Bahrain Heroes and Zeroes

[Jericoke]

Heroes:

There was a lot of talk that Haas' 6th in Australia was just from luck, and not to expect them to come close to that again.  I guess Grosjean wasn't listening.

Many drivers in Hamilton's situation would drift around and be happy with 8th, but Lewis did a great job driving a wounded car to the podium.

Kimi put on an absolute clinic working his way up to second place.

Vandoorne has got to have Button worried about his job, and Alonso worried about his ribs.  A spectacular last minute replacement showing that the pool of F1 ready drivers is very deep.

Zeroes

Honestly, it was a great race, there were some drivers/teams with bad luck, and of course the FIA/stewards continue to make baffling decisions, but I don't think anyone stuck out as putting in a bad day.  No Zeroes from me.

[John S]

Heroes:- Lewis, Kimi and both Red Bull cars. Plus of course we had one of the most gripping races for some time because of the early breakdown and shunts.

Zeros: - Force India and Williams, now just what were the drivers and teams up to? Wrong tyres for most of race, wrong place on track leading to incidents and generally wrong thinking all round as far as I can see. How the mighty Merc powered cars have fallen off the pace.

 

[cosworth151]

Heroes:

Haas is 5th in the Constructors & Grosjean is 5th in the Drivers. 

Vandoorne - His weekend looks even better when one considers that he'd never driven the car prior to FP1 on Friday.

Lewis & Kimi as previously mentioned.

Zeroes:
Quali - Once again the alchemists of the FIA manage to turn gold into lead. 

[F1fanaticBD]

Zeroes :

The thunderstorm, that ruined my early part of the race.
Ferrari - Get you reliability sorted unless you want to be a genuine champioship contender, not just second place team forever.

Heroes :

Mclaren -If you are racing with cars with engines from Mercedes, after the disaster of last year, it seems a great improvement. Hope you guys could keep it up.

Verstappen : In his day he could achieve some i ncredible performance, unfortunately they seems to come quite far between.

[Scott]

Cant add too much other than a zero is the tech or mechanic that did something to Vettel's engine between warm up and the race.  A modern F1 engine shouldn't blow up on the parade lap.  Had high hopes for Vettel.  I haven't even checked my GG results yet because I know they are poor.

I liked the race.  A lot of action going on.  Kimi had a horrible start, and managed to put his head down and come out 2nd.  Hamilton showed unusual perseverance as well, and should take credit for 3rd step, even if he brought his foul face along for the ceremony.

[cosworth151]

I want to add Alonso to my Heroes list. I hear he was at the track for every session giving help & advice to Vandoorne. Good man!

[Jericoke]

I want to add Alonso to my Heroes list. I hear he was at the track for every session giving help & advice to Vandoorne. Good man!

Yes!  When they cut to Alonso after Button pulled off, I was surprised by his genuine frustration and disappointment for his team mate and team.  That didn't fit my mental image of Alonso, so quite happy to be proven wrong on that count!

[Monty]

Yes!  When they cut to Alonso after Button pulled off, I was surprised by his genuine frustration and disappointment for his team mate and team.  That didn't fit my mental image of Alonso, so quite happy to be proven wrong on that count!

I agree. That reaction confirmed that the guy is still a racer and still cares. I hope that McLaren can give Alonso and Button the tools to do a decent job this year. They both deserve a chance to show why they are Champions.

[Alianora La Canta]

Heroes:

Rosberg: quiet, understated tour de force.

Grosjean/Haas: for a spectacular 5th place. They are looking stronger than even the people who thought being a customer team would help could plausibly have predicted.

Wehrlien: 13th place. In a Manor. This guy has serious talent.

Zeroes:

Jean Todt: Bernie has to protect his crazy idea for qualifying somehow. What's your excuse? Further, Bernie stands to gain from the FIA putting itself in an easily-prosecuted position through refusal to separate governance and commerce (as per Nice Agreement). What's your excuse? And then we are somehow supposed to believe that handing over power purely to someone making such poor decisions is somehow a sensible idea. The threat of Bernie actually subverting the process (a blatant danger earlier) appears to have receded, making the FIA the biggest threat instead of the biggest protector of F1's continued existence. Even the Bahraini race promoter (who seems to have been one of the people who asked for a change) is now keen to distance himself from the FIA and FOM decisions on current matters.

At least a quarter of the grid on Lap 1 - Thanks to the commentary and camera-work, I'm not sure who hit who (let alone who was responsible for the collisions), but there were at least 5 separate impacts in the first 2 corners. If this had been Spa, we'd have had a gigantic pile-up. Whoever it may concern: yes, we're all keen to see hot and combative racing from the first metre, but if you're still racing like this in Europe, people will get injured, and besides, you can't win a race on the first corner but you can certainly lose it... ("Bonus" points to the Force Indias, who I'm 95% sure hit each other at some point during the imbroligio. Hard to say how this contributed to their bad races - Pérez at least had another crash in those first few seconds - but at least the others have the excuse that they hit rivals).

Hamilton - not for anything on-track (though I doubt he will enjoy remembering the start), but for continuing to take videos of the paddock and submitting them to Snapchat... ...a site that assumes it is entitled to perpetually re-post anything sent to it, which effectively transferred FOM property to Snapchat. This could lead to rather more stringent crackdowns on intellectual property rights in the future, from an organisation that is already over-stringent in its interpretation of the rights it has assessed itself in terms of promoting its product.

[Irisado]

Yes!  When they cut to Alonso after Button pulled off, I was surprised by his genuine frustration and disappointment for his team mate and team.  That didn't fit my mental image of Alonso, so quite happy to be proven wrong on that count!

I agree. That reaction confirmed that the guy is still a racer and still cares. I hope that McLaren can give Alonso and Button the tools to do a decent job this year. They both deserve a chance to show why they are Champions.

I also agree (although I've never had any doubts about Alonso), and I think he was so disappointed about Button's retirement because he realises that the car is much better than it was last year.  Okay, they're not going to win a race, barring very unusual circumstances, but they've got a chance to score points at most tracks, which is a huge improvement on 2015.