Surprises

A number of short observations:

During the wet first stage of the race, the Red Bull chassis looked superior to the Mercedes chassis. Once the track dried, and drys went on, Mercedes power took over; should Red Bulll have opted for the upgraded Renault engine offer? That would have lead to a grid penalty, and they would have suffered additional distance in the wet to bring themselves up to Mercedes. Still, it would have been fun to see what they could have done with more horsepower.

McLaren Honda seems to have made a big step in development and seem to be now comparable to Renault in terms of power, despite Alonso’s power unit’s slow fade near the end of the race. The chassis handled the wet well and both Alonso and Button were able to race, in spite of the hybrid power recovery unit running out of steam on the straights.

Riccardo seems to be in the area of a lot of on track incidents. How is it that other drivers avoid the kind of situations that Riccardo seems to find himself in after coming together with someone? Think “‘patience”.

Pole at COTA should be on the left side of the track to give the inside into turn 1 to pole sitter.

Sergio Perez is rapidly looking to be the better Force India driver.

This wasn’t the prettiest Hamilton victory, or the most dominating performance. Hamilton bumped into Rosberg in Turn 1. He wore his tyres away in clean air while leading. He was passed by Rosberg, and Red Bull on track, and gapped 10 seconds by Nico. He was slow on restarts, and couldn’t pass Nico on track after his free safety car pitstop and much fresher rubber. Yet, he won. That’s what champions do; they find a way in unforgiving conditions and get the job done. That’s being perfect.