F1 - 2017 Mexican Grand Prix

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F1 - 2017 Mexican Grand Prix

US TV Times:
Practice 1: Friday October 27th, 11:00AM EST , NBCSN
Practice 2: Friday October 27th, 3:00PM EST , NBCSN
Practice 3: Saturday October 28th, 11:00PM EST , NBC Sports Live Extra
Qualifying: Saturday October 28th, 2:00PM EST , NBCSN
Race: Sunday October 29th, 2:00PM EST , NBC

Standings:
Drivers
1. Lewis Hamilton, 331
2. Sebastian Vettel, 265
3. Valtteri Bottas, 244
4. Kimi Raikkonen, 192
5. Daniel Ricciardo, 192
6. Max Verstappen, 123
7. Sergio Perez, 86
8. Esteban Ocon, 73
9. Carlos Sainz, 54
10. Felipe Massa, 36
Constructors
1. Mercedes AMG Petronas, 575
2. Scuderia Ferrari, 428
3. Red Bull Racing, 315
4. Sahara Force India, 159
5. Williams Martini Racing, 68
6. Scuderia Toro Rosso, 53
7. Renault Sport F1, 48
8. Haas F1 Team, 43
9. McLaren-Honda, 23
10. Sauber, 5

For more, including track data, analysis, and video please check out my full post on TOV Motorsports.

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Lewis will be happy to finally get on par with his chief rival’s four championships as he considers himself the superior driver. Red Bull’s dominance lasted four years. Is it time for Mercedes to slip in ‘18?
 
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If I had anything to say about it, I'd instruct Kimi to skewer Lewis at the start of each race. But, I'd wind up like Flavio Briatore. Then again, Kimi is really due for retirement and has no financial wants, and I'm a nobody, so they could hire me to give Kimi an idiotic order and I could be banned from the sport and no one would care.
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Maybe they'll get turn 1 right this year in the stewarding or better yet none of that repeat nonsense. But alas it's the FIA so not much hope there for consistency.
 
Originally Posted By: Garak
If I had anything to say about it, I'd instruct Kimi to skewer Lewis at the start of each race.


I would too. Kimi is a good enough driver to, "make it look like an accident". And besides, someone would have to wake up Whiting before it happened. Briatori and Symonds weren't the problem in Singapore. Their plan worked to a tee. The problem was the little rat they had do the deed. It never would have come out if that weasel Piquet Jr. hadn't opened his mouth after Renault gave him his walking papers. Of all the people currently starting on the F1 grid, Kimi would no doubt make the best "hit man".
 
Originally Posted By: billt460
Originally Posted By: Garak
If I had anything to say about it, I'd instruct Kimi to skewer Lewis at the start of each race.

I would too. Kimi is a good enough driver to, "make it look like an accident". And besides, someone would have to wake up Whiting before it happened. Briatori and Symonds weren't the problem in Singapore. Their plan worked to a tee. The problem was the little rat they had do the deed. It never would have come out if that weasel Piquet Jr. hadn't opened his mouth after Renault gave him his walking papers. Of all the people currently starting on the F1 grid, Kimi would no doubt make the best "hit man".

That almost sounds like you agree with what Renault did.
 
Originally Posted By: Bottom_Feeder
That almost sounds like you agree with what Renault did.


Renault wasn't the first, believe me. And they will by no means be the last. They were just the ones to get caught. Rules are made to be broken. Especially in motorsports. It always falls to what you can get away with. Not how well you conform. And it's not just Formula 1. Look at NASCAR. Taking people out without getting caught or penalized is, and has been one of the mainstays of a "good driver" in that sport.

And as far as Formula 1, they are a victim of their own silly creation. With their whole "team sport" concept. By cultivating that kind of atmosphere in racing, it just becomes a breeding ground for that type of misbehavior. And creates even more of the inconsistencies Formula 1 has now become so famous for. Or rather infamous. "Team orders" are not supposed to exist. Yet everyone knows they do. And nothing is done about it unless it becomes so blatantly obvious they have to, or else look like idiots. The rest of the time they just look the other way.

Symonds and Briatori took "team orders" to the extreme. And they almost got away with it. And I don't ever remember Alonso griping about it. Even after they got caught. He just played dumb. You can't blame these guys for doing this sort of thing, when the FIA, along with Formula 1 Administration sets it all up. It's almost like what the FBI and DEA tried to do to John Delorean. They placed him into an environment to entice him into an illegal act. F1 did much the same with Briatori, Symonds, and Renault. The only difference is Delorean got away with it. Renault didn't. But the illegality still existed in everyone's mind before they did it. In short, they all knew that what they were doing was illegal. But they decided to roll the dice and do it anyway.
 
I'm shocked, SHOCKED, that anyone would infringe the rules. Or that such an august group as us might agree with it. (Working on my snowflake junior grade)
 
Originally Posted By: Garak
If I had anything to say about it, I'd instruct Kimi to skewer Lewis at the start of each race. But, I'd wind up like Flavio Briatore. Then again, Kimi is really due for retirement and has no financial wants, and I'm a nobody, so they could hire me to give Kimi an idiotic order and I could be banned from the sport and no one would care.
wink.gif


I think we could assemble a team so that most of the Ferrari team could have plausible deniability and return to work next year.

It won't be the end of the world if HAM wins again but I'd at least like it to come down to the last race.
 
Originally Posted By: billt460
I would too. Kimi is a good enough driver to, "make it look like an accident". And besides, someone would have to wake up Whiting before it happened. Briatori and Symonds weren't the problem in Singapore. Their plan worked to a tee. The problem was the little rat they had do the deed.

Kimi is the key to my plan. He hardly says anything at the best of times. They'd never get the story out of him. Charlie is probably occupied right now trying to find out how to locate Max's apology on Instagram, so he's busy.
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Between English, Finnish, German, and Italian, it would all be a big misunderstanding.

As for cheating in general, yes, I wish everyone were totally clean, but they all do whatever they can get away with, be it big or little. If my tongue-in-cheek plan had any real chance of succeeding without consequences (be they formal FIA sanctions or just loss of sponsorships or something like that), I have little doubt they'd try, as would anyone else. Max's last foray in the last race is the perfect example. He knows that four wheels outside the white lines means off track. He knows that going off track to gain an advantage is against the rules. He simply thought he'd get away with it, because others did. If he was interested in being honest and not cheating, he wouldn't have done it. He thought he'd get away with it, plain and simple.

gofast182: As much as I'm no Hamilton fan, I can't begrudge him the title this year. He's kept his nose clean and Mercedes reliability has been impeccable this year. He had some pretty rotten luck last year, so a year of reliability is certainly fair. Mercedes may not have had the out and out fastest car like in previous years, but they followed the most important rule - to finish first, you have to first finish. If both Ferraris finished every race, things would have been different.
 
Originally Posted By: Garak
Kimi is the key to my plan.


And I didn't hear a word from him after qualifying. He is in the perfect position, (5th), to stick the nose of that Ferrari right into the side pod of Hamilton, (3rd). Tomorrow is the perfect day for a little engine coolant on the track. The dry air at 7,300 ft. above sea level will cause it to evaporate quickly. The key to this is for no one to nudge Whiting until after it's over. Then blame the whole thing on Verstappen. Whiting and the stewards will add 10 seconds to his time instantly. As it stands now he could be looking at least 5 seconds, and 3 grid spots for not making his car disappear when Bottas came near him.
 
Max got away with the "blocking" of Bottas, which didn't seem to be much of a deal. He should count his lucky stars with the way he and Jos have been flapping their gums lately.

The British media's bias (I'm an anglophile, so this pains me) against Ferrari was pretty obvious so far this weekend. Even Martin Brundle pointed it out. Everyone, from Damon Hill, to Johnny Herbert, and the rest of the crew were talking about how it will be Red Bull all the way followed by Mercedes, with Ferrari being relegated to fifth and sixth, if they were lucky, to hear them tell it. Brundle pointed out in the middle of qualifying how no one was talking about Ferrari, yet Vettel continued to quietly pump in very quick laps. In the end, he beats Verstappen to pole.

If Red Bull got a 1-2 finish each time the media was cheerleading for them or Riccardio claimed they'd be the favourite, they'd have the both championships locked up a month ago, rather than be languishing. As it is, both Toro Rosso's lost their engines today, and Riccardio may be changing his.

Heck, Kimi never says much. Even with Verstappen's penalty, he didn't say much either way, other than to say for Verstappen to suck it up after he was whining for a few days.
 
It was a pity that Vettel collided both with Max & Lewis.

It would have been a very interesting race amongst those three if they were all in the top three.

That's why next year should be very exciting. Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull & also McLaren with a Renault engine all have drivers capable of winning the championship.
 
That was one of the top 3 races of the season IMO, almost has me rethinking my position on reverse grids.

Congrats. to HAM, he earned his championship. I'd have liked to see it come down to Abu Dhabi but that's OK. He may have the best car but for him to drive it so fast and seldom put a foot wrong shows it's down to talent as much as anything.

Renault: [censored]?! A dismal showing from the Renault-powered teams as they lost car after car due to reliability issues, perhaps exacerbated by the high altitude. Side note: on the NBC coverage ALO and Zak Brown took veiled shots at Honda over the course of the weekend until during the race when David Hobbs asked Brown about the Renault engines dropping like flies. That was great.
HUL-DNF
SAI-DNF
RIC-DNF
HAR-DNF

Renault's issues aside, they powered VER to a very nice drive for the win. It's nice to see him on the top step after such a bad start to the season (some of that due to Renault reliability) and penalty issues.

I thought Haas was relegated to no better than P11 this weekend but that was a flawless drive by MAG to bring it home in P8 and get some points. He had some help with attrition but he largely did it on merit with a car that had no business being there.

RAI was kind of the forgotten man but he drove a nice race. VET drove a super gutsy race coming up through the field and fighting as hard as he could until HAM crossed the line. He'll come back hungry for the remaining races and next year knowing WDC could've been his.

Nice drives by ALO and VAN working their way up the order. It is clear that McLaren has a good chassis and the Honda engine does do a good job powering the car out of corners. When ALO was trying to overtake MAG he obviously had nothing for him on the main straight (even with DRS open) but on the short straight with DRS open he was catching MAG who had to defend a couple times in turn 4 until Lewis caught ALO and drew him back. Trap speeds weren't the slowest, either.
 
Congratulations to Lewis. He earned it and I wish him more success. Vettel is a idiot, Ferrari would serve them selves well to consider other options. He has lost his ability to control his self in high stress situations. He is worse than Senna ever was. Vettel is a liability to the team and cost them a chance at the Manufactures Championship, and killed any chance for him at a World Championship. For those wishing for a fierce battle next year, I don’t believe there will be. Vettel has lost his edge, he has lost his focus, lost his temper over and over. Look at how many penalty points he as accumulated this year. He simply can no longer control his emotions in the car. It happens drivers loose there edge, loose there minds.
 
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Originally Posted By: rodinator1234
Congratulations to Lewis. He earned it and I wish him more success. Vettel is a idiot, Ferrari would serve them selves well to consider other options. He has lost his ability to control his self in high stress situations. He is worse than Senna ever was. Vettel is a liability to the team and cost them a chance at the Manufactures Championship, and killed any chance for him at a World Championship. For those wishing for a fierce battle next year, I don’t believe there will be. Vettel has lost his edge, he has lost his focus, lost his temper over and over. Look at how many penalty points he as accumulated this year. He simply can no longer control his emotions in the car. It happens drivers loose there edge, loose there minds.


I think there will still be a good battle next year but I think the three guys fighting it out the most will be Lewis, Max and Alonso. I also believe Daniel has a good shot of being in the mix as well. But Vettel will do something to screw things up as usual.
 
Originally Posted By: gofast182
That was one of the top 3 races of the season


Seriously? I have to respectfully disagree. Once they got sorted after a couple of corners, it was, in VER’s own words, “a cruise”. The top three spread out and were never threatened with a pass even after F1’s horrible fake drama inducing tire rule. The whole story became VET’s predictable run up through the field which was easily predicted by all observers based on the relative quality of the cars before the race. FIA even helped him by blue-flagging drivers ahead of him even though they were “racing” for position. Never seen that.

It became a predictable yawner for me. I’m dreaming of a hybrid-less, normally aspirated F1 with at least two tire suppliers. Then let the fun begin.
 
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