2014 Austrian GP ***here be SPOILERS***
Posted by flat tyre
All set up for a brilliant race.
Awesome quali from Williams. I'd started getting frustrated at what seemed to be a string of missed opportunities as I badly want to see them do well, and when Bottas made that mistake at Turn 8 on his hot lap I thought "FFS, not again" - not realising it would be the mistake that allowed Massa his first Pole since November 2008 while still guaranteeing the first Williams front row lockout since July 2003. Glad to see them realising the potential of what's clearly been a cracking car since day 1. Good for Bottas to get his first front row start.
Pressure situation for Lewis today. After the disappointments of Monaco and Canada, a disastrous quali, and he starts back in the pack on a track that's notorious for first-lap prangs and incidents. He needs a good result today, you feel.
Just one of the things I love about this track is its tendency to produce fascinating results. We saw it again yesterday. Can't wait for the race!
Glad we're back in Austria. :D
Awesome quali from Williams. I'd started getting frustrated at what seemed to be a string of missed opportunities as I badly want to see them do well, and when Bottas made that mistake at Turn 8 on his hot lap I thought "FFS, not again" - not realising it would be the mistake that allowed Massa his first Pole since November 2008 while still guaranteeing the first Williams front row lockout since July 2003. Glad to see them realising the potential of what's clearly been a cracking car since day 1. Good for Bottas to get his first front row start.
Pressure situation for Lewis today. After the disappointments of Monaco and Canada, a disastrous quali, and he starts back in the pack on a track that's notorious for first-lap prangs and incidents. He needs a good result today, you feel.
Just one of the things I love about this track is its tendency to produce fascinating results. We saw it again yesterday. Can't wait for the race!
Glad we're back in Austria. :D
That prediction might well come true, minus Ricciardo at the moment.
Brilliant drive from Alonso too right now.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/22/2014 03:03PM by EC83.
Brilliant drive from Alonso too right now.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/22/2014 03:03PM by EC83.
Nice win by Nico! Solid, nicely controlled drive.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/22/2014 03:33PM by EC83.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/22/2014 03:33PM by EC83.
Very strong performance by Bottas. In terms of extracting all the performance from the car, he probably did best of all. His first podium is a fitting result.
Good day for Toto, a 1-2-3-4,
Proud of Williams, they took the fight to Merc far longer than I thought they would.
Another stellar showing from Perez as well.
Proud of Williams, they took the fight to Merc far longer than I thought they would.
Another stellar showing from Perez as well.
Twos a cracking race.
My prediction of the Williamses struggling to stay in the top 6 turned out a bit wrong, didn't it? That said, I don't think they've suddenly caught up, as even Ferrari were much, much closer.
Still, it shows in a straight head-to-head, Mercedes could be beaten.
While strategy seemed a bit of a let down from Williams (again) I think they were just determined to do the race their way, if it meant they could beat the Mercedes all the better - but the important thing was the points. It's a shame, as if they'd anticipated the Mercedes stops and come in the following lap they might, just might have had enough in the tank to beat them.
I'm not going to cream over Hamilton's opening lap. It was good of course, but Kvyat and Raikkonen never got going, Ricciardo got shuffled out of the way and Hamilton must have been laughing his arse off at how easy Alonso's harvesting Ferrari was to pass. A good move on Button was his only real overtake. Senna at Donington it was not. Not that he'd have cared.
I expect the Williams crew were wandering around the paddock asking if anyone had any grenades they could lob at Massa's car after he was overtaken by Hamilton after the first pit stops. That was unforgivable. Hamilton was strong on the brakes all day, but Massa must have backed off 50m before Hamilton - it couldn't have just been lifting and coasting. :\
A very good race and encouraging for the rest of the year.
My prediction of the Williamses struggling to stay in the top 6 turned out a bit wrong, didn't it? That said, I don't think they've suddenly caught up, as even Ferrari were much, much closer.
Still, it shows in a straight head-to-head, Mercedes could be beaten.
While strategy seemed a bit of a let down from Williams (again) I think they were just determined to do the race their way, if it meant they could beat the Mercedes all the better - but the important thing was the points. It's a shame, as if they'd anticipated the Mercedes stops and come in the following lap they might, just might have had enough in the tank to beat them.
I'm not going to cream over Hamilton's opening lap. It was good of course, but Kvyat and Raikkonen never got going, Ricciardo got shuffled out of the way and Hamilton must have been laughing his arse off at how easy Alonso's harvesting Ferrari was to pass. A good move on Button was his only real overtake. Senna at Donington it was not. Not that he'd have cared.
I expect the Williams crew were wandering around the paddock asking if anyone had any grenades they could lob at Massa's car after he was overtaken by Hamilton after the first pit stops. That was unforgivable. Hamilton was strong on the brakes all day, but Massa must have backed off 50m before Hamilton - it couldn't have just been lifting and coasting. :\
A very good race and encouraging for the rest of the year.
There's been a lot of critism over the Williams strategy and how they simply gave up track position to the Mercs but I think they were correct to defer to Merc and focus more on possible threats from further back.
To beat the Mercs was always going to a long shot and to focus on an unlikely win could have compromised their race overall and left them more vulnerable to Alonso and Perez. I think by accepting from the outset the inevitability of Merc moving ahead at some stage possibly consolidated their track position as 'best of the rest' and put them in a better position to capitalise on any problem or incident that may have afflicted the Mercs.
It's easy to point the finger and bash Williams for squandering opportunities. But I think it's worth taking a moment to step back and appreciate just how much progress they've made recently.
Let's take stock here, they've:
Extensively restructured the team both organisationally and in the engineering department
Secured new partners and investment in the team despite the desperately poor form of the last few years
Built a car which is competitive but most importantly of all now seems to be consistently reacting well to development
Hit upon a well balanced driving line-up, with a useful blend of youth and experience and two drivers who are currently very evenly matched on pace
Improved the pit-stop crew beyond all recognition, ok still the odd problem but who'd have thought last year when the stops were both slow and faulty that they'd be regularly achieving mid 2 second tyres stops now?
Last year we were estastic when they scored a single point, this year we're nitpicking over them coming second best only to a nigh on unbeatable car. Time for some perspective.
To beat the Mercs was always going to a long shot and to focus on an unlikely win could have compromised their race overall and left them more vulnerable to Alonso and Perez. I think by accepting from the outset the inevitability of Merc moving ahead at some stage possibly consolidated their track position as 'best of the rest' and put them in a better position to capitalise on any problem or incident that may have afflicted the Mercs.
It's easy to point the finger and bash Williams for squandering opportunities. But I think it's worth taking a moment to step back and appreciate just how much progress they've made recently.
Let's take stock here, they've:
Extensively restructured the team both organisationally and in the engineering department
Secured new partners and investment in the team despite the desperately poor form of the last few years
Built a car which is competitive but most importantly of all now seems to be consistently reacting well to development
Hit upon a well balanced driving line-up, with a useful blend of youth and experience and two drivers who are currently very evenly matched on pace
Improved the pit-stop crew beyond all recognition, ok still the odd problem but who'd have thought last year when the stops were both slow and faulty that they'd be regularly achieving mid 2 second tyres stops now?
Last year we were estastic when they scored a single point, this year we're nitpicking over them coming second best only to a nigh on unbeatable car. Time for some perspective.
What is clear is merc in hot weather are too marginal and with the summer races we could see them brake.
I think one of the main problems has more to do with Montreal and A1 Ring being short circuits, rather than the hot temperatures themselves. In Canada they have issues to cool down all the systems (mostly brake by wire and that stuff) and I believe the Mercs werent as far from the rest of the pack here because they adopted a conservative set up to avoid the same issues they had in Canada
I think one of the main problems has more to do with Montreal and A1 Ring being short circuits, rather than the hot temperatures themselves. In Canada they have issues to cool down all the systems (mostly brake by wire and that stuff) and I believe the Mercs werent as far from the rest of the pack here because they adopted a conservative set up to avoid the same issues they had in Canada
gav Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't think Williams have made big strides performance wise.
> Take away what I expect is a freakish Austrian GP
> and they're still a second slower than Mercedes.
> They were around a second back from Mercedes
> (probably a touch more) last season and they're
> probably a little under a second back this year.
> They might have moved forward a couple of tenths
> over the winter. They've generally overtaken
> Force India (though are currently behind on
> points) and we know how poor McLaren are, but but
> if all the other teams had Mercedes engines I
> think Williams might just about scrape into the
> top 10 here and there.
I disagree. I think Austria was the first race this year where the Williams car has realised its full potential, and their season is still gathering momentum. It was clear from the first race that it was a strong car with great natural speed. Bahrain was, IMO, the first race where its potential really started being unlocked. After a few frustrating near misses since then, this was the first weekend where I thought they maxed out and optimised the car's performance and translated it into a representative result, but I think the car has potential to get even better. Claire and the team have done a brilliant job, and it's still getting steadily stronger. I think they're genuinely starting to close up on Mercedes, and considering that their car is more solid and reliable than the Mercedes when pushed hard, it means this could be the first of a string of podiums rather than a freak one-off. They might even snatch a win at some point if Merc have another race like Canada.
Unless I'm very much mistaken! :P
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/2014 06:01PM by EC83.
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't think Williams have made big strides performance wise.
> Take away what I expect is a freakish Austrian GP
> and they're still a second slower than Mercedes.
> They were around a second back from Mercedes
> (probably a touch more) last season and they're
> probably a little under a second back this year.
> They might have moved forward a couple of tenths
> over the winter. They've generally overtaken
> Force India (though are currently behind on
> points) and we know how poor McLaren are, but but
> if all the other teams had Mercedes engines I
> think Williams might just about scrape into the
> top 10 here and there.
I disagree. I think Austria was the first race this year where the Williams car has realised its full potential, and their season is still gathering momentum. It was clear from the first race that it was a strong car with great natural speed. Bahrain was, IMO, the first race where its potential really started being unlocked. After a few frustrating near misses since then, this was the first weekend where I thought they maxed out and optimised the car's performance and translated it into a representative result, but I think the car has potential to get even better. Claire and the team have done a brilliant job, and it's still getting steadily stronger. I think they're genuinely starting to close up on Mercedes, and considering that their car is more solid and reliable than the Mercedes when pushed hard, it means this could be the first of a string of podiums rather than a freak one-off. They might even snatch a win at some point if Merc have another race like Canada.
Unless I'm very much mistaken! :P
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/2014 06:01PM by EC83.
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