no; Lando went against team sugestion, did you see the actual race? its his own fault he got only 7 points; could have been p2 easily or even a win if he had listened; all the top drivers that finished in a lot of points have experience, and that experience came through today

pebble444

Italy2500 Posts

September 26 2021 14:44 GMT

#1410

so sad, we could have had back to back McLaren victories; oh well, i guess you live and you learn

Ben...

Canada3485 Posts

September 26 2021 14:56 GMT

#1411

I knew two McLaren wins a row was too good to be true. I'm so sad for Lando. He deserved this.

Mercedes got so lucky with the rain. I'm not sure they should actually be happy about this race. They were nowhere like 8 laps before the end. Bottas was outside the points and Hamilton was not making headway on Norris. They gambled and it just happened to pay off this time. They can't rely on the rain to give them wins and Red Bull and McLaren beat them for the dry portion of the race easily. There's several tracks Red Bull will be much stronger at coming up.

Ricciardo had another good race. A 4th place on merit. He looked shaky after his compromised day on Friday but he still managed to get a good result.

Excludos

Norway8231 Posts

September 26 2021 15:15 GMT

#1412

Fuuuuuck. That's such a sad ending for Norris

Yeah, it was his call, but it could easily have stopped raining again and then he'd look like a genius. Such a tough call, and it was unfortunately wrong this time

pebble444

Italy2500 Posts

September 26 2021 15:54 GMT

#1413

Thats a good call Ben; end of the day, yesterday Norris got pole being lucky with the rain, but today Hamilton did;

Looks like verstappen gonna take the title this year, Mercedes constructors; if I had to write a letter to Santa however, all I really want is McLaren p3 and Norris P4 in the drivers; then I will fall asleep as a baby at the end of the year :D

Vinekh

131 Posts

September 26 2021 16:21 GMT

#1414

On September 26 2021 23:43 pebble444 wrote:

Show nested quote +

Nah, Hamilton didn't want to pit as well. The team made him pit while he was complaining that the rain is stopping.
The pilot has not meteorological data, he doesn't know that a shower is incoming... The team has to know. There even was a radio communication (Vettel I think), that said that the rain will get "Really bad, before it gets better.". Knowing this McLaren just allowed Lando to drive through the shower on hard dry tires.
Good thing he didn't crash.

Excludos

Norway8231 Posts

September 26 2021 16:27 GMT

#1415

On September 26 2021 23:43 pebble444 wrote:

Show nested quote +

There wasn't a suggestion. The engineer asked, quoted, "What do you think about inters?" To which Norris answered "No".

That's not going against the team's suggestion. Lewis simply got more information that there would be more rain. If it hadn't rained more, the inters would not have made up for the pit stop time, and Norris would have looked like a genius. Instead he guessed wrong. So did Leclerc, who went all the way down to P15. (And Mazepin, who went from last to even more last)

TheEmulator

28095 Posts

September 26 2021 21:37 GMT

#1416

Yea it's important to note that in post-race interviews there has been a lot of talk about Norris being told the rain wouldn't get worse. Also according to people that watched the onboard Mclaren was indecisive about making a decision for a VERY long time, hence the radio frustration from Lando. I don't 100% blame Lando for making the call that he did.

Also as Excludos pointed out they asked him "What do you think?" when they have far more info about what to do than he does. Lando saw dry track and made the call. His team somehow didn't see the massive rain cloud coming in...

https://streamable.com/q8wmz4

Also Lewis is a nice dude. He's basically telling Lando he would have done the same thing if he had the same info

Aristodemus

England2006 Posts

September 27 2021 20:44 GMT

#1417

I'm not sure how you can say Merc were lucky with the rain, Lewis would have been 2nd and Max 8th (LeClerc was going to pass him as Alonao did), the rain cost him 7 points. That could be vital in the end.

Ben...

Canada3485 Posts

September 27 2021 21:05 GMT

#1418

On September 28 2021 05:44 Aristodemus wrote:
I'm not sure how you can say Merc were lucky with the rain, Lewis would have been 2nd and Max 8th (LeClerc was going to pass him as Alonao did), the rain cost him 7 points. That could be vital in the end.

For Constructor's Championship though, which is what the Mercedes team actually care about, they went from getting 18 points (or 19 if they got fastest lap) to getting 35-36 points since the rain allowed Bottas to gamble on intermediates, which jumped him up to 5th place from outside the points. Had the rain not happened and positions stayed as they were, Mercedes would have been roughly equal on points gained with Red Bull for the weekend rather than gaining something like 10 more points than Red Bull.

Verstappen personally benefited from the rain since it allowed him to jump to second, but overall Red Bull didn't actually gain much because Perez lost out hard by gambling the rain would be light, and went from being just outside the podium places to 9th.

Excludos

Norway8231 Posts

September 27 2021 21:06 GMT

#1419

You're entirely right. RB was the ones who truly lucked out. I'm sure Hamilton would have preferred to arrive second in that race, with Max 8. Which just makes the entire thing even more frustrating, as Norris really deserved that win

On September 28 2021 06:05 Ben... wrote:
For Constructor's Championship though, which is what the Mercedes team actually care about.

What they care about is sponsors, and sponsors care more about the WDC than the constructors. Mercedes won't hesitate to throw Bottas under the bus to get Hamilton the points, as they've shown earlier, even if that makes them worse off in the constructors.

Doubly so when they are already a bit ahead in the constructors, but neck and neck between Hamilton and Max. And if you look ahead, Bottas is likely to outscore Perez in the last few races, so the constructors is pretty secure, even if Max wins WDC

Ben...

Canada3485 Posts

September 27 2021 22:15 GMT

#1420

It's less of a big deal than in the past, but the Constructor's Championship still pays more money the higher you are in the standings and still tends to be what the teams primarily focus on. I don't think it's entirely fair to say that sponsors care more about the WDC over the WCC. That likely depends on what's happening during the season. Some seasons are team-focused, some are driver-focused. 2010 is a good example of a team-focused season while this year is obviously driver-focused.

And though Mercedes has a lead in Constructor's, it's not a guarantee they will win. Both Bottas and Hamilton have been quite inconsistent lately and several tracks that have strongly favoured Red Bull in the past are coming up soon while Mercedes has squandered several opportunities that they should have maximized. There are question marks still about reliability for Mercedes as well, and Hamilton is still likely to need to take an engine penalty.

Arguably, the best thing that could happen for F1 and for both team's sponsors is for the result we had yesterday to happen. The Verstappen-Hamilton fight got even closer as a result, which brings more attention to both teams. If one of them starts running away with the championship, then people will stop paying attention.