Surprise
Nico Rosberg captured his second pole in the last two Grand Prix; even pushing Hamilton into a half-spin as he tried to better his teammates.
McLaren-Honda was able to put both Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso in the points. Alonso, however had his tenth place point taken away by the stewards after the race due to repeatedly exceeding the limits of the track; rule-speak for taking too short of a line through and out the corners.
Disappointments
Nico Rosberg had controlled his weekend perfectly; the pole and the lead of the race until a first lap crash involving Nico Hulkenberg and Marcus Ericsson. With the safety car inserted at the end of lap 3 to pace the field, he stepped on his brake peddle and found nothing. His throttle damper had failed, and he was an early retiree. Had he not had to stop, he and Hamilton would have really put on a show in a battle for the win.
Kimi Raikkonen received a message from the Ferrari team that the last lap was “all or nothing” for a podium spot. He had pitted for new rubber later than Valtteri Bottas’ William and Sergio Perez’ Force India, and now he was closing rapidly on the two, who were slowed with tire wear. Passing Perez for fourth place, Raikkonen caught Bottas immediately. Finally, on the final lap, he tried to intimidate his fellow Finn with a desperate inside pass for third. Bottas would have none of it, and shut the door at the apex. Raikkonen’s car speared the Williams and sent Bottas into the wall, and robbed of a sure podium. Raikkonen was left with broken suspension; he crawled over the line for fifth, having lost the podium spot to Perez. The stewards penalised Raikkonen 30-seconds, dropping him to eighth. There are all too few opportunities for passes in F1 this season, especially for podium positions. In Raikkonen’s case, there was little cause for bravado; there just wasn’t any hole to dive through. Raikkonen simply would have never made the corner without using Bottas for deflection.
Carlos Sainz spent all of qualifying receiving CT scans while under observation, the result of a 260km/h, 46g force crash into and under the TecPro barriers during P3. He was miraculously unhurt and after a peaceful night, the Toro Rosso driver was declared healthy for the race, but had to start from the back row. As is the custom this season with Toro Rosso’s cars, he made extraordinary gains during the race as he worked his way up through the field. With ten laps remaining, his left-front brake temperature suddenly went through the roof, causing his carbon fibre disc to melt in a matter of a few laps. He spun, lost his rear wing and was left with no choice but to drop out. The cause of the unexpected brake failure; off-line rubber debris had completely filled the brake cooling ducts.
