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Congrats McLaren, the second time in a row reaching Q3, now even both cars

Ferrari Q3 mode to the rescue

SDLRob wrote: Wonder if Seb has done damage to his car?

Probably not. Many other cars brushed the wall and there were no adverse effects. The only concern would be the tires, but he will start on Q2 rubber of course.

Red bull still very confident with race pace, should be very interesting tomorrow.

ferdinand wrote:Congrats McLaren, the second time in a row reaching Q3, now even both cars

Well, Malaysia's next. I don't see a 3rd time lucky scenario.

BTW, happy for McLaren.

That was a mega lap from Sebastian, damn!

Both Vettel and Hamilton absolutely, absolutely thrashing their Finnish teammates.

Stunning lap by Vettel. He really loves this track. Ferrari really improved the car overnight. Props to them.
Mercedes was nowhere again. What is it about Singapore that hurts them so much? It's like Kryptonite. Gosh.
Lewis was miles ahead from Bottas all weekend but still couldn't touch the Redbulls and Ferraris. Shocking.
I hope the race will be a lot closer tomorrow but I can see Vettel disappear in the distance. This is one of his favorite if not his favorite tracks. Really outclassed everyone here I thought.

Vettel and Hamilton both showing just how much they really have over their team mates, the RB guys incredibly close. Don't think Vettel is going to have it all his own way tomorrow, and having Max on the front row with him is probably a headache he could do without.

Lucky for Bottas nobody could touch the top 3 teams

lamo wrote:Red bull still very confident with race pace, should be very interesting tomorrow.

They should be, but Vettel might just be too much for them. I'm getting shades of 2013 Singapore all over again.

God, I just watched the full onboard of Sebastian's lap. The best qualifying lap I have seen in ages. The amount of aggression, and the insane amounts of mid-corner, lightning speed corrections, reminded me of Senna from Monaco, all the way back in 1988. Yes, Senna had to manually shift a gear lever, but changing settings mid-corners on a screen is even harder, because it engages your brain, too.

I still can't get over that lap.

Great lap by Vettel - bit lucky but he did it - very close with the RBR - nothing in it really - start will be crucial and SC the obvious wildcard

Both Vettel and Hamilton have shockingly large gaps to their team mates: they may as well be driving for different teams! The Red Bull pair, OTOH, look impressively well matched. It's a good situation for Vettel and if he can keep the Bulls behind him at the start then he stands a chance of finishing with a substantial points margin over Hamilton, given the circuit. And he'll need a big margin to have any chance of fending Lewis off the rest of the year. But Max will surely be eyeing his first win of 2017...

Zoue wrote:Both Vettel and Hamilton have shockingly large gaps to their team mates: they may as well be driving for different teams!

I noticed, and couldn't help thinking whether there might be a level of planning involved. Kimi ending up just ahead of Lewis...

Bottas wasn't actually as far behind Hamilton as Hamilton was behind Rosberg here last year. Here, Bottas was 0.684 behind Hamilton. In 2016, Hamilton was 2 places behind Rosberg with a 0.704 gap. Maybe Bottas was just having a bad day. He was very strong in the race here in 2015. The Williams wasn't strong here at all and he still managed 5th.

Fiki wrote:

Zoue wrote:Both Vettel and Hamilton have shockingly large gaps to their team mates: they may as well be driving for different teams!

I noticed, and couldn't help thinking whether there might be a level of planning involved. Kimi ending up just ahead of Lewis...

Makes 0 sense on any level to have him behind the Red Bulls when he could be defending Vettel from them all if you go down that line of thinking.

kleefton wrote:Stunning lap by Vettel. He really loves this track. Ferrari really improved the car overnight. Props to them.
Mercedes was nowhere again. What is it about Singapore that hurts them so much? It's like Kryptonite. Gosh.
Lewis was miles ahead from Bottas all weekend but still couldn't touch the Redbulls and Ferraris. Shocking.
I hope the race will be a lot closer tomorrow but I can see Vettel disappear in the distance. This is one of his favorite if not his favorite tracks. Really outclassed everyone here I thought.

I think Ferrari always had the pace over everyone here. Exactly the same thing happened at Hungary.

No surprise that Merc struggled here given their car characteristics. I wonder if they are beginning to regret those team orders they issued in Hungary.

F1Oz wrote:Great lap by Vettel - bit lucky but he did it - very close with the RBR - nothing in it really - start will be crucial and SC the obvious wildcard

MV will obviously not back out of any turn 1 confrontation, but the run to turn 1 is very short. I don't remember anyone starting from pole and losing the lead at the start on this track.

davidheath461 wrote: No surprise that Merc struggled here given their car characteristics. I wonder if they are beginning to regret those team orders they issued in Hungary.

What team orders? Bottas was ahead and he was always going to finish ahead. Team orders would be if they allowed Hamilton to pass.

davidheath461 wrote:

kleefton wrote:Stunning lap by Vettel. He really loves this track. Ferrari really improved the car overnight. Props to them.
Mercedes was nowhere again. What is it about Singapore that hurts them so much? It's like Kryptonite. Gosh.
Lewis was miles ahead from Bottas all weekend but still couldn't touch the Redbulls and Ferraris. Shocking.
I hope the race will be a lot closer tomorrow but I can see Vettel disappear in the distance. This is one of his favorite if not his favorite tracks. Really outclassed everyone here I thought.

I think Ferrari always had the pace over everyone here. Exactly the same thing happened at Hungary.

No surprise that Merc struggled here given their car characteristics. I wonder if they are beginning to regret those team orders they issued in Hungary.

With Merc, it's not just this year they struggle at this track. Even in their most dominant year, 2014, it was the hardest race for them to win. In 2015 it was just like today, starting behind redbull and ferrari. So if you are referring to the long wheelbase characteristic, that's not it because it wasn't used in prior years.

Flash2k11 wrote:

Fiki wrote:

Zoue wrote:Both Vettel and Hamilton have shockingly large gaps to their team mates: they may as well be driving for different teams!

I noticed, and couldn't help thinking whether there might be a level of planning involved. Kimi ending up just ahead of Lewis...

Makes 0 sense on any level to have him behind the Red Bulls when he could be defending Vettel from them all if you go down that line of thinking.

Indeed. If they wanted him to be directly ahead of Hamilton, best way to guarantee that is qualifying P2 and drop back to directly where Lewis is once the race gets under way. Hamilton ended what 0.050 behind Kimi...

Kimi was just his usual self and its Vettels best track. I wonder if Bottas would have been re-signed if he had this form all season. Hamilton has beaten him by more than 0.450 in 6 of the last 8 races. Really surprising considering Bottas was 3-3 with Hamilton early in the year.

kleefton wrote:
With Merc, it's not just this year they struggle at this track. Even in their most dominant year, 2014, it was the hardest race for them to win. In 2015 it was just like today, starting behind redbull and ferrari. So if you are referring to the long wheelbase characteristic, that's not it because it wasn't used in prior years.

2015 was much worse than this year. They were 1.6 seconds off in qualifying then and 1 second even behind Red Bull.

lamo wrote:

Flash2k11 wrote:

Fiki wrote:

Zoue wrote:Both Vettel and Hamilton have shockingly large gaps to their team mates: they may as well be driving for different teams!

I noticed, and couldn't help thinking whether there might be a level of planning involved. Kimi ending up just ahead of Lewis...

Makes 0 sense on any level to have him behind the Red Bulls when he could be defending Vettel from them all if you go down that line of thinking.

Indeed. If they wanted him to be directly ahead of Hamilton, best way to guarantee that is qualifying P2 and drop back to directly where Lewis is once the race gets under way. Hamilton ended what 0.050 behind Kimi...

Kimi was just his usual self and its Vettels best track. I wonder if Bottas would have been re-signed if he had this form all season. Hamilton has beaten him by more than 0.450 in 6 of the last 8 races. Really surprising considering Bottas was 3-3 with Hamilton early in the year.

Bottas' saving grace is his race pace, probably. At least he generally finishes where the car should, which is what you want from a number two driver

That's how you do it under incredible pressure. Two insanely great laps from Seb to put it on pole, having trailed the Red Bulls all weekend. It's his razor sharp consistency that will win him this title.

Hamilton struggled to shine yet again when the Mercedes power advantage is taken away from him.

Both Red Bull drivers were fantastic too with almost nothing between them run after run.

It should be a fun race tomorrow

TheGiantHogweed wrote:Bottas wasn't actually as far behind Hamilton as Hamilton was behind Rosberg here last year. Here, Bottas was 0.684 behind Hamilton. In 2016, Hamilton was 2 places behind Rosberg with a 0.704 gap. Maybe Bottas was just having a bad day. He was very strong in the race here in 2015. The Williams wasn't strong here at all and he still managed 5th.

Hamilton crucially missed all of P2 and then had limited running in P3 as the race engine was in by then. P1 is also in mostly daylight and not representative of the rest of the weekend at all - Its a track you need to build the speed up on through the sessions. He basically had hardly any practice. 24 laps in P1 in mostly daylight, 1 lap in P2 and 1 lap in P3...then straight into qualifying. I have vilified his performance that weekend for a long time but I didn't realise how little running he actually had. 2 laps in P2 and P3 combined.

Lewis was under par that weekend but a lot was to do with his break down in P2, he was ahead of Nico in P1.

Really good qualifying. Don't think I've actually enjoyed watching a quali that much since possibly 2012.

Zoue wrote: Bottas' saving grace is his race pace, probably. At least he generally finishes where the car should, which is what you want from a number two driver

His race pace is generally weak though, he disappears in at least one stint (tyre related).

He just has the luxury of the car sitting in a big window performance wise. Basically you have Hamilton and Vettel and a large gap to Raikkonen about 0.4-0.6 back (generally). Bottas just needs to slot into there for 3rd place every week. Its highly unusual to be 0.450+ behind your team mate in 6 of 8 races and start generally 1-2 places behind him.

So even if his pace is really bad, he should finish 3rd most weekends. If Mercedes has a big advantage like Silverstone and Monza he can get some 2nds and if Hamilton has a stinker, he can win. But Hamilton stinkers seem to be a thing of the early season.

minchy wrote:Really good qualifying. Don't think I've actually enjoyed watching a quali that much since possibly 2012.

Really? I thought it was quite anti-climatic after the first runs - it was clear that Vettel was out of reach and no one was able to improve their positions.

There have been more exciting qualifying sessions this year alone.

mcdo wrote:Lucky for Bottas nobody could touch the top 3 teams

I was expecting Bottas to be a little weak here. He's never been splendid here in the past. I thought in a Mercedes he had a chance to go better. Am expecting Raikkonen to perform better than Bottas tomorrow.

MasterRacer wrote:Hamilton struggled to shine yet again when the Mercedes power advantage is taken away from him.

That's not true, he utterly dominated his teammate

Fiki wrote:

Zoue wrote:Both Vettel and Hamilton have shockingly large gaps to their team mates: they may as well be driving for different teams!

I noticed, and couldn't help thinking whether there might be a level of planning involved. Kimi ending up just ahead of Lewis...

Really believe that the pole should've belonged to Kimi, right?
1. Kimi ran in front of Lewis if I can still remember, and it's beyond impossible if he knew Lewis wouldn't have beaten him had he slowed down intentionally to give the pole to Vettel.
2. Even if Kimi ran behind Lewis, the top 6 were not far from each other, it's impossible to "adjust" Kimi's position such that he could beat Lewis but still behind the Red Bulls.
3. The best strategy for Ferrari is to put this "lapdog" at the front, either in front of the Red Bulls to "protect the Ferrari's number one" from Max and Dan, or at the pole only to move away for "the number one" right after the start.
All scenarios don't match any suspicion that Kimi is arranged to play second fiddle in this qualy.

lamo wrote:I wonder if Bottas would have been re-signed if he had this form all season. Hamilton has beaten him by more than 0.450 in 6 of the last 8 races. Really surprising considering Bottas was 3-3 with Hamilton early in the year.

Surely Mercedes will look at the race results more than the qualifying position when considering to re-sign a driver? In the 6 races out of the 8 you bring back, Bottas has usually recovered if his qualifying was slow enough to result in a car or more going between him and Hamilton.

In Canada, he started 3rd, but turned it into a 1 - 2 finish for the team. The team couldn't want more.

In Azerbaijan, Bottas qualified 2nd. So although he didn't beat Hamilton, that was the best the team could get. Bottas was a little lucky in the race, but considering the circumstances, he very nearly got the best possible result the team could have managed that day.

In Britain, he qualified 4th. So not great. He had a grid penalty, which dropped him to 9th. He finished 2nd. A 1 - 2 for the team again. Best possible result.

Belgium was a race where it looked very likely he would manage 3rd, but he made a mistake at the restart near the end which cost him. This wasn't a great result.

In Italy, he started 6th. It wasn't a good qualifying for him. But he brought home the best result for the team as a whole in the race again.

Here in Singapore, he may have been nearly 7 tenths behind Hamilton, but that only resulted in being 1 position behind. And on most occasions, Bottas has shown that if his qualifying isn't that good, he usually makes up for it in the race.

I noticed you only included the last 8 races when talking about the time gaps in qualifying. You probably didn't want to go one further back because of that really poor run Hamilton had in Monaco. If we compare the time gap here between Bottas and Hamilton, it was 1.208 in Q2 and 1.883 once Bottas had done Q3. And because Hamilton didn't get a faster time in Q2, it resulted in a very low starting position. Although he recovered well, he finished lower here than Bottas has anywhere this season. Hamilton's and Bottas's average qualifying positions overall are still barely any different but this doesn't really matter. I think that even if Bottas had had qualifying sessions like he has recently early in the season too, the team still very likely will have kept him because his recovery drives are usually very good.

I don't quite understand why you very often say Bottas always has 1 poor stint. He usually has one that is quite a bit slower than his others but I wouldn't call it poor at all as it rarely badly affects his end result. He is easily doing a very good job for the team this year and is certainly deserving of another years contract. It is only his first year. He could well improve and maybe Mercedes will extend his contract. Or maybe Ferarri will drop Kimi at the end of 2018 and go for Bottas. If Bottas continues to be as good as he is overall at the moment and Mercedes choose not to keep him after next year, I could certainly see this as a possibility.

Tyres are King here. Whoever manages their tyres the best will do well. Pit strategies may get modified as tyre grip here pays big dividends.

davidheath461 wrote:

minchy wrote:Really good qualifying. Don't think I've actually enjoyed watching a quali that much since possibly 2012.

Really? I thought it was quite anti-climatic after the first runs - it was clear that Vettel was out of reach and no one was able to improve their positions.

There have been more exciting qualifying sessions this year alone.

How did you see it that "clearly"? The Ferraris were beaten by the Red Bulls all weekend bar Q3 and the track was improving from time to time throughout the qualy. I think everybody was expecting Red Bull's 1-2 here.

Fiki wrote:

Zoue wrote:Both Vettel and Hamilton have shockingly large gaps to their team mates: they may as well be driving for different teams!

I noticed, and couldn't help thinking whether there might be a level of planning involved. Kimi ending up just ahead of Lewis...

Seriously???
They planned to be behind the Red Bulls so that Kimi would be in front of Lewis??? Why on earth would they want that? Surely having Kimi in 2nd or 3rd with a Red Bull or two would be an even better scenario for Ferrari. This conspiracy theory is not worthy of you, Fiki.

What a stonking lap by Vettel, All the CH4 presenters were stunned, Webber's description of the lap and Vettel was spot on.

lamo wrote:

Zoue wrote: Bottas' saving grace is his race pace, probably. At least he generally finishes where the car should, which is what you want from a number two driver

His race pace is generally weak though, he disappears in at least one stint (tyre related).

He just has the luxury of the car sitting in a big window performance wise. Basically you have Hamilton and Vettel and a large gap to Raikkonen about 0.4-0.6 back (generally). Bottas just needs to slot into there for 3rd place every week. Its highly unusual to be 0.450+ behind your team mate in 6 of 8 races and start generally 1-2 places behind him.

So even if his pace is really bad, he should finish 3rd most weekends. If Mercedes has a big advantage like Silverstone and Monza he can get some 2nds and if Hamilton has a stinker, he can win. But Hamilton stinkers seem to be a thing of the early season.

But he gets the points. Contrast that with Kimi, who is costing Ferrari dearly in the WCC. In that respect Bottas is almost the ideal number two: not fast enough to cause ructions with his team mate, but quick enough to get decent results for the team.

TheGiantHogweed wrote:

lamo wrote:I wonder if Bottas would have been re-signed if he had this form all season. Hamilton has beaten him by more than 0.450 in 6 of the last 8 races. Really surprising considering Bottas was 3-3 with Hamilton early in the year.

I noticed you only included the last 8 races when talking about the time gaps in qualifying. You probably didn't want to go one further back because of that really poor run Hamilton had in Monaco.

I mentioned his good form being 3-3 in the first races, good start, bad since Monaco being the theme of my post. Its post Monaco he has been poor and I don't agree he has made up for it in the race - he usually has a bad stint in every single race. He is usually underwhelming on one tyre in the race.

Indeed, Bottas can get good results a lot of the time, its a dominant car over 50% of the time in those races. So 1-2's are a given in a lot of these races really.

But he was re-signed for next year where there is no guarantee the car will be that good. It will likely be closer at the front, so that is when the dominance of the car won't bail him out and the results might significantly drop into Webber territory, because that is where he is time wise lately.

UnlikeUday wrote:

mcdo wrote:Lucky for Bottas nobody could touch the top 3 teams

I was expecting Bottas to be a little weak here. He's never been splendid here in the past. I thought in a Mercedes he had a chance to go better. Am expecting Raikkonen to perform better than Bottas tomorrow.

I thought Bottas was very strong here in 2015. This track just isn't suited to the Williams and he managed to qualify P7, 0.376 off Hamilton in a Mercedes. Bottas finished P5. He may have been helped a little by Hamilton retiring, but he was only about 8-10 seconds behind Rosberg. He was also only just over 30 seconds behind the race leader which seemed surprising considering this was a street circuit. And these type of circuits usually don't suit the Williams and the Mercedes engine doesn't really have much of a performance advantage. I expect Bottas will be able to manage to finish at leased one position higher than he qualified tomorrow.

Zoue wrote: But he gets the points. Contrast that with Kimi, who is costing Ferrari dearly in the WCC. In that respect Bottas is almost the ideal number two: not fast enough to cause ructions with his team mate, but quick enough to get decent results for the team.

He does this year yes but its the car bailing him out. If Bottas is 0.4-0.5 off Hamilton he can finish 2nd when the car is dominant or 3rd most of the other races baring the 3 niche Ferrari tracks.

If Kimi is 0.4-0.5 off of Vettel not only does that guarantee him to be behind both Mercedes, it puts him behind the Red Bulls a lot of the time fighting for 4th-6th.

When the Ferrari has been the best car, Kimi had out qualified both Mercedes every time now. He does the job when he has the tools - 3/3. Both Bottas and Kimi are doing a similar job this year overall for me, although Kimi was very poor early in the year whilst Bottas has been the opposite.