Awesome!!!!

 

I enjoyed the racing today. The wet track meant talent was more important than normal. Hopefully, Rosberg wont be given a penalty and being booed was unnecessary.

I did like the Red Arrows break, I've not seen it done that way before.

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Considering Rosberg's wet weather performance, he should be more than happy with a podium so I'm on the fence about his potential penalty.

Agree that the booing was lame.

 

Whether you agree with the radio ban rule or not I would penalise Rosberg.

I do not have an issue with the first part of the radio conversation, but in my eyes the second part is driver coaching.

If the stewards chose to do nothing then you might as well throw the rule out.

 

The Stewards have done something.

A 10-second penalty, dropping him behind Max Verstappen in the revised race result.

The rule is a nonsense, though. In an instance like this it's hardly fair to penalise the driver, and it would make more sense to penalise the team by taking Constructors' Championship points away. I know that's happened, as the race result has been amended, but as in Baku with Hamilton, the cars are so complex that asking a driver to work out what's wrong while trying to race is going to cause more problems than it solves, and may ultimately result in a crash.

Verstappen's overtake of Rosberg was outstanding. I don't think I've ever seen anybody overtake in that part of the Becketts/Maggotts complex. It's almost as outrageous as his move on Felipe Nasr round the outside of Blanchimont last year.

 

The thing about "driver coaching" is it's to improve performance; i.e. brake here, take this line, try this gear here. Telling him to avoid a gear because of a reliability problem is not to improve performance, so it ought to be fine. Rosberg's question was entirely reasonable as you can't "avoid" a gear with a sequential box obviously.

I'm sure that's what Mercedes will say. I think it's a very harsh interpretation, but we'll see what sticks. In Baku Hamilton didn't have a problem as such, he had the car in a non-optimal mode. Telling him which button to press would have been to improve performance, just like if they'd told him to stay in a lower gear longer.

I think what's a bit daft is that the control systems for these cars are this complicated. Give them one knob for speed vs economy and we won't need these silly rules. Maybe that means they can't quite get as much out of the engines as they might, but then it becomes more about the driver's skill and less about the driver's engineering knowledge, which surely is the point.

 

Rosberg was entitled to ask the question, however his engineer should have replied along the lines that he couldn't answer that question.

What Merc did was to hedge their bets. They had the choice between a potential DNF or break the rules and get a penalty which is what they did.

Although I highlighted the engineer's comment to "avoid 7th gear" I think that part was just about ok with regard to the regulations.

The rest is definitely driver coaching.

 

If the race starts under the safety car due to inclement conditions could the start be made a "rolling start" in formation rather than the free for all it is at the moment, anyone?

 

Could it? Yes. Should it? No. That's the worst of all possible ways to start the race.

I wonder why if it's safe to race once the safety car peals off why they don't line up on the grid and have a proper start.