Prophetic I am. Despite Nitrodaze’s comments that this is a Horsepower dependant track, it’s absolutely not. (sorry nitrodaze ;) )Downforce is King here, as is track position, which is why qualifying panned out as I predicted although I am surprised to see Bottas ahead of Hamilton. Impressive performance from him although I suspect that, after Germany, he might lose his seat to Ocon.
EDIT: I see Verstappen is getting a bit mouthy stating that any driver on the grid could have won 5 championships with the car Hamilton had. Slow down there kid, you just got your first pole and I doubt Hamilton would have gone three seasons without a pole in the Red Bull. Even Ricciardo got poles while he was there. 87-1 buddy. One thing that stood out to me watching the Bottas/Verstappen laps side by side was how similar they were on nearly every section of the track. I couldn’t see anywhere where Verstappen had a clear driving advantage over Bottas. Normally when Lewis puts together a lap and suddenly goes 0.6 tenths faster it’s because he has done something special on one corner that no one else has done, like the last corner on his pole lap of Oz this year. I think Lewis could have got pole today had he not gone wide in the first sector. I’ve yet to see Max put a lap together where I’m like wow only Max could have done that. I’d actually love to see Max and Lewis paired in the same team. I’m pretty confident Lewis would beat Max over the course of a season but what a season that would be.
Finally, Stroll 19th again? He should not be in F1.
And Kubica, I’d like to see him back in 2020 but he needs to improve very quickly.