Alright when was that again.....?

[Interslice]

Can't see why Perez gets driver of the day.

No doubt he drove well, but with the fastest car if Bottas or Hamilton came from the back everyone says.. Mehh they got the fastest car we expect them to come through the pack.

Alonso on the other hand after time away with a slower car came through to 7th until reliability... Give him the Redbull and we'll see how it's done.

I don't expect Hamilton to ever get driver of the day.. But its clear skill, cunning, intelligence, and strategy won.

Off track? Micheal Schumacher would have done the same... Push the boundaries of the rules.
F1 Teams always push the boundaries of the rules.

Best team, reliability and driver won. Red bull have the fastest machinery and pit crew plus they have 2 drivers with great ultimate pace. Remains to be seen now if max and red bull can have the consistant late pace and also the car/tyres in good condition at the end to get the wins. I think a combo of tyres and possible rear diff issues and maybe some patience in the throttle cost max in the end, not turn 4. He reeled lewis in patiently and saved the tyres but didn't get the job done on the meds vs hards.. I thought mercs exploiting of t4 was excellent. It's the teams duty to find loop holes and grey areas. That's the game they are in.

Hopefully both team's, as a whole, were running at close to 100% today and we might even get a decent season for a change.

P.S. I'm not a lewis or mercedes fan but i just can't deny they were all on the ball today after a tricky start to the season.

 

[Badwheels]

Look, F1 is about consistency. It's not what you can do once, but what you can do over and over again. It's like that in any endeavor. Therefore I voted for Nikita Massivespin. He was locked in on proving a F1 car, when in the hands of a professional, also has the ability to fly if treated like a propeller.

 

[renegadematt]

Voted for Perez here, and like many of others here, I was impressed with his work in spite of the car he had to deal with at the beginning. Max has the skills to beat Hamilton but, like Perez, he had to deal with a car and track that worked against him and a team that doesn't completely have its act together. Don't be surprised if he loses patience with Horner and company by year's end. Still, he made Hamilton work hard for that win.

Mercedes is still Mercedes. One half dominant, the other half the one that's required to settle for less. Bottas has been the team's sacrificial driver for too long. I agree with others here in saying he won't stay much longer. Russell does deserve to be in Bottas' car. A new apprentice to challenge and replace the old master is what we need.

Ferrari today proved they are much better off than last year. Can they challenge the Mercs and Bulls? No. Not yet. They have quite a ways to go. But it's an improvement. Both Leclerc and Sainz proved that. Enough people there it seems got a proper wake up call in between seasons. That green MW logo looks worse under the lights, though. That has to go soon.

One half of Aston Martin did well today in points. The other showed that he shouldn't be on track anymore. Guess who. Car still doesn't look green in daytime or at night.

Disappointed with what happened with Gasly. Could have joined Yuki in the points. Maybe next time.

Alpine needs work still, but let's be honest and realistic. What did we expect of them? We'll have a better understanding of them next time, I guess. At least the car looked wonderful under the lights.

Alfa Romeo came close to getting at least one of them in points. Perhaps they're better than we thought? Or was it because others were worse off? We'll see next time.

Probably the one team that did consistently good today was McLaren. One a position and roughly twenty seconds away from a podium, the other just consistently good the whole time. This is a harmonious team. Those above and beneath them need to study this team to learn how.

Haas is worse than Williams now, but we all knew this would happen, and so did they. No real reason then to act surprised. Mick by himself may not be a bad driver, and under better circumstances could maybe have done a bit better.

Mayspin on the other hand, is en route to achieving something quite special: being this era's answer to Pastor Maldonado. Someone may need to make a special site for tracking whether Mayspin has wrecked today, similar to what someone did when Maldonado was still in F1.

 

[Kingkoenig]

Will Buxton summed it up very well on Twitter:

" To be clear on the issue of running over the white lines... it’s not about Max’s pass. It occurred off track. It doesn’t count. It’s about the almost 30 occasions on which Lewis did the same when alone. Each occurrence was arguably an advantage. Which lasted.

The argument, to which I subscribe, is you cannot call one permissible and the other not. If you’re allowed to run there alone it’s part of the track and you can pass there. If you can’t pass there it’s not part of the track and driving on it should be penalised at all times.

That is why, to my mind, you cannot allow differing rules pertaining to track limits, based in nuance and perceptible grey areas. Black and white. Right and wrong. Four wheels over. "

 

[Kingkoenig]

Since the driver doesn't get any advantage like Norris said about his back off in the fight with Leclerc.

Will Buxton summed it up very well on Twitter:

" To be clear on the issue of running over the white lines... it’s not about Max’s pass. It occurred off track. It doesn’t count. It’s about the almost 30 occasions on which Lewis did the same when alone. Each occurrence was arguably an advantage. Which lasted.

The argument, to which I subscribe, is you cannot call one permissible and the other not. If you’re allowed to run there alone it’s part of the track and you can pass there. If you can’t pass there it’s not part of the track and driving on it should be penalised at all times.

That is why, to my mind, you cannot allow differing rules pertaining to track limits, based in nuance and perceptible grey areas. Black and white. Right and wrong. Four wheels over. "

 

[sergheo]

Before the 1st pit, it seemed to me that Merce went to different tactics to beat Max. But Bottas was so much slower this time that it wouldn't have helped, even with the joint on the pit. But if Bottas was going at the pace of Ham, then I think we would not have seen a fight to the finish, Merce would have outplayed the bulls with 2 cars without any problems, which we saw sometimes last season. I mean, the bulls need their own Bottas,and the bet is on Perez. They need it to be in the TOP 4, so that in such situations they can have an advantage or at least be no worse than Mercedes in terms of tactics. Otherwise, I don't see the point of replacing Gasly and Albon.

 

[NDG]

I can't believe RB lost this one... Why didn't they pit Max right after Lewis so the gap won't grow as big as it did? Only Max is the fast guy at RB I guess. Slow thinking for everyone else.

 

[Appie Kuipers]

30 laps and tracklimit, give you 0,2sec speed, and this was allowed

 

[Deleted member 379375]

Will Buxton summed it up very well on Twitter:

" To be clear on the issue of running over the white lines... it’s not about Max’s pass. It occurred off track. It doesn’t count. It’s about the almost 30 occasions on which Lewis did the same when alone. Each occurrence was arguably an advantage. Which lasted.

The argument, to which I subscribe, is you cannot call one permissible and the other not. If you’re allowed to run there alone it’s part of the track and you can pass there. If you can’t pass there it’s not part of the track and driving on it should be penalised at all times.

That is why, to my mind, you cannot allow differing rules pertaining to track limits, based in nuance and perceptible grey areas. Black and white. Right and wrong. Four wheels over. "

I've become a Lewis fan over time and was rooting for him but I agree that the rules should be clear, consistent and enforced.

 

[Sasha Jednak]

Wait, I just read that netflix was with merc on this race. Is that true? In that case, we know that their worst race is when netflix is with them. So we can wrap this season already.

 

[Boby Kim]

25 seconds between top 3 and nr 4. And midrace was soooo boring. Midfield DRS overtakes are too lame. Nope, F1 boring as ever (last few laps were fun)

 

[R4CER_J]

I had to vote Tsunoda because scoring points in your first F1 race is very impressive. Honourable mention, Sir Lewis, he shouldn't have won that race.

 

[Sasha Jednak]

Gave it to Tsunoda, as he is my new favourite driver since he was announced for this season.
Norris beating Ricciardo in race, I guess pitstops had a bit of influence but still +15sec is great. Perez drove to where Albon could, I'll wait few races but will not be surprised that he is as far from Max as others.

As for top2, nothing to say there. RB knows what happened in similar situation in last years (merc vs RB/Ferrari), so they were expecting to be penalised. To bad, I would like them to have said to Max: "You have 3 laps and 5sec to make up". Since penalty can't be given in last laps (it is applied after the race I think in this case), it would be really nice to see RC take the win to a driver that got 5sec in 3 laps over so called best driver ever.

About cars, looks good between RB/Merc. Small advantage on RB side, to compare let's say Merc is closer to RB now then Ferrari was to Merc in 2017/18/19. Hoping for advantage not to increase, I want RB and Max to bring all the hell on track until, which they can.

 

[Sasha Jednak]

I had to vote Tsunoda because scoring points in your first F1 race is very impressive. Honourable mention, Sir Lewis, he shouldn't have won that race.

Why are people saying he SHOULDN'T have won that race? It was known after practice that race pace is super close and that on harder tyres Merc can even be better (talking about <0.1sec).
I was late for the start unfortunately, and only managed to check live timings on time for 1st stops. 2 laps after Lewis pitted I said to my wife, Hamilton won. And that was clear as day at that point. What I am surprised to see is why Hamilton stopped for second set of hard tyres... He could have cruised to the end with those 20sec from 2nd stop. I mean driver like that that can set fastest laps on dead tyres for sure can drive 30+ laps on hardest tyre.

 

[Damage Inc]

What I learnt from Race 1 (first race I've watched since 2016):

a) Lewis is good
b) Max is as good
c) Merc still best overall package
d) Red Bull Strategists suck
e) Hamilton can go wide with no penalty, but Max can't?
f) Bottas still getting most of the bad luck in Mercedes
g) RB No2 still getting most of the bad luck
h) I'm not watching anymore races, still boring as feck and Hearing commentators going apeshite over a DRS overtake is just pathetic. Moto GP so much better

 

[Appie Kuipers]

Agree with you, DRS sucks, has nothing nothing to do with racerskills.

 

[Dzul]

This season opener was truly a good race! Not because of the finish but because there was proper non-stop fighting for position at every part of the track. It made watching F1 truly enjoyable again.

Next to that it's the "turn 4 thingie" when Verstappen overtook Hamilton and gave his place back.

What I saw was Max passing Lewis (his car was ahead) on track and after the move was done he followed the same exit line Lewis had been using the entire race before. Sure, video is better evidence than still images because you can see trajectory, speed, steering, etc but still, see pictures below.

An important question is, when do you consider the "pass" of Verstappen on Hamilton "done" in this case? When his car is ahead on track? Can you separate the 'pass' from the 'exit'? And if so, having Max follow the same exit line Lewis has been using before unpunished, is it correct for the FIA to "change how rules are applied" during a race?

Not picking on anyone. Just wondering what your thoughts on these questions are.

 

[Appie Kuipers]

Great pics, Max passed Ham before getting over the curbs, the passing him was done before, so this all is not fair atall.

 

[Turk]

I gave it to Perez, but it was hard to choose, a lot of great racing happening all throughout the field.

Perez had a lot to prove and everything went against him, but he figured out the car really quickly and would have probably been in the mix for a podium if everything had gone to plan.

The Hamilton and Verstappen battle, finally! Edge of the seat stuff. Its been a long time since we've had a race like that, if F1 could do that every weekend they'd be onto a winner.

 

[Trebor901]

Everyone crying over the track limits thing. Max completed his move by going wide. If he hadn't have gone wide Hamilton would have been back up the inside into the next right hander.

They both did it most of the race hence the FIA making the call of enforcing the track limits at turn 4. Red Bull threw this one away because ultimately Mercedes strategists are better always have been. Everyone saying "it's the car" about Hamilton for the past few years have to eat their words because he managed to keep him behind for the remainder in a car that isn't the quickest anymore. Max had multiple DRS deployments and still couldn't get past him.

Another note. Personally I think, DRS shouldn't be allowed to be used for the top 2 or 3 in the race. Makes for an easy pass and no skill involved. Take it away and they'd have to catch and pass on skill alone.