214270 wrote: ↑08 Oct 2021, 12:35
El Scorchio wrote: ↑08 Oct 2021, 11:52
214270 wrote: ↑08 Oct 2021, 11:16
Not sure whether the thinking is to take parts over a few races? Not to take away from VERs recovery in Sochi, but he was never in contention to better HAM let alone a win. Maybe this leaves the pressure on RB/VER a bit more.
That would be mad wouldn't it? You're just conceding the win race after race by constantly giving yourself grid penalties. Far better to just do all the pain in one race.
The calculus would be that 10 positions is not enough of a penalty to remove the possibility of a HAM win. I guess it depends if VER qualifies ahead and is allowed to run & hide. Either way, it’s a better way to maximise the strengths/motivations. HAM usually has blistering race pace & can make up the deficit and BOT is up front & hungry, staring at maybe his final ever win. I think this is more sensible way to play the BOT hand. Just my musings
I understand in theory that seems sound, but Verstappen would, assuming nothing goes wrong for him, be able to open up a 10-15 second gap easily in the first 10-15 laps or any race given the relative pace of the cars sitting between them, and those cars will not be easy to breeze past as we've seen in the last few races. And he would rag it at the start to get a big gap to cover a pit stop. Don't forget Perez will likely be between them as well, run long, and hold Hamilton up. As for Bottas, it's a shame to say it, but he has shown no ability (or maybe even desire?) to keep Verstappen behind him when it counts.
To add, Hamilton would take a lot out of his tyres making up positions and likely end up in a situation like Verstappen was in Sochi until the rain came to his aid. He wasn't sniffing the top six before that happened, and may even have finished 8th or 9th.