As usually on Mondays after a Grand Prix it's time for my review and here it is...
When the cars were ready to start the formation lap Williams' Felipe Massa stayed on his grid spot and couldn't move. He was forced to start from the pit lane. Very unlucky for the whole team. Williams is not the same anymore. They have gone backwards ever since last season. In 2014 they were able to take several podiums and even a pole position in Austria.
Now the race was about to start and Toro Rosso's Carlos Sainz also had problems with the car. He told his team on the radio about it. Not much he could do better at that point.
And they were off! The Mercs of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg were leading the pack. Behind them were the Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen. Ferraris Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen were pushing hard on the Red Bulls. Vettel got in between Verstappen and Rosberg which lead to a crash.
The German crashed first with Verstappen and then with Rosberg who spun. Rosberg dropped to the back and Vettel retired. Vettel's move on Verstappen was similar to what happened in Spa but this time they were reversed. It looked like Vettel was trying to teach Verstappen a lesson for what he did at Spa but it backfired. He should just have kept his cool and focused on the race itself and not overtaking Verstappen then and there. The young Dutchman was angry with Vettel and called him crazy on the radio. Vettel didn't blame anybody which probably means that he knew who's fault it was - his own.
Rosberg did a spectacular job overtaking car after car and made his way to fourth behind Räikkönen. When he was set to overtake he went on the inside and pushed Räikkönen to the side breaking his car a bit. Ferrari has confirmed that it basically made Räikkönen's race so hard that he could not fight good enough for 3rd place anymore.
Rosberg got a 10 second penalty for it but it didn't help Räikkönen much. His car was already much slower.
On lap 41 we something that could have possibly even decided the whole championship - Hamilton's engine failed. If Rosberg becomes champion next month many of us might remember this moment and think if that decided the whole championship. We shall wait and see how this season ends.
The Red Bulls were now aware of the situation and were battling for the lead. They were so far ahead that they decided to pit and change tires one last time. This helped Ricciardo a bit more than Verstappen because he had to wait for his turn in the pits. After this they drove to their first 1-2 victory since the 2013 Brazilian Grand Prix.
Valtteri Bottas was 5th which was a super good position for Williams. I don't think he could have done any better.
Räikkönen said after the race that he had issues with his throttle the whole race. It was very hard to push the pedal down. He inspected his car and found a flashlight under his pedal. He told this to the Finnish media and when they asked Ferrari about it they denied the whole thing. So they basically called Räikkönen a liar then? Very weird stuff if you ask me. Something similar happened to Massa when he was at Ferrari and David Coulthard was sure that it was a conspiracy to make sure that Massa stays as the number two driver. I hope this isn't true.
Let's see my predictions and the results!
Pole Position: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - CORRECT
The race:
- Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - RETIRED FROM THE RACE. Ricciardo won.
- Nico Rosberg, Mercedes - WRONG. He was 3rd and Verstappen was 2nd.
- Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari - RETIRED FROM THE RACE
Fastest lap: Kimi Räikkönen, Ferrari - WRONG. Rosberg was fastest.
Surprise: Carlos Sainz, Toro Rosso - Biggest surprise for me was Hamilton's retirement.
POINTS: 1st - 3
2nd - 5
3rd - 10
+ possible bonus points
HOW IT WORKS: the aim of the game is simply predict who comes where in the race (top3). A total of 18 points can be won on a race day. For example if you get winner and and 3rd place right but 2nd wrong you get 13 points.
HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR PREDICTIONS: send an email to f14lifeblog@gmail.com or message the Facebook page to submit your predictions. You have until lights out to make them. If you submit them when the race has started they won't count. So be quick!
THE PRIZE: the winner of the league will win themselves a admin place on the F1 4 LIFE page along side AE, JT, MW, MH, JI & PM. If you don't want to be an admin you are welcome to participate anyway.
