from the end try to set fastest lap and gain an extra point on top of his 25 from the weekend. Did the Merc strategists really get it right?

He wouldn’t have had that pace if he’d had to look after a set of mediums until a few laps from the end (ie eke out an additional 12-13 laps from them, a 50% increase). I confess I wondered why they kept Hamilton out after Max’s slow stop, which would have let Hamilton come back out a couple of seconds in the lead, but all became clear at the second stop: clearly they’d planned it well in advance. Did they get it right? They took the lead with 6 laps to go, so yes. But there probably aren’t many drivers who could make that strategy work (Bottas was nearly a second off Hamilton’s pace on new mediums after their first stops), which is perhaps why it looks so audacious.

 and realistically would he have won yesterday if he’d been Merc No 1 driver?

It’s an impossible question, and really a bit unfair it’s not what he’s there for  He’s been second behind perhaps the GOAT, in a car that even Hamilton has said “You can’t just turn up, jump in, and win with” By all accounts it’s fast but it’s a handful. He picks up wins were he can, and his podium/race is something like 60%. Why would Mercedes get shot of that and bring in someone new and unpredictable? If I was Toto I’d rather smooth Bottas’ injured pride than try to re-invent the wheel.

But there probably aren’t many drivers who could make that strategy work

Agreed, and even driving so close behind Verstappen in order to push him to work his tyres harder, seems, with hindsight, to be a masterstroke, but you need a driver like Hamiliton to be able do that.

The only way I could see Merc bringing someone new in is if they give someone like Russell a “No.2 until Hamilton moves on” kind of contract – it’d be the only way to preserve team harmony, would Russell accept it? I dunno. Would Merc want to operate like that given their spiel about “doing things the right way”? I don’t think so. So Bottas it is.

A thought from yesterday, is Verstappen starting to look a bit desperate to anyone else? That first lap lunge would have likely ended both their races if Hamilton hadn’t jumped out of the way which a few seasons ago he wouldn’t have.

Another thought – as much as Hamilton’s hero is Senna, he’s reminding more of a Prost/Schumacher/Lauda type of driver now – calculating and doing exactly what he needs to do to win and no more, whereas Verstappen is more of a Senna/Mansell in the “win it or bin it” vein.

So STW seems to think Bottas is doing his job and should stay on. If he does he should get some advice from Eddie Irvine about being a No.2 driver – just take the money and smile! 🙂

Where does that leave Russell though – surely he can’t do another year in a Williams. Perhaps a move to Aston Martin to replace Vettel?

a car that even Hamilton has said “You can’t just turn up, jump in, and win with”

To be fair, Hamilton’s unlikely to say “you could randomly pluck someone from Formula Ford and drop them in this seat and still win” 😉

driving so close behind Verstappen in order to push him to work his tyres harder, seems, with hindsight, to be a masterstroke, but you need a driver like Hamiliton to be able do that.

In a way, reminiscent of Mansell releasing Patrese at Monza to hassle Senna before Mansell later pounced for the win. Except Hamilton somehow manages to play both those roles 🙂

Though I think he was possibly focusing more on forcing the mistake, like at Portimao.

Verstappen is more of a Senna/Mansell in the “win it or bin it” vein.

Verstappen’s first season reminded me hugely of Senna: he would put himself in a position where he wasn’t driving into people but he put his opponents in a position where they had a choice: back out or collide. It was smart driving and made it clear to everyone from day one how he rolled. Sure, he went on to overstep the mark in terms of defending, but his overtaking was clever and ballsy. I think he’s now back at that point, and yes, very Senna-like in that respect.

a car that even Hamilton has said “You can’t just turn up, jump in, and win with”

Russell had a bloody good go last season