Sports Articles: Formula 1: Russia Talking Points
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Formula 1: Things To Think About After Black Sea
1. Difficult Weekend For Hamilton
When you look at the bare numbers, qualifying well over half a second faster than the rest makes it look like an easy pole position, but he only just made it through to Q3 thanks to Vettel's accident and his own mistakes. That left him on softs for the start and, in the end, that contributed hugely to his failure to even compete for the win. Though he was not helped by the team playing it safe when he was still putting in fast laps and his engineer telling him it was OK to practice starts outside of where everyone else was doing so. That mistake by 'Bono' cost him a ten second penalty but it was the early pit stop that killed his chances of actually racing for a win.
2. Penalty Point Danger
The difficult weekend was compounded for Hamilton by picking up 2 more penalty points on his license putting him on 10. If he reaches 12 then he will have to sit out one race and the first two penalty points only come off in November. He will have to be extra careful as F1 would love the chance to spice up the championship by forcing him to miss a race. It does look to be the only way to make a battle of it as Bottas certainly looks incapable of racing Hamilton on his own.
3. Sainz Crashes In 'Safety' Chicane
How on earth they managed to set up a safety run off area that is unsafe only the FIA can tell you, but they did it. While they can argue, with good reason, that Sainz should have slowed down further, the safety chicane at Turn 2 not only left little room for an F1 car to squeeze through, but also was far too close to a marshal's post. It was dangerous and ill-conceived. It has been changed every year and still they have not figured out how to make a safe route. It does make you fear for the intelligence of those responsible!
4. Safety Car Switched Off Lights Earlier
It seems that they were listening to the frontrunners complaints about the safety car switching its lights off late and this time they switched the lights off nice and early to give Hamilton control of the pace.
5. Perez Impresses With Old Parts
Such a shame for Racing Point/Aston Martin that Stroll crashed out at Turn 4 as he was running all the new parts on his car. With Perez running so well, they will never know if the new parts would have given Stroll a chance to be even further up the pack than Perez. What they do know is that the parts, which were legally copied from Mercedes, gave them the same cooling problems as the Mercs have suffered from in recent years.
6. What To Do With Albon?
Once again Albon is in the mid-pack, battling with the likes of the Alpha Tauris, while Verstappen is at the sharp end battling the Mercs. Unless Verstappen is getting better equipment, Red Bull are going to have to seriously consider Albon's future for next season. Albon seems to be further away from Verstappen than ever. If they ever want to compete for the constructors' championship, they need someone who can at least be close to Verstappen.
Written by Tris Burke September 27 2020 14:50:49
