Heros & Zeros of Bahrain Grand Prix

[vintly]

The battle of the teammates hasn't turned out nearly as well as I would have liked (Vintly can grin here...).  Ferrari is downright sad.  Watching Ferrari duel for 9-10 place doesn't get my heart racing, that's for sure.

Heheh, it's a wry grin Scott, as I'm not too impressed either. Alonso v Raikkonen was never meant to be for 9th and 10th place. Does Domenicalli get a Zero for this general Ferrari malaise?

[John S]

I enjoyed the race enormously, it certainly wasn't dull and no one seemed that bothered about fuel saving either - thanks to the safety car of course.   

Whilst I enjoyed the battle between Lewis and Nico it should however be remembered that any team with the dominance that Merc has at the moment is on a hiding to nothing if it tries to impose team orders. Can you imagine the negative worldwide press if they had ordered a hold station diktat. 

In years gone by when Williams or McLaren had cars capable of lapping the entire field they also allowed gloves off combat, although sometimes it ended in warfare instead of just combat. Allowing teammates to freely race is great for us. I just hope Merc don't come to regret not naming a numero uno, there's still along way to go to secure the constructers crown. 

Good drives from Perez and Ricciardo to beat their higher rated teammates, and a mention for Max in the Marussia for finishing yet another GP.

In the zeros column I'd have to put Ferrari, Sauber and Lotus, they all have a lot of work to do still - oh and McLaren as well, one clutch problem is bad luck both is inexcusable - not good Ron 

For my drivers not delivering I'd have to include JEV, Maldonado, Gutierrez and Sutil of course but I'd also say Chilton - where was the pace you found in the second part earlier in the race Max?   

 

[Scott]

Does Domenicalli get a Zero for this general Ferrari malaise?

I think Domenicalli's days are numbered, especially after seeing Luca's face.  He won't get his way with the engine reg changes he wants, so he'll have to start to look internally at changes.

[Irisado]

I've posted my thoughts about the race here.  For those who want to see me write something positive about post 2005/6 Formula 1, then now is your chance .

Just on the topic of Maldonado.  I don't dispute the penalty, but Sauber should also have informed Gutierrez the Lotus was exiting the pits, and also Gutierrez ought to have been paying a little more attention, but it's still primarily Maldonado's fault, since I didn't see him going out of his way to brake harder than usual.  The problem he's got is, with his bad boy reputation, decisions will always tend to go against him, so I'm not surprised that he was penalised.

Sutil is less hot headed, but has started this season poorly.  I think that he's very annoyed at having been dropped by Force India, and being penalised by an overweight Sauber.  That's not Bianchi's fault though.  I'm surprised that the incident was investigated.  Sutil could have given him more space.

[Willy]

Merc did a great job and seem to be the team to beat. Both Rosberg and Hamilton must have had a blast racing each other as if they were back in GP2 together
Riccardo has surprised me as he has great talent and only needed to be given a car that could show it. It looks good on Vettel that his teammate can outperform him.
Ferarri must be ashamed to give such POS cars to two world champions.
Maldonado should be run out of F1 and has no business racing at this level. He is dangerous and reckless.
The stewards need to be given a dictionary and shown how to look up the words "fair and consistent" as they seem to have no idea what they mean.

[lkjohnson1950]

That's because each race has a different set of Stewards with different ideas of fair and consistent. I think they let Maldonado off a bit easier because some of the blame, as noted above, can be given to Gutierrez and his spotter. By the time the Sauber arrived at the apex, Maldonado was already there. In SCCA race school they taught us that if a car is inside you and overlapping your car, you are responsible for any contact. As far as Lewis and Nico are concerned, at one point Lewis ran Nico right off the track into the run off area. If Nico hadn't listened to the injunction to get both cars to the finish and held his line, which he is entitled to do, there would have been a collision. Somebody runs me clear off the track, the next time he tries it he gets flat walled. Course, I don't actually sit in my racecar.