2020 Turkish Grand Prix - Instanbul Park, Nov 13 - 15

[mzso]

Ham is the GOAT and Bottas is not that good. Not as bad as he was today (although once you loose track position today you were toast anyway) but nowhere near Hamilton. People here don’t need to big him up, it doesn’t detract from Hamilton’s shine to be honoust about Bottas. Hamilton is proving time and time again on his own merit what his worth is.

I think Bottas is very good. Anyone that can steal poles and occasional race wins from Hamilton, the greatest in the history of F1 in both of those metrics, while in the same machinery, is good.

FFS with the hyperboles. He's good. Around as good as Alonso, by the looks of it.
But you couldn't even make such statements even if he wasn't winning two person championships. Where one of them is a clearly inferior driver.

I wonder how they'll think of this era in the future. For me the last ~20 years are the dark ages, provided that 2022 regs brings the much needed improvements. (otherwise its continuing) One morbid team dominance after another, with teams/drivers piling up statistics. And utterly dreadful on track action for the most part.

[mzso]

Bottas broke his own front wing and wrecked his own steering by dive bombing Ocon during lap 1 after they initially spun, how is that bad luck? Other drivers had pretty good recovery drives from the back, look at Leclerc, he almost got 2nd.

I don't get it, I honestly don't, Bottas made all the mistakes today, there was no bad luck involved

That's completely true. His drive today was wretched.
I was thinking he's the new Massa. Remembering his hopeless drive at a rainy British GP that ultimately lost him a championship.

[NathanOlder]

On a somewhat related note, Bottas' end plate not only broke off today, but it got stuck in his bodywork. Again.
https://i.redd.it/1s2yb4dxbfz51.jpg

Another thing is Bottas is unlucky. Whether it was the tire blowouts in Baku or Silverstone, Seb’s FW getting stuck in his car a few weeks ago, or losing his own end plate today, completely destroying his front end balance, those are pretty unlucky incidents.

Bottas broke his own front wing and wrecked his own steering by dive bombing Ocon during lap 1 after they initially spun, how is that bad luck? Other drivers had pretty good recovery drives from the back, look at Leclerc, he almost got 2nd.

I don't get it, I honestly don't, Bottas made all the mistakes today, there was no bad luck involved

It was all his own doing, thats for sure. I think the only bit you could say was bad luck was over half the field made mistakes yesterday, going off track ect, yet it appeared Bottas was the only guy who suffered damage ? Lewis went deep in the exact same corner as Bottas on the exact same lap, Lewis had no one just in front to hit.Max lost it at 150mph and spun around twice, didnt hit a thing ect ect. Bottas' race was terrible, he just got unlucky with the damage that apparently bent his steering and wedged a piece of endplate in the bargeboard area again.

Just to be clear, Im not defending Bottas, he was terrible, but dont forget Nico was lapped by Lewis in the wet at Monaco. Doesnt mean Nico was poor.

[mzso]

It was all his own doing, thats for sure. I think the only bit you could say was bad luck was over half the field made mistakes yesterday, going off track ect, yet it appeared Bottas was the only guy who suffered damage ?

But who else had six spins? Plus that damage was most likely after the collision with Ocon, which didn't happen because of the conditions, but because of his own clumsiness.

[El Scorchio]

Everyone has bad races. Bottas just happened to have a stinker yesterday. Either that, or the Mercedes car really was THAT difficult to drive in those conditions with so little heat getting into the tyres (which we know is a characteristic of the car) that it just makes the other guy's performance in the sister car all the more remarkable.

[Sieper]

Everyone has bad races. Bottas just happened to have a stinker yesterday. Either that, or the Mercedes car really was THAT difficult to drive in those conditions with so little heat getting into the tyres (which we know is a characteristic of the car) that it just makes the other guy's performance in the sister car all the more remarkable.

That is because Hamilton is in a different league. But to be honoust, his own drive on the full wets resulting in him unnecessarily losing 3 places with an off and a misjudged overtake attempt as well. Only on the inters on a less wet track he was able to pull great times and make the tires last enough. Yesterday was also about what car was good on what tires. Merc was better on inters, RB on the fullwets. RP was good on both.

[Sieper]

Ham is the GOAT and Bottas is not that good. Not as bad as he was today (although once you loose track position today you were toast anyway) but nowhere near Hamilton. People here don’t need to big him up, it doesn’t detract from Hamilton’s shine to be honoust about Bottas. Hamilton is proving time and time again on his own merit what his worth is.

I think Bottas is very good. Anyone that can steal poles and occasional race wins from Hamilton, the greatest in the history of F1 in both of those metrics, while in the same machinery, is good.

FFS with the hyperboles. He's good. Around as good as Alonso, by the looks of it.
But you couldn't even make such statements even if he wasn't winning two person championships. Where one of them is a clearly inferior driver.

I wonder how they'll think of this era in the future. For me the last ~20 years are the dark ages, provided that 2022 regs brings the much needed improvements. (otherwise its continuing) One morbid team dominance after another, with teams/drivers piling up statistics. And utterly dreadful on track action for the most part.

But still, Alonso is also a great, no question. I agree the dominance of a car is not nice, especially when it is or will be the same for a decade. But that is also the norm most years. I believe Mercedes won half the championships they participated in?

I judge (who am I but ok, we all form our opinions) on skill, when a driver is making a tough move, quick reaction etc. To me Hamilton is top level in that. And since he will be the one also with the best stats, if not already now, why not call him the goat. In football the modern players are also better, building on the knowledge and skills and methods of those that came before. Messi is better than Cruijff. Would Cruijff play now he would be better then a Messi in the 70s. But Those are also greats of the sport, but the current state of art is always improving in most fields. Mercedes has been state of art for almost a decade now.

[El Scorchio]

Everyone has bad races. Bottas just happened to have a stinker yesterday. Either that, or the Mercedes car really was THAT difficult to drive in those conditions with so little heat getting into the tyres (which we know is a characteristic of the car) that it just makes the other guy's performance in the sister car all the more remarkable.

That is because Hamilton is in a different league. But to be honoust, his own drive on the full wets resulting in him unnecessarily losing 3 places with an off and a misjudged overtake attempt as well. Only on the inters on a less wet track he was able to pull great times and make the tires last enough. Yesterday was also about what car was good on what tires. Merc was better on inters, RB on the fullwets. RP was good on both.

Exactly- I mean there can't have been many, if any drivers at all who didn't have at least one excursion or a neat little pirouette at some point during the race. It's clear the Merc really struggled bringing it's tyres up to temp. Not sure it was the better car than all the others on inters, but clearly better than it was on full wets. Let's not forget Bottas had a torrid time and no pace on either. Clearly Hamilton sussed out grip and drove himself into a groove from starting off cautiously- something he's made a bit of a trademark recently. I think it clearly held on to the inters a lot longer than other cars- when the kindness to tyres from about halfway through started becoming a benefit rather than a hinderance. The Red Bulls and the Racing points were clearly great cars at points during the race as well. I think both teams will be looking at that race as missing an almost open goal for a win through strategy calls that didn't work out or driver errors.

But either way and regardless of the actual result- and just like Germany 2018- what a great race the conditions gave us. Drama all the way through. With minimal interference for once from the clown in the booth.

[Sieper]

I had a friend over that Needed to go to a birthday party (with 3 persons) I said to him, you’ll never see the end of the race, but he did. I expected at least Half a dozen SC.

I did not mean to imply best of the bunch, just as compared to the other tire for them indeed, like you read it.

[Mogster]

I had a friend over that Needed to go to a birthday party (with 3 persons) I said to him, you’ll never see the end of the race, but he did. I expected at least Half a dozen SC.

They were going very slowly, sometimes F3 type pace and Istanbul Park has decent run off.

I’m not sure anyone hit the scenery hard all weekend, with the low speed there was no energy in the incidents.

[El Scorchio]

I had a friend over that Needed to go to a birthday party (with 3 persons) I said to him, you’ll never see the end of the race, but he did. I expected at least Half a dozen SC.

I did not mean to imply best of the bunch, just as compared to the other tire for them indeed, like you read it.

Definitely! It was far, far less of a dog at least for Hamilton on the inters rather than wets once they were worn in and up to temperature. But it was fun to see unpredictability over the weekend and to be frank to see the Mercs nowhere on Saturday. But for a few minor things and even to the last lap if the rain had come in, that race could easily have had a different winner.

[i70q7m7ghw]

Bottas' race was terrible, he just got unlucky with the damage that apparently bent his steering and wedged a piece of endplate in the bargeboard area again.

Just to be clear, Im not defending Bottas, he was terrible, but dont forget Nico was lapped by Lewis in the wet at Monaco. Doesnt mean Nico was poor.

He didn't get unlucky with that damage though, he dive bombed Ocon and damaged the car himself. This was AFTER the spin in T1, later in the lap he tried to take Ocon and fluffed it.

[basti313]

Everyone has bad races. Bottas just happened to have a stinker yesterday. Either that, or the Mercedes car really was THAT difficult to drive in those conditions with so little heat getting into the tyres (which we know is a characteristic of the car) that it just makes the other guy's performance in the sister car all the more remarkable.

That is because Hamilton is in a different league. But to be honoust, his own drive on the full wets resulting in him unnecessarily losing 3 places with an off and a misjudged overtake attempt as well. Only on the inters on a less wet track he was able to pull great times and make the tires last enough. Yesterday was also about what car was good on what tires. Merc was better on inters, RB on the fullwets. RP was good on both.

Absolutely.
I was a bit surprised when the media echo was 100% GOAT...we saw a rather mediocre performance in the first stint, which was certainly based to some extend on the tires not warming up. On the other hand this helped on the inters A LOT. In the end Merc gambled into the win with the sidestory of the 4 fastest cars in Q disassembling their tires in different fashions. So surprise, surprise...a Merc won a race this season. Who would have expected this?
I do not want to talk down the GOAT status, but this race as a proof?

I think the race behind was as usual more interesting.
- Both Bulls throwing it away.
- Vettel faultless and extremely good in the first sting, but surprisingly slow after the change to inters....it is nice to see his result, but loosing a 37sec lead to Lec tells a bit the usual reality of this season. In the end he still showed his experience and I suspect a similar issue like with Stroll, that he switched on the tires quite well, but this lead to graining after the second stop.

[Sieper]

I had a friend over that Needed to go to a birthday party (with 3 persons) I said to him, you’ll never see the end of the race, but he did. I expected at least Half a dozen SC.

They were going very slowly, sometimes F3 type pace and Istanbul Park has decent run off.

I’m not sure anyone hit the scenery hard all weekend, with the low speed there was no energy in the incidents.

I don’t think so either. They only damage From hitting the barrières I saw was on the outlap, giovinazzi hit the wall and Russell on pit entry (he had to start from there). Both low energy. Outlap has no heat in tires. Max his attempt on Perez was the most high energy spin but he stayed on the track. Mostly

[Just_a_fan]

Not sure if this has already been posted. Vettel's opening half lap. He had a great start and navigated those ahead that were struggling off the line beautifully. Interesting to see Hamilton pulling away from him before his little trip off track in T9/T10. I guess that's why Hamilton was all over Vettel for so many laps. He was quicker but Vettel drove a blinder keeping Hamilton behind him.

This was Seb's best race in 12 months (since his win in Singapore last year). Sure, he had a couple of second places after Singapore but he'd started one of them on pole. In Istanbul, he drove a brilliant race and made sure he was there to take the spoils when Leclerc tripped up on the last lap.