Only just had a chance to watch this race as I've been v busy this weekend and I've had to stay away from the forum because of yesterday's quali spoiler! but wow ...great race.
Alonso made an uncharacteristic error that will surely affect his first couple of corners for a while to come - I don't think he'll be so eager to get involved in first corner dash's again, as his race craft & strategy are usually enough to get him to the front.
Rosberg looks to be every bit as quick as Hamilton thus far - never expected that either, and his patience may even carry him further than Hamilton's gung-ho approach! but the jury's still out on that one.
I've always thought that Vettel has been given more favourable treatment than Webber! it's the politics of F1 that I've never liked. If I were Webber I'd accept that this could be my last season at RB and be making Vettel pay for that for as long as I remained their second choice driver. What he did would drive me to either beat him or cripple his progress at every circuit ..
if I'm not winning races, neither are you mate.
Raikonen regularly has problems on smooth circuits - his preferred setup gives poor steering\traction feedback, so I'd expect more weak results for him at China and Abu Dhabi too ..Which is the same thing that plays into Jenson Button's hands! He loves a smooth circuit - what he lacks is enough aggression to muscle his way past anyone that won't move aside, he's too much the Gentleman. He'll only win when his car's qualifying\race performance, tyres & pit strategy play out in his favour. He can't "take" a win from nowhere like Hamilton could.
comment of the day for me:
"we're a bit rusty..." (...at challenging for the lead) @Russ Brawn, spoke volumes when Hamilton was ordered to conserve fuel because they got their calculations wrong. It might be a while before Rosberg gets that favour returned because that probably won't happen again this season, and he'll have to out drive Hamilton to get ahead ...but I'm sure Hamilton will concede to the faster car without argument as a consequence of today.
It's true, F1 is something you need to know fairly intimately to see beyond the procession.
