The Official 2016 Bahrain Grand Prix Thread ***SPOILERS with quali rules FIAscos yet again!***

Decent race with some variety in strategy.

Turn one melee was definitely Bottas mistake he just went in far too deep.

P5 for Grosjean... and we can't even put this down to a fortuate red flag or safetycar. This was pure pace and strategy. Two races two top sixes. Points even in the old style scoring system. Very impressive indeed.

Shame for Vettel, one wonders if he'd have contended for the win again. Mercedes and Ferrari are just lightyears ahead of the rest.

Baffling tyre strategy by Williams. They spent almost the entire race sliding around on hardest available tyres and being overtaken with ease by everyone else. They might have expected to fall back behind the red bull and Toro Roso but they've just had their Hass handed to them by Grosjean. (Sorry).

Solid debut for Vandorne. I hope McLaren don't dick about with his career like they did with Maggnusen.

Good stuff by Manor as well. Pascal dicing with saubers and force India deep into the race. Massive step forward for them barley believable when you consider where they were this time last year.

Such a massive boost for F1 when even the tailend team can go 'racing' instead of simply circulating at the back. Again what a massive shame the current polictical bullshit is wasting this epic field of quality.

Yeah it's a real shame to see Williams' awful race pace so far this year, hopefully they can improve it once they sort out the balance of the car with the new wing/nose. I suppose it provided them good data but putting it on only in FP3 seemed to really make life hard for them when it changed the entire behaviour of the car.

As for the Haas result, that's great to see - I thought after Melbourne that the result might be a one-off, like Nasr in 2015. It raises the issue of customer cars again and what I'd like to see is new teams being allowed to copy a similar amount of parts like Haas have done, but each year thereafter they must start to build more of their own parts. This will encourage teams to join, but still not completely erode constructor status.

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X (@ed24f1)

Yup, Williams were dire. Poor strategy (time after time) and poor pace.

I thought Bottas was a tad unlucky - Hamilton was going for the cut back to get a run on Rosberg and I just don't think Bottas realised soon enough, and when he did it was too late. I don't think Bottas ran in too deep, I just think he misread the situation. It was worthy of a penalty, but I don't think it was as bad as it looked. I thought a 5 second penalty would have sufficed.

Other than the obviously fantastic race and trend-setting strategy from Grosjean and Haas, Magnussen also had a cracking race, coming from a pit-lane start to finish just outside the points, in a car he couldn't make traditional overtakes with. Vandoorne probably too, but with Button's poor qualifying pace and early retirement it's hard to quantify how good a race it was, but it looked like a promising race with some good moves and he didn't really make any errors. It has to be good considering how little time he had to prepare and the jet-lag he must have had... he and Button left me wondering what Alonso would have made of that weekend though...

Edit 5 hours later... Wehrlein was great too of course.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2016 05:15PM by gav.

SchueyFan Wrote:
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>It raises the issue of
> customer cars again and what I'd like to see is
> new teams being allowed to copy a similar amount
> of parts like Haas have done, but each year
> thereafter they must start to build more of their
> own parts. This will encourage teams to join, but
> still not completely erode constructor status.

If it adds to the racing and produces healthy competition willing to give new talent a go... why do we care so much about the constructor status?

Do we really want F1 with only two or three constructors providing parts to everyone else? F1 is fundamentally not a control-chassis competition and to dilute the role of teams such as Williams and Sauber would be to the detriment of the sport in my opinion.

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X (@ed24f1)

SchueyFan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Do we really want F1 with only two or three
> constructors providing parts to everyone else? F1
> is fundamentally not a control-chassis competition
> and to dilute the role of teams such as Williams
> and Sauber would be to the detriment of the sport
> in my opinion.

Usually I would agree but if we think back to the late
80's and early 90's we had teams using old chassis etc
and although they never set the world on fire, with
the exception of Andrea Moda I don't think they exactly
embarrassed themselves. Super Aguri used an old Arrows
chassis and often embarrassed smaller teams around them.

I presently don't think I would give two hoots if three or four
constructors supplied parts, cars and engines to the rest if
it made for a closer grid and gave new drivers a chance to
shine. What would the point in Haas have been if they had just
ended up fighting the Manors at the back? They're adding to the
sport than being competitive and if you want to win back more
fans, then that should be the only focus. The end, not the means.

I don't think Sauber currently add much to the spectacle,
to be honest. And I'm a massive fan of Williams but the point
is they had an impressive first year of the Martini partnership
but last year wasn't as good and now they seem to be treading
water again.

If the constuctors are so worried about their eroding status, I
think they should be doing a better job to bolster their status
anyway. Are constructors better and more worthwhile than
customer teams? - they have to prove it.

I support the idea of customer teams.

I loved the fact that Toro Rosso won a race in what was essentially a Ferrari powerd red bull.

What Super Aguri managed with an old cobbled together arrows was amazing and it was also fun to seem them beat Honda with their own old car.

I appreciate that Williams are proud of being a constructor but they shouldn't forget that they too ran customer cars back in the day.

Bottas appears to get hit by Ricciardo a fraction of a second before hitting Lewis, he was already applying opposite lock before contact with Lewis was made. He'd still have hit him had Dan not hit him anway. I thought the penalty was too harsh though.

I was going to bring up the customer car issue also. Is all the praise heaped on Haas really warranted? I agree with SchueyFan that once a new team taking this approach has bedded in, it should have to revert to manufacturing its own parts year to year until it's operating like every other team.

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RIP Jules, never to be forgotten. #KeepFightingMichael

Thats how it worked in the late 60s! Tyrrell ran a March 901 in 1970 (if I remember correctly) until they built their own car.


What Haas is doing is incredible, and they have their own chassis! Its not only about being a customer, its about putting it all together and make it work. Haas came up with a nice car with a great balance under braking. And I personally dont think Ferrari is supporting them much more than it did years ago with Sauber. 2004 Sauber was almost a carbon copy of the year before Ferrari.

Williams are proud of being a constructor but they´re Mercedes´ customers, aren´t they? Also they supply Manor with suspensions and drivetrains if im not mistaken so its like a "do what I say but not what I do". They didnt do a McLaren and partened someone to avoid being another team´s customer as the guys in Woking did with Honda.





Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2016 04:15AM by Frantic.

Quote
Muks_c
Bottas appears to get hit by Ricciardo a fraction of a second before hitting Lewis, he was already applying opposite lock before contact with Lewis was made. He'd still have hit him had Dan not hit him anway. I thought the penalty was too harsh though.

Nah, I think Bottas was just sliding as he was braking harder and turning in earlier realising that Hamilton was cutting back and that he couldn't stop in time. Ricciardo hit Bottas after he and Hamilton collided, tripping over each other. It's pretty remarkable that none of them needed to pit - all just sustained fairly minor damage.

Quote
Muks_c
I was going to bring up the customer car issue also. Is all the praise heaped on Haas really warranted? I agree with SchueyFan that once a new team taking this approach has bedded in, it should have to revert to manufacturing its own parts year to year until it's operating like every other team.

That's what Steiner has said, that each year they'll become less reliant on being a customer.

Quote
Frantic
What Haas is doing is incredible, and they have their own chassis!

Well, Dallara have, but I assume to Haas's specifications. The (presumably very harsh) joke is that the only thing Haas have genuinely manufactured themselves is the wheels.