The review will start with me saying that Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton had a surprisingly bad start and it wasn't the first time this season. It has happened several times before. I hope he wasn't playing with his phone in the cockpit. He dropped to 8th place from 2nd and admitted on the radio that the bad start was his own fault.
The two Ferraris almost had contact with each other which was very exciting. Force India's Nico Hulkenberg also nearly crashed with Haas driver Romain Grosjean.
Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo had a bad start because was right behind Hamilton. He got overtaken by Force India's Sergio Perez. Later on the first lap Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel also overtook the Australian for 4th place.
On lap 3 Vettel also overtook Perez which was no surprise. Ferrari is much faster than Force India and I am pretty sure that Vettel is also a much more aggressive driver than Perez (even though he also has an aggressive driving style).
On lap 6 Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen overtook Hulkenberg on the main straight for 6th place. The Ferraris were very fast at Suzuka! It seemed that they were even faster than the Red Bulls.
When the next lap started Hamilton also overtook Hulkenberg and was now 7th behind Raikkonen. It was not easy to keep up with the Iceman so Mercedes hoped for the upcoming pitstops to help Hamilton overtake him.
Ricciardo pits on lap 11 and Ferrari decides that Raikkonen should stay out for 2 more laps. Not a good move! Raikkonen didn't get in front of Ricciardo and even lost two positions. Both Perez and Hamilton got in front of him. Why couldn't he pit at the same time as Ricciardo?
Raikkonen did what he had to and overtook Perez right away when he saw Hamilton come in front from the pits.
Raikkonen did what he had to and overtook Perez right away when he saw Hamilton come in front from the pits.
Hamilton on the other hand caught Ricciardo and overtook him for 6th place. Then he overtook the Williams drivers Felipe Massa for 5th place and Valtteri Bottas for 4th place. This was very easy because the Williams drivers had not pitted yet and their tires were torn.
Then it was Ricciardo's and Raikkonen's turn to overtake both Massa and Bottas. Why were Williams waiting so long for the pitstops? It didn't take long for the Force Indias to overtake the Williams drivers as well.
Finally on lap 27 both Williams cars had pitted and the stops were very slow which didn't help them any further. What is going on? They have had the fastest pitstops this season after having very bad stops the two previous seasons and now they are slow again! Something's wrong with the team. The race strategy wasn't very good either.
Raikkonen also pitted on lap 27 and started setting 2 seconds faster lap times than Ricciardo. Why did Red Bull want Ricciardo to stay out so long? He even said on the radio that he must pit soon but they didn't do anything about it. At least not in time because Raikkonen got in front of him later on.
On lap 34 Hamilton pits and Ferrari didn't react fast enough with Vettel's pitstop. Hamilton got in front of Vettel and was too fast for him. Vettel said on the radio that Hamilton pulls away on every straight and it is impossible to keep up.
When Hamilton was finally 3rd he started chasing Red Bull's Max Verstappen for 2nd place. On the last few laps he was right behind him and even tried to overtake. Verstappen closed the door on Hamilton who was forced to go off track. Mercedes even complained about the maneuver but Verstappen got no penalty for it.
First to cross the finish line was Nico Rosberg who is now in a very comfortable lead in the championship. If Hamilton wants to win this year then Rosberg must retire at least once. Even though I am not a Rosberg fan I would like the idea to have a new world champion and also somebody who's father was champion as well. Only Graham and Damon Hill have pulled this off in the past so this would be very cool if it would happen.
Here are my predictions and the results:
Pole position: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - WRONG. It was his teammate Rosberg.
Race:
Fastest lap: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - WRONG. Vettel was fastest.
Surprise: Valtteri Bottas, Williams - He drove very well but his team messed up in the pits.
Pole position: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - WRONG. It was his teammate Rosberg.
Race:
- Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - WRONG. He was 3rd.
- Nico Rosberg, Mercedes - WRONG. He won the race and Verstappen was 2nd.
- Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull - WRONG
Fastest lap: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - WRONG. Vettel was fastest.
Surprise: Valtteri Bottas, Williams - He drove very well but his team messed up in the pits.
Post your own predictions to our F1-4-LIFE PREDICTORS LEAGUE!
The rules:
POINTS: 1st - 3 2nd - 5 3rd - 10
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. If you get winner and and 3rd place right but 2nd wrong you get 13 points same if you get 1 correct. eg. 2nd you get 5 points. If a driver wins the race and you said he would come 2nd or 3rd no points would be awarded. Same if he came in another position, and you predicted that wrong. A table will be posted up every race weekend. The point scoring system will change once the cars become more competitive. Everyone will say a merc 1,2 so it won't be close or fun.
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. We may also come up with some other prize if it helps.
That's it for today and if you want to send me feedback then email me: f14lifeblog@gmail.com
