2018 Italiano Grazie Ragazzi Grande Lavorro Prix

[MBKF1 91]

Forza Ferrari 1 - 2, calling it.

[Jiggy 5]

                                                                                                                   

[Hughesy 254]

Sauber seem to be going all out to test the halo.

[MIXER781 0]

Ciao a tutto lo staff codemaster ottimo gioco formula1 2018 ,ma risultano esserci ancora piccole aggiunte come x esempio la mancata patch nn fa guadagnare un trofeo nel gioco quello che dice:tutti cominciano da zero ottieni un abilita nel multi giocatore grazie a tutti!!?

[Hughesy 254]

Wrong place my dude 
                    

[Hughesy 254]

The two Ferraris are definitely NOT going to collide with each other going into turn 1 tomorrow.

[Hughesy 254]

Well now, they booed Hamilton yesterday, the salt is going to be real on the podium.

[RevolvingPrawn 1]

Hughesy said:

Well now, they booed Hamilton yesterday, the salt is going to be real on the podium.

I thought the "fuck you Hamilton" chants you could hear in the cool-down room were a bit much (considering he wasn't at fault for the Vettel contact). But Bottas definitely got worse boo's on the podium.

[UP100 1,085]

Honestly who can you trust when Mercedes lies to Bottas about his pace?

[f1since08 60]

Once again, Ferrari snatch defeat from the claws of victory  :D 

[GoldenColt 1]

Could it really be that Vettel throws yet another WDC away due to silly and unnecessary mistakes? Could it really be? I still think he's the favorite, but that's only because of this monster of a car he has.

Btw:

IN THEIR HOME!

[Hughesy 254]

Kimi did the same move as Hamilton on Hamilton, at the same corner and did what Vettel should have. Vettel had the car to win, he didn't need to fight so hard on the first lap.

[AMSKRR 3]

GoldenColt said:

Could it really be that Vettel throws yet another WDC away due to silly and unnecessary mistakes? Could it really be? I still think he's the favorite, but that's only because of this monster of a car he has.

Btw:

IN THEIR HOME!

2017 definitely wasn't thrown away. If you remove Singapore and Baku Hamilton still wins because of the monster of a car he had. 

As for this year, it's still far too early to call it. In 2012 at this stage the gap was 39. In 2010 he didn't lead until the last race. The title was won at the last real corner in 2008, Kimi made a storming come back in 2007.  I don't think today goes down as a silly mistake, it was a 50/50 and Hamilton was lucky to come out of that corner in one piece. This is what happens when neither wants to back down. 

It's a shame that Kimi didn't win today, would have been nice for someone else to win for a change. Sad to think Kimi and Alonso will leave the sport having not won for 5 years...

[GoldenColt 1]

*wrong thread*..................................................

[f1since08 60]

Renault's protest against Grosjean has been successful, so he'll be disqualified and Sirotkin will score a point.

[Hughesy 254]

It's to do with the front corners of the floor. How long has this been on the car, and why didn't they protest after qualifying. I suppose it could have been noticed after the race, rare that this happens these days. 

[Jiggy 5]

Honestly, at this point I'm done fighting it. Hamilton will win this championship because at the end of it, he's simply a better, more consistent and more composed of a driver than Vettel. The Ferrari has a clear edge over the Mercedes, yet Vettel and Ferrari can't cash in. Ever. Hamilton is too great. Vettel is too flawed. Top-3 all time, Schumacher, Senna, Hamilton. Not even a 4-time World Champion can beat an opponent like that if he's not completely flawless. Remember when Hamilton was the one who was emotional? Not anymore. And now he's almost unbeatable. The absolute best on this grid.

Other stuff, I'm happy Sirotkin has a point. Stroll has two, but I think that performance wise, Sirotkin has been deserving of a points-finish for some time now.

[GoldenColt 1]

Still plenty of races to go with Ferrari having a pretty obvious advantage car-wise, nothing decided yet @Jiggy. But we all know Vettel should be leading this WDC by 30-40 pts at this stage.

[Hughesy 254]

https://twitter.com/ChrisMedlandF1/status/1036338598528921606?s=19

Silly hAAS

[VetteIfan 0]

Lewis must've been laughing his ass off watching the Ferrari's fight tooth and nail in to turn 1, 24 hours after giving their driver who's 90 pts behind in the championship the preferential qualifying strategy. Meanwhile Mercedes have their own fully trained Bottachello. To their credit, because that's exactly what should be happening at this stage. Ferrari must lack leaders afraid to make the difficult decisions because the decisions made this weekend were totally ludicrous. 

But it is also true that Seb is getting involved in too much contact this season. It's weird, I don't know what's triggered the increased level of chaos in his driving since 2016 because between 2011-2015 it looked like he'd figured it out aside from a few glitches. It's been a really weird trajectory for his career and it's a shame as a fan because while he didn't lose much in 2016 and 2017, the mistakes from this year are harming his legacy if he doesn't win the title. I would certainly consider it the worst season of his career. 

But the simple outlook now is that of both Seb and Lewis are reliable till the end of the season it's going to require perfection from Seb to take the title from here, and from Ferrari which is my bigger doubt as listed above. Bottas is never going to finish in front of Lewis again this season so in reality the worst position he can finish each weekend is P3, and that's even if Raikkonen can beat him which has proven to be unlikely. That means Seb has really got to win at least 5 of the remaining 7, and if Kimi doesn't beat Lewis to the flag a few times it's going to mean he needs 6. 

Hugely unlikely, and for that reason installing anyone but Lewis as the favourite is ridiculous. But things rarely play out that smoothly in F1 so that's what the tifosi will have to bank on.   

[VetteIfan 0]

Also (sorry for the double post but I felt this deserved its own) I'm starting to form a similar level of opinion about Rosberg as I think most Lewis fans did for the last 5 years. After saying he wanted to retire because he's achieved his goal and he wants to chase new ventures, he's now at the F1 every weekend. Often doing 'analysis' for Sky F1, and talking about what it takes to beat Lewis like he's some sort of authority on the matter because he did it once in extremely fortunate circumstances after getting destroyed for pretty much the whole 3 years.

You can't take his title away from him but I'm now fully convinced he did just retire because he didn't want to face Lewis again, and now he just gets to talk about how great he was to beat Lewis for eternity. I can understand Lewis' resentment towards him for that because uninformed fans might actually begin to take that as fact as the years roll by. But it definitely puts a shadow on Nico's character imo.

[Jiggy 5]

GoldenColt said:

Still plenty of races to go with Ferrari having a pretty obvious advantage car-wise, nothing decided yet @Jiggy. But we all know Vettel should be leading this WDC by 30-40 pts at this stage.

I get your POV and I don't even disagree with it. I simply doubt Vettel has that ice in his veins to take the most of the advantages he has over Hamilton in the end. He's not ruthless like that. I'm judging purely by character now. It's like how I wasn't convinced by Rosberg until he literally abandoned his pregnant wife for the sake of beating Hamilton. I don't see that level of dedication and clutchness and insanity from Vettel. I can't rate a guy's credentials to win the title if he goes off at his home GP and then taps his title rival and ends up spinning himself in the Italian GP as a Ferrari-driver. It's weak.

Don't mind me though, that's my own slightly warped view on what a driver/champion is made of. That doesn't happen to a true champion. So I'm assuming Vettel will end up bottling it, even if he does come back in this title race. And unless Hamilton loses his marbles and bottles it himself, I'd think that Vettel winning the WDC would be undeserved at this point, as Hamilton is superior and dominant.

About Rosberg, I'd like to say that, although it does look fishy, I'd also assume that he needs the paycheck and that showing up to races for analysis is nowhere near as time-consuming as being involved with a GP-team almost 24/7 (testing, simulation, promotional work, GP-weekends, etc.) and him being there every GP-weekend is basically just those days and he's at home with his family for the rest of the week. That's my assumption though, no idea how his schedule looks like. But it also means that I don't think his current activities is making his reasoning for leaving F1 as a driver less legit.

[AMSKRR 3]

Like Jiggy said, the effort going to races to be a pundit compared to racing are worlds apart. 

But I'd imagine that if Rosberg had Ericsson as a teammate and was virtually guaranteed to win the title, he'd have stayed. Can't say I blame him for leaving, I imagine he wanted to leave on a high rather than leaving in 2019 or 2020 having been beaten by Lewis for a few more years. He's not stupid, he knows Hamilton is just better.

[MBKF1 91]

Bottachello, I like that, that's gonna stick :p 

Brilliant race! I was out all weekend so only managed to watch it at about 10pm last night, but what a superb battle for the lead! He was hunting, hunting, hunting, and then he pounced!

I should be pleased as a Hamilton fan because Vettel lost a load of points, but I'm genuinely more disappointed. I want a good close battle for the rest of the season but Vettel keeps bottling it under the pressure and giving it to Hamilton.

I feel like on their best days, Vettel and Hamilton are really closely matched, but on their worst days, Vettel just really makes it tougher for himself...

Also I've realised, for definite now, that I do not support Max Verstappen.

[GoldenColt 1]

MBKF1 said:

Bottachello, I like that, that's gonna stick :p 

Brilliant race! I was out all weekend so only managed to watch it at about 10pm last night, but what a superb battle for the lead! He was hunting, hunting, hunting, and then he pounced!

I should be pleased as a Hamilton fan because Vettel lost a load of points, but I'm genuinely more disappointed. I want a good close battle for the rest of the season but Vettel keeps bottling it under the pressure and giving it to Hamilton.

I feel like on their best days, Vettel and Hamilton are really closely matched, but on their worst days, Vettel just really makes it tougher for himself...

Also I've realised, for definite now, that I do not support Max Verstappen.

Careful what you wish for, Vettel is still favorite for this WDC in my book. Apart from maybe Suzuka, I just can't see where Mercedes will have the upper hand to Ferrari this season. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. As for Vettel's mistakes, he almost bottled 2 of his 4 WDCs, so it's not exactly a new weakness of his to make crucial errors. It's the fact that he lucked into his 1st WDC and barely brought the 3rd one over the line, surviving that mighty crash with Senna which he himself caused, that put a lid on how prone to mistakes he really is. He continued making silly mistakes in 2016 and 2017. 2018 so far has been a new low in this respect. But as we've seen in 2010 and - to a lesser degree - in 2012, that doesn't mean it's over for him.

Regarding this weekend: Is it just me or did Vettel's whole demeanour change on saturday? I think that's because it was that day when it became clear that Kimi won't be allowed to stay for another year. Vettel might find himself outside the comfort zone he loves and needs so much from 2019 onwards. Having an old, way past his prime, washed up teammate who is a clear #2 was his old schtick. While I don't think Leclerc will be another Ricciardo to Vettel, he is still a much younger guy, hungry to prove himself and eager to take the fight to the established 4xWDC. And you know what: Maybe Ferrari are slowly but surely realizing that the Michael Schumacher approach might not work to their advantage these days anymore. Kimi Raikkonen is too average and passive to be a threat for Lewis more often than not, their car is the best but not by the kind of margin needed to give Vettel the comfort zone he needs and the quality of their rival drivers is also way above the likes Michael had to go up against during his prime. Time to bring in some fresh blood with new ideas. Maybe it will spur Vettel on to improve his own driving skills, because quite frankly, out of all the top guys he's the one who has regressed quite a bit in that regard.