good_Ralf wrote:A meh first two-thirds, a great final third of the race, but although Hamilton drove well, I can't help but be annoyed at how Bottas and Kimi have been the denied the top spot once again, especially with team orders being imposed at Mercedes after the Safety Car.
Still, this opens the championship up nicely, Ferrari will be competitive in Hungary given there's 30+ temperatures which is normally a given there, and the abundance of medium-to-high speed corners will be beneficial to Red Bull.
Mind you, although there may have been an element of it being down to being ordered to hold station, from the onboard shots it did look as Bottas was struggling with quite bad understeer.
Even without team orders, it did look as if Bottas just didn't have that much confidence in the front end of his car - he seemed to have trouble getting his front tyres warmed up at the restart, so even without those orders I suspect that Hamilton would have bolted away from him by the time that he got his tyres up to temperature (I wonder if that might also be why Bottas generally tends to be a little sluggish in the opening laps of a race).
Fetzie wrote:Vettel is going to need a really strong finish in Hungary after this, or he'll be risking slipping into another run of sub-optimal to bad results like he did last year which cost him the championship.
On balance, it does still feel like it is Vettel's championship to lose though - they do seem to have a fairly clear power advantage now, especially in qualifying trim, and overall their car does look like it has a slight edge over Mercedes's car.
I suspect that Vettel will probably still be fairly confident for Hungary, though the only slight issue might be Red Bull's pace - it is possible they could be a threat, though I suspect that, even if the extra grunt of Ferrari's engine is not quite as effective here, it'll still be enough to put them ahead in qualifying and allow them to control the race from there.
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