So, somewhat dull race, but great result for Hamilton even though Raikonnen probably deserved the win. Grosjean must be scratching his head wondering where his second place went, and similarly Button must be wondering how he went from a strong third to sixth.

What happened at the start?

 

the last 2 pitstops for Button screwed his race after a fantastic pass on Vettel on the first lap.

 

I feel like i've just lost several hours of my life.

 

Drifted off to land of nod a few times after the start, not the greatest race this year.

 

At least the BBC highlights version made the race interesting

 

Nearly always a bore fest here, but I thought it was .... ok it was dull.




<sarcasm> Still, great to see the 'red bull illegal engine mapping' hasn't affected Red Bulls pace then huh? </sarcasm>

 

Cars are allowed a dry race engine map and a wet race engine map.
Hamilton always wrecks his rear tyres
Hamilton makes rear tyres last
Has a technical electronic glitch that puts the rain light on.
Often systems are linked to automatically put the car in a given configuration.

Not sure how legal it would be to put a car in wet race configuration in the dry to protect tyres on a track notoriously difficult to overtake on. Not saying he did either. Just saying............

 

So your conspiracy theory is that Hamilton won 'illegally' by changing his engine mapping to a wet race engine mapping? I suspect he would have been lucky to gain 10th or 12th place by the end of the race if that was the case.

 

http://www.formula1.com/inside_f1/ru.../8699/fia.html

Rule 5.5.4 would imply that doing it would be illegal.

I suspect it would make the throttle profile "softer" on the initial pick up out of a corner to help car control in the wet. Something desireable to protect tyres. You'd still want, i suspect, full power available when on the straights or when tying conditions so ultimately total power output would probably still be available.

What I suggest is total conjecture but it seems unusual that a technical glitch would occur putting a rain configuration setting on (the light) on the same race a driver notorusly hard on his tyres manages to run longer on them than a lot of competitors. It would give you an obvious performance disadvantage but on a track where track position is more vital than outright pace it might be worth a shot. Particularly if you can flip a switch just to go back to the full beans settings.

I'm generally a mclaren and Hamilton fan so I'm not upset he won. It just seemed an oddity in the race

 

Except he was matching Kimi's pace in the dry lap for lap ... and Kimi was on it.