Did austrian grand prix show f1 at its best?
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When i was watching qualfying i really enjoyed it as the drivers were clearly being tested to the limit as various drivers spining/ runing wide etc. In my view this is something that F1 has been missing the drivers making the difference in lap time not car performance i.e Hamiltons talent making the difference when all weekend till that point it looked like Rosberg would out qualify him.
What are your thoughts
I actually really enjoyed the race. Not a classic, but not the borefest it turned out to be.
What I enjoyed the most was Turn 3. Why? It has gravel on the outside. And you know what? It made for better racing. On several occassions, cars would be two wide entering Turn 3. The driver on the outside had to make a decision: Stay there and trust the other driver, or back off on the exit to prevent a crash from the inside driver understeering into him. On most corners on most circuits now, the outside driver would have simply taken to the extra tarmac on the outside and ruined the moment.
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My thought is that it was rather Rosberg’s poor quali performance rather than Hamilton’s genius that decided the pole.
I mean Hamilton usually gets the most out of what he has, that’s his main strength, always on the limit (his weakness is not always nailing the setup on what he has), but Rosberg must have simply done an awful first run, because even Hamilton’s first effort seemed a rather good banker lap rather than an on-the-edge pole lap (e. g. he missed half of his apexes).
But I do agree that that this circuit brought out driver ability more. For example, the last turn, Turn 9, had this little dip in the road right before its apex and it was great to see a driver (incidentally, Hamilton again) going through the process of understanding how to tackle it (i. e. backing down a touch just before it, else the car would get loose as it enters the dip and nears the centre of the cornering phase when it transitions from deceleration to acceleration and hence is the most vulnerable to balance issues).
That was far from F1 at its best, and far far from motor racing at its best.
However, it had its moments. I especially liked Grosjean and Nasr being absolutely wheel-to-wheel from T3 until T6.
I really enjoyed this race, it seems like a track that lets the good drivers shine. Qualifying was good alot because of the weather but the race showed the drivers could go wheel to wheel through corners without incident all around the track .
It was a really enjoyable race, but not F1 at its best. I don’t think we have seen that for quite some time, and it could be some time until we see it again.
Having said that, sometimes the best moments happen when we least expect them.
It felt like this was one of the races we had to just endure. For every exciting race, we have some ‘punishment’ races, and then we are granted a string of good ones. With three dull races in a row, the next one has to be good … and that’s Silverstone. And it’s my first F1 race in person for 10 years, so I have very high hopes!
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