2021 Portuguese Grand Prix - Portimão, Apr 30 - May 02

[MKlaus]

the reality is, max doesn't have the experience to fight for championship and is bound to make some mistakes under pressure. lewis is battle hardened, while he may have lost some edge in qualifying as he doesn't produce those lightning laps anymore. he is simply a shark in races and barely let's his prey go. the red bull seems to be standing still whereas mercedes has caught them and now moving forward. unless red bull does an out of the world job on upgrades and max minimizes those small mistakes, it's difficult to beat lewis and mercedes.
with redbull struggling for power and the way alpha tauri is falling behind, honda's initial impressions of being the best pu on the grid is also falling flat. this is turning out to be a 2018 all over again. ferrari started well and then mercedes took over.

[MKlaus]

Agreed, 1 thing I don't understand is why Bottas didn't attempt to defend against Max at all when Max got him. I think if he defended the inside line he probably kept position.

because he is bottas. he only defends hard against a williams.

[Sieper]

Fair enough!

Next time,maybe you could try to do what dans79 suggested


I wonder if he feels ashamed that Norris is ahead of him on the WDC

Anyway, I think HAM is gonna be champ again. I´m under the impression that his car is still faster and VER makes too many mistakes while under pressure

I didn´t like how people hyped HAM´s win in Bahrain because he spent most of the race off the track and should have been given many time penalties(as in MotoGP, well, if that was the case HAM would have finished behind Mazepin ) but I do think he did a quite better job than VER this time.

Leclerc and Norris have been the best drivers of the season imho, a shame they can´t fight for the tittle.

Ver overtook both Mercedeses. In a car that was not as fast. Especially those last corners and on the straight itself. Even Ham took quite some laps (with DRS) to get Bot. Max had one shot at Bot, when his tires were warm, and he took it. He also managed to keep the quicker Merc at bay. And then the exhaust issue was the end of Bottas’ fight but still. I think Ver did a very good job. The car wasn’t there this weekend, he already said on Friday evening.

Next race is also a very good Merc track. By now I am hoping, less confident the cars are actually equal, but let’s see.

I am not buying the Lewis campaign of trying to make Max look bad, good gamesmanship though. it was Lewis himself caught napping. Max just didn’t have the car to compete here.

Last year it was 30 secs behind though. Let’s see how it goes, only one week.

Agreed, 1 thing I don't understand is why Bottas didn't attempt to defend against Max at all when Max got him. I think if he defended the inside line he probably kept position.

That indeed wasn’t very good defending, no way Lewis would have let that happen. Should Max really be close this year I think that will be the nail in the coffin for Bottas. Then they will need to put Russell next to Hamilton.

[Sieper]

the reality is, max doesn't have the experience to fight for championship and is bound to make some mistakes under pressure. lewis is battle hardened, while he may have lost some edge in qualifying as he doesn't produce those lightning laps anymore. he is simply a shark in races and barely let's his prey go. the red bull seems to be standing still whereas mercedes has caught them and now moving forward. unless red bull does an out of the world job on upgrades and max minimizes those small mistakes, it's difficult to beat lewis and mercedes.
with redbull struggling for power and the way alpha tauri is falling behind, honda's initial impressions of being the best pu on the grid is also falling flat. this is turning out to be a 2018 all over again. ferrari started well and then mercedes took over.

Well, the, I think clearly, choose a more conservative power mode this weekend. Indeed very clear with AT to see. Perhaps as they knew this would be a Merc track, perhaps a misjudgement.

Max also had a power issue in Q2. After the qualy there was a shot of the rbr garage of a couple of guys thanking a Honda engine man profusely.

Lets see how it goes. It still is close.

[zibby43]

If you must know, I went to the toilet.

Fair enough!

Next time,maybe you could try to do what dans79 suggested

Bottas is plain simple 3rd class driver.

I wonder if he feels ashamed that Norris is ahead of him on the WDC

Anyway, I think HAM is gonna be champ again. I´m under the impression that his car is still faster and VER makes too many mistakes while under pressure

I didn´t like how people hyped HAM´s win in Bahrain because he spent most of the race off the track and should have been given many time penalties(as in MotoGP, well, if that was the case HAM would have finished behind Mazepin ) but I do think he did a quite better job than VER this time.

Leclerc and Norris have been the best drivers of the season imho, a shame they can´t fight for the tittle.

Ver overtook both Mercedeses. In a car that was not as fast. Especially those last corners and on the straight itself. Even Ham took quite some laps (with DRS) to get Bot. Max had one shot at Bot, when his tires were warm, and he took it. He also managed to keep the quicker Merc at bay. And then the exhaust issue was the end of Bottas’ fight but still. I think Ver did a very good job. The car wasn’t there this weekend, he already said on Friday evening.

Next race is also a very good Merc track. By now I am hoping, less confident the cars are actually equal, but let’s see.

I am not buying the Lewis campaign of trying to make Max look bad, good gamesmanship though. it was Lewis himself caught napping. Max just didn’t have the car to compete here.

Last year it was 30 secs behind though. Let’s see how it goes, only one week.

Max clearly had a car that could compete this weekend. It was just yesterday that everyone was saying he should’ve been on pole and that the RB was clearly the faster car still.

[Sieper]

I never said that. And I certainly didn’t think that. He almost did it though.

[godlameroso]

It's very close, I think today's win was due to Hamilton switching on the tires, and capitalizing on Verstappen's mistake. Once it's was a duel between Hamilton and Verstappen, the gap was locked solid, there's very little pace difference between the two, and the tires played into Mercedes hands. Well done for Hamilton, a perfect drive, Verstappen did what he could but he had no answer.

On to the next one, I feel that Barcelona will play into the RBR's strengths, high speed high aero dependent corners.

Without Bottas, Hamilton cannot win so we should be mindful of the sacrifice he has to make.

[nevill3]

Bottas had cooler tyres and less grip than Max in that skirmish he got a little out of shape which gave Max the run on him. Bottas's inability to maximise his in lap allowed for the undercut scenario albiet with him coming out just ahead of Max. The longer pit stop for Mercedes did not help though. The only thing that let Bottas down was allowing Max to pull a gap straight away, If he could have kept the pressure on Max and managed an early pass his couple of slow laps would have only brought Max back onto his gearbox.

[Sieper]

It's very close, I think today's win was due to Hamilton switching on the tires, and capitalizing on Verstappen's mistake. Once it's was a duel between Hamilton and Verstappen, the gap was locked solid, there's very little pace difference between the two, and the tires played into Mercedes hands. Well done for Hamilton, a perfect drive, Verstappen did what he could but he had no answer.

On to the next one, I feel that Barcelona will play into the RBR's strengths, high speed high aero dependent corners.

“Verstappen mistake” “Hamilton perfect”. What about the restart. Come on man. Verstappen gave it all but just didn’t have the pace here, on that we do agree. He tried over the limit to hang on to his lead over Hamilton. Even Bottas was chasing him down in stint 2.

[PlatinumZealot]

Today the cars were as equal as two different racing cars could get to all those people still complaining about Mercedes pulling out a whopping 3 seconds in 60 laps.

“Verstappen mistake” “Hamilton perfect”. What about the restart. Come on man. Verstappen gave it all but just didn’t have the pace here, on that we do agree. He tried over the limit to hang on to his lead over Hamilton. Even Bottas was chasing him down in stint 2.

Ham did a mistake at the restart yes, agreed. I do not agree however that Max "didn't have the pace." Which race were you watching? Didn't you see the undercut on Bottas? Didn't you see them trading fastest laps all race?

[nacho]

Agreed, 1 thing I don't understand is why Bottas didn't attempt to defend against Max at all when Max got him. I think if he defended the inside line he probably kept position.

because he is bottas. he only defends hard against a williams.

Well he just came from the pits and had cold tires. Maybe if they had pitted him a lap or two earlier he would have been able to keep second.

[Sieper]

Today the cars were as equal as two different racing cars could get to all those people still complaining about Mercedes pulling out a whopping 3 seconds in 60 laps.

“Verstappen mistake” “Hamilton perfect”. What about the restart. Come on man. Verstappen gave it all but just didn’t have the pace here, on that we do agree. He tried over the limit to hang on to his lead over Hamilton. Even Bottas was chasing him down in stint 2.

Ham did a mistake at the restart yes, agreed. I do not agree however that Max "didn't have the pace." Which race were you watching? Didn't you see the undercut on Bottas? Didn't you see them trading fastest laps all race?

I was just veryfying what “perfect” means in your wordbook. Undercut on Bottas I did see, that was a devilish inlap, a bit of luck with the 3.3 pitstop and 1 chance at Bottas that he took. Otherwise it would have been like stint 1 all over. Bottas, even Bottas, had more pace. I was trembling in my seat all stint 2 long, hoping that Max could prevent a DRS blow by.

[zibby43]

I never said that. And I certainly didn’t think that. He almost did it though.

We were of the same opinion then. I thought Merc had looked the fastest it has all season, particularly in qualifying. Hamilton’s Q2 lap was untouchable, and usually Merc crank it up a few tenths from there into Q3, but Q3 ended up being weird yesterday. It was variables that determined the final runs.

As far as race pace, there’s an argument that Merc have had a slightly faster car at certain points (i.e., later in stints) in all races based on their better degradation. But today, Merc clearly had a step up in race pace. Still close, but better control throughout the stints.

Bottas’ exhaust issue ended up costing him 5-6 sec. and a chance to really attack Max.

[Sieper]

I never said that. And I certainly didn’t think that. He almost did it though.

We were of the same opinion then. I thought Merc had looked the fastest it has all season, particularly in qualifying. Hamilton’s Q2 lap was untouchable, and usually Merc crank it up a few tenths from there into Q3, but Q3 ended up being weird yesterday. It was variables that determined the final runs.

As far as race pace, there’s an argument that Merc have had a slightly faster car at certain points (i.e., later in stints) in all races based on their better degradation. But today, Merc clearly had a step up in race pace. Still close, but better control throughout the stints.

Bottas’ exhaust issue ended up costing him 5-6 sec. and a chance to really attack Max.

Yes, it would have been very tense. At first I thought Bottas would for sure get Max. But he kept it around 1.2 1.4 for some time. So Either Bottas was done for, or if indeed when Max tires would have been used up he could try at the end of the stint. But then he lost like 3.5 seconds due to the sensor error and after that he made no inroads anymore.

[NathanOlder]

It's very close, I think today's win was due to Hamilton switching on the tires, and capitalizing on Verstappen's mistake. Once it's was a duel between Hamilton and Verstappen, the gap was locked solid, there's very little pace difference between the two, and the tires played into Mercedes hands. Well done for Hamilton, a perfect drive, Verstappen did what he could but he had no answer.

On to the next one, I feel that Barcelona will play into the RBR's strengths, high speed high aero dependent corners.

Without Bottas, Hamilton cannot win so we should be mindful of the sacrifice he has to make.

Surely without Bottas, Hamilton starts on pole and drives off to 5 seconds up the road and holds the gap at that?