Post by Sav on Aug 14, 2020 22:58:31 GMT
Bottas was a bit miffed wasn’t he? It’s just his luck; he drove a brilliant Q3 lap only for the tyres to blister excessively during the race. The real mistake Mercedes made was pitting Bottas on the same lap as Verstappen. At that point, Merc had lost control of the race. Following in Verstappen for Bottas’ second pitstop was always going to leave him exposed towards the end, because the W11 couldn’t hold onto its tyres during a long stint. After that, it was more advantageous to be the second Merc, because they saw what happened, so kept Hamilton out to give him a shorter final stint. It was that shorter final stint that allowed him to cruise up to Bottas without too much hassle.
I hated that race. Nobody pushed particularly hard, Hamilton himself wasn’t even trying to make an impression on Bottas. If he attempted to push, the tyres would have gone even sooner. It was a dreary race all around, and really, being able to say that Mercedes didn’t win one race does not seem like a price worth paying. When one looks back to the fantastic racing towards the end of the races in Austria, there was enough degradation to make a difference, but it wasn’t so severe that drivers couldn’t attack. Drivers like Norris and Ricciardo were going like the clappers, racing each other hard, which is surely what people want to see.
I hated that race. Nobody pushed particularly hard, Hamilton himself wasn’t even trying to make an impression on Bottas. If he attempted to push, the tyres would have gone even sooner. It was a dreary race all around, and really, being able to say that Mercedes didn’t win one race does not seem like a price worth paying. When one looks back to the fantastic racing towards the end of the races in Austria, there was enough degradation to make a difference, but it wasn’t so severe that drivers couldn’t attack. Drivers like Norris and Ricciardo were going like the clappers, racing each other hard, which is surely what people want to see.