2017 Hungarian Grand Prix, or the thing that goes on while we discuss the halo

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Originally Posted by airshifter

Interesting race, even if the track isn't one to allow much passing.

I think the penalty on the Honey Badger was harsh. We see hits harder than that on a regular basis, and most go without penalty. The fact that it screwed Ricciardo was penalty enough for the team, and I'd almost bet that if the impact didn't produce fluids then officials would have looked the other way. I don't think we've seen the coolers get punctured since Seb and Jenson, but in this case it didn't take much impact really.

When the Ferrari's were under pressure, I was shocked that they didn't switch the order. Then again, pitting Kimi when they did made it obvious that they had already determined race finish order. It turned out well for them, but that sure was one roll of the dice. I really thought Lewis might have a shot once they let him by Bottas, but when it didn't work he held to his word and let Bottas have the position back. Good move by both the team and drivers.

I don't think any of us saw both McHonda's in the points, and Fred taking fast lap shows that the car handles if they can keep the engine together. It will be interesting to see how the Honda relationship pans out.

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The "honey badger" is Riccardo .

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Originally Posted by Triumph

I was very impressed with Hamilton's sporting gesture in giving the place back to Bottas. He deserves a lot of credit for that, and hopefully he won't end up regretting it at the end of the year.

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The reds had to win that one .
Big engine tracks coming .

Big , big props for being the team player to both of the Merc boys .
Bottas let Hamilton by easily , trusting his team-mate would stick to the deal .
If either of them balked at the idea , it could have turned into the Nico/Lewis scenario all over again .

That is a great driver pairing .

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Originally Posted by Bagwan

And , he has duly said he is sorry , and that it was his fault .

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I suppose, sorry does count towards the constructor points at the end of the season.

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Originally Posted by Rollo

How so?

Pirelli are making tyres to a design specification. Tyres which last the whole race existed more than 30 years ago; so potentially Pirelli could make tyres to do that if they were asked to.

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Actually, l am not sure why all the teams seem to struggle with the tyres at one point or the other. Is it really tyres or is it the chassis mandated by the FIA? We saw Ferrari burnt their tyres to the canvas at Silverstone. Occasionally, the Mercedes just simple cannot work with the tyres. It took some time for Redbull to get to grips with the 2017 tyres. Williams simply cannot get the tyre to work consistently.

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Originally Posted by Tazio

Yet K-Mag when confronted by Nico has a very basic response:
https://youtu.be/2kyml35XchQ ::rotflmao:

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He is a cheeky one that Magnussen :-)

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Originally Posted by Bagwan

The reds had to win that one .
Big engine tracks coming .

Big , big props for being the team player to both of the Merc boys .
Bottas let Hamilton by easily , trusting his team-mate would stick to the deal .
If either of them balked at the idea , it could have turned into the Nico/Lewis scenario all over again .

That is a great driver pairing .

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But did Bottas deserve to claim back the podium position after drifting back by eight seconds and falling to just over a second ahead of a rampant Verstapenn. I think Hamilton had earned the position, there was no real benefit to swop. It was risky as well but fortunately, Verstapenn did not expect that a swop was still going to happen, he would have made Hamilton pay dearly for it.

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Originally Posted by Nitrodaze

But did Bottas deserve to claim back the podium position after drifting back by eight seconds and falling to just over a second ahead of a rampant Verstapenn. I think Hamilton had earned the position, there was no real benefit to swop. It was risky as well but fortunately, Verstapenn did not expect that a swop was still going to happen, he would have made Hamilton pay dearly for it.

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I was thinking that too but good on Lewis for being a good sport. He took, couldn't get the job done, and gave back.

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Originally Posted by Nitrodaze

But did Bottas deserve to claim back the podium position after drifting back by eight seconds and falling to just over a second ahead of a rampant Verstapenn. I think Hamilton had earned the position, there was no real benefit to swop. It was risky as well but fortunately, Verstapenn did not expect that a swop was still going to happen, he would have made Hamilton pay dearly for it.

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You have no idea why Bottas was slow at that point .
But , you do know that both finished ahead of Max , and thus gained Mercedes the maximum in points for the race .

You also have to examine , had they not swapped back the positions , the strain on the relationship between the two drivers , and especially between Bottas and his team would have been tremendous , and they dealt with lots of agro between drivers when Nico was on board .
Perhaps they learned a lesson .

It seems that they are telling the drivers that they work for a team , and that that is the first priority .
The deal between the drivers was upheld , and that is worth more than the points they could lose with warring drivers , as recent history tells them .

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Originally Posted by N. Jones

I was thinking that too but good on Lewis for being a good sport. He took, couldn't get the job done, and gave back.

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tBH i would have set up the switch with the caveat of Bottas being within 3-4 seconds of Hamilton with 5 laps to go in order to get the position back. It was funny that Bottas was worried about the switch back not happening when in realty he did very little to actually earn that switchback. And if the race was 2 or 3 laps longer would have gotten passed by Verstappen. alos Mercedes should have made the switch much earlier and forced Ferrari into more of a dilemma. once again we as the fans and commentators noticed Bottas dropping pace and the need for the switch at least 8 laps before Mercedes finally made that call. This year they have been very poor in race strategy, often reacting instead of being proactive. they new Vettel had an issue, they knew kimi was much faster, by switching Hamilton earlier, he would have hounded Kimi who in turn would have pressured Vettel and at the very least caused some confusion at Ferrari. but instead they allowed Ferrari to dictate things

That is why i believe what Hamilton did was very honorable and also playing the long game.
I think he just gained a valuable ace up his sleeve for later in the season and has the confidence to believe that those 3 points will be made up with his own skill.
I can now forsee Bottas giving Hamilton a position to aide his championship if it becomes a 2 horse race later on or simply giving him the position if he sees Hamilton being much faster in a given race

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Originally Posted by Bagwan

You have no idea why Bottas was slow at that point .

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We do Bagwan, he simply did not have the pace to keep up with the ferrari's, Hamilton and tbh verstappen.
very early in that 2nd stint he was right behind Kimi and consistently lost time behind them. It was not a matter of getting a breather then picking up his pace, he just got slower and slower.
That has been the problem with Bottas his entire career. Even the races he lead he eventually loses pace and nearly gets caught at the very end.
So yeah, he simply did not have the ability to maintain a high level of pace throughout the race and but for the graciousness of Hamilton and laps running out on verstappen, he got a podium, when at best he should have barely finished in fourth.
Earlier in the race and as soon as it was clear vettel had a problem, i was hoping that Bottas would find a way past kimi or stick close to kimi and pressure the ferrari's. But instead he just fell further and further back.