The weather had a big impact on the race start. Before the race had even started Haas driver Romain Grosjean crashed his car when making his way to the grid. He did not even start the race and was disappointed.
When the race started it was still raining and they had to drive behind the safety car for 7 laps. It is good to be safe but it is extremely boring when races start like that.
Now it was time to start the race for real! Red Bull's Max Verstappen was ready and overtook Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen for 3rd. Reanult's Kevin Magnussen did a little gambling and decided to pit for intermediates. Most of the drivers did the same.
On lap 11 Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel spun and almost crashed in the wall. He also decided to pit for intermediate tyres.
Lap 13 was already here and Sauber's Marcus Ericsson crashed in the wall by the pit entry. The safety car was deployed and Red Bull asked their drivers to pit quickly.
Verstappen was the first one to pit and almost hit Ericsson's car when coming in. The race control closed the pit entry but Daniel Ricciardo didn't see the red lights and also pitted just barely dodging Ericsson's car. He got a 5 second penalty for it.
On lap 20 the race continued and right away we could see Raikkonen's car sliding cross the main straight into the wall. He retired and almost got hit by several cars. The race was red flagged (stopped). It was extremely dangerous and he was lucky that nobody crashed into him. When somebody crashes into your car 300km/h it is very possible that somebody gets killed. Vettel also said on the radio that it's too dangerous and it was impossible to see anything.
The race continued later on behind the safety car for 8 laps and the race was red flagged again. Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton and Williams' Valtteri Bottas asked on the radio why the race was stopped because they could have easily continued. Bottas said something like "it's only raining so why stop". I guess British and Finnish drivers are more used to rain than others because of their climate back home.
Later on they continued behind the safety car for 4 laps and started racing again. Verstappen was most ready again and overtook Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg for 2nd place.
7 laps later Verstappen almost crashed and Rosberg couldn't still overtake the young dutchman. Superb effort from Verstappen avoiding a crash and also staying in front of the championship leader.
Verstappen decided to pit for intermediates on lap 44 and now also Rosberg had some excitement when he almost spun. It was very slippery even with full wet tyres. I guess Pirelli hasn't done very good work with the tyres but who can blame them when they aren't allowed to test.
Now on lap 48 Williams Felipe Massa crashed and the safety car was deployed again. It was an emotional moment for him because it was his last home grand prix. The fans were holding up signs saying "Obrigado Felipe" (Portuguese for thank you Felipe). He walked back to his garage and everybody in the pits were hugging him and giving him respect for his career.
When the safety car had gone back in, the race could continue and Verstappen pitted for wet tyres this time. It looked very difficult to even get points now because he dropped to 15th place. He proved everybody wrong and overtook 12 cars one by one and finished 3rd! Spectacular driving! He was best of the rest after the Mercs but in my opinion he was the best driver in this race. He also was voted driver of the day on f1.com. Many legendary drivers have shown their superstardom driving like that in the rain. I would be surprised if Verstappen never wins a championship in his career.
Here are my predictions and the results:
Pole position: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - CORRECT
Race:
- Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - CORRECT
- Nico Rosberg, Mercedes - CORRECT
- Max Verstappen, Red Bull - CORRECT
Fastest lap: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - WRONG. It was Verstappen.
Surprise: Felipe Massa will have a great weekend - Probably had a good feeling saying good buy to his fans but the race wasn't good for him.
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! like the Mercedes.
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 and 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
