F1 Talk: Mercedes make it five in a row amid Verstappen/Ocon controversy

Mercedes made it five consecutive constructors’ championships as Lewis Hamilton took his 50th win in the turbo-hybrid era. The hundreds of men and women put in so much time and effort just to make two racecars go as fast as they can for around 90 minutes on a Sunday. Mercedes have been better, operationally-wise compared to Ferrari and they have developed strongly and executed those developments perfectly nearly every time.

You could see what it meant to the team who were in Sao Paulo as they brought the barrier down as they celebrated with Hamilton just prior to the podium. They have sacrificed a lot more than the drivers but it was definitely worth it when they won the championship on Sunday.

Ferrari hold the record of six constructors’ titles in a row, Mercedes will aim to match that next year.

The Brazilian Grand Prix weekend was a controversial affair on the track. It was full of incident and opinion was divided after Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen were all part of an incident of some sort over the weekend.

Lets start with Vettel. With rain threatening throughout qualifying, Ferrari elected to make a bold switch to the soft tyre in Q2 after Vettel left the pits on supersofts initially. The tyre you set your fastest lap on in Q2 is the tyre you start the race on (if it is dry). After an outlap, Vettel came back in to switch to the soft tyre which was seen as a better race tyre.

But, he was called to the weighbridge. Normally, you are pushed onto the weighbridge and off it. Instead, Vettel nudged a cone out of the way, nearly pushed a man out of the way with his car and started to clap his hands and shout in frustration. With rain just minutes away (or so it was thought at the time) you can understand why Vettel was so urgent that the FIA got what they wanted.

Vettel did turn his engine off so there was a clear reading of the car’s weight. But, he then moved off the scales under his own power, rather than getting pushed off which broke the scales so nobody could be weighted for the rest of qualifying. As a 4-time world champion, you should not be doing these kind of actions. It’s not the first time Vettel has lost his head. He got a 25,000 euro fine and a reprimand.

Had the FIA been unable to weigh him then it definitely would have been a slam dunk disqualification from qualifying. But, they did get a weight so the penalty he got was for his behaviour. It was the first incident of that nature so the FIA have now set a precedent if it was to happen again. Is a hefty fine and a reprimand a big enough penalty? I don’t think so.

A driver has just broke the scales with his car! There may be situations where it’s worth taking a fine and a reprimand to hurry up the weighing procedure. I just think the FIA should have come down harder on Vettel so that this kind of thing won’t happen again. Being lenient means that drivers may get away with behaviour that is unacceptable in my eyes.

We then had the Hamilton incidents. He first swerved to the left and almost caused a huge crash with Sergey Sirotkin then forced Kimi Raikkonen to move off the racing line when the Finn was on a hotlap, albeit on a straight. The Raikkonen block was fine because he wasn’t really hindered but the Sirotkin incident was more of a talking point.

Sirotkin was on an outlap and I can see why Hamilton made the move he made. The team would have told him that Sirotkin was on an outlap so Hamilton wouldn’t have expected to have to move out of the way for anyone. But, Sirotkin was going very quickly and “started his lap” – as I like to call it, very early be going at qualifying speeds during the 3rd sector. You can go as quick or as slow as you want on an outlap.

The stewards said a penalty wasn’t given because it was genuinely just an unfortunate set of circumstances. Charlie Whiting has also said that he wouldn’t have given a penalty even if both cars were smashed in pieces. I tend to disagree and think Hamilton would have got a penalty had there been a collision. Hamilton can thank Sirotkin for super-quick reactions for preventing a collision which would have not put Hamilton on pole position and Mercedes may not have won the constructors’ championship yet as a consequence.

It would be a Hamilton-Vettel front row with their teammates in behind on row two. A Ferrari vs. Mercedes battle royal was all set and ready to go.

Bottas jumped Vettel at the start to make it a Mercedes 1-2 with Ferrari 3-4. But then, Verstappen started to make his overtakes. First, he overtook Raikkonen, then sent it down the inside of Vettel, overcame Bottas and started his pursuit on Hamilton. Red Bull had sacrificed qualifying pace for race pace.

Hamilton pitted early on lap 19 to go onto the medium tyres. Verstappen somehow made his supersoft tyres last more than half of the race and kept a strong pace as his tyres hardly degraded. The Red Bull car is just excellent at keeping its tyres within the right temperature window. It doesn’t overheat the tyres and Verstappen has mastered how to get the most out of his Pirellis. It was mightily impressive.

Ricciardo was coming through the field as well after suffering a 5 grid place penalty for a turbo charger change after a Mexican marshal extinguished a fire that came out of the RB14 when Ricciardo stopped during the race in Mexico. Ricciardo’s went long in his first stint as well but wasn’t able to make the overtakes as quick as Verstappen could.

Verstappen pitted and went onto the soft tyres. Red Bull always like to do something different to Ferrari and Mercedes and it tends to pay off when they have the speed to match them. It did so again on Sunday as Verstappen eased past Hamilton going into turn one.

Disaster struck on lap 44 as Esteban Ocon collided with Verstappen, spinning himself and the Dutchman around which handed the lead back to Hamilton. I have already given my opinion on this in this week’s driver ratings article but I’ll just add that Ocon’s move was something like it was a battle for position. You have to treat things very differently if you are even going to attempt to overtake a car which is a lap ahead. Had it been for position, I would have called it as a racing incident. I still believe Ocon was in the wrong and shouldn’t have even tried to overtake Verstappen.

Despite floor damage, Verstappen did close to within two seconds of Hamilton and he was seriously angry for the second consecutive race weekend. In Mexico, it was on Saturday after losing out to Ricciardo in qualifying and therefore not becoming the youngest pole sitter in F1 and on Sunday he had every right to be furious with Ocon.

As far as I know, the leader has only ever been taken out four times before the Verstappen/Ocon incident. It just shows how rare it is and how unlucky Verstappen was for it to happen to him. Ironically, the last time it happened it was Jos Verstappen taking out Juan Pablo Montoya in Brazil in 2001.

Max shoved Ocon after the race multiple times and was given two days of public service – whatever that specifically means I have no idea. He could have been a lot worse considering how the relationship between Ocon and Verstappen is not good to say the least anyway. Verstappen shouldn’t have done it but it is completely understandable why he did so. We want to see passion and emotion in F1 and it just shows how much the sport means to Verstappen.

Hamilton took the win, even with possibly just the third best car on Sunday. His engine was apparently one lap away from a failure, according to Mercedes. I don’t really buy that but reports in the last 24 hours suggest his engine did suffer some damage which might results in a grid penalty in Abu Dhabi.

Sebastian Vettel had a quiet Sunday. A sensor issue meant he had to turn the engine down significantly which hurt its drivability. Vettel didn’t get the information from the team to handle the tyres in the right manner – thus showing how important tyres are in modern F1 and that some drivers can’t judge how to use the tyres through feel alone. It was a tough afternoon for the German and he will look to gain some kind of momentum with a strong results in Abu Dhabi.

Elsewhere, Charles Leclerc had a great weekend. He was best of the rest mainly thanks to his epic Q2 lap. It was drizzling with rain yet Leclerc somehow managed to improve his time and go quicker despite the slippery conditions. It was something special. He backed it up with a good race and managed to stay with the top six for a while.

Toro Rosso were had a civil war during the race as Pierre Gasly failed to let teammate, Brendon Hartley through despite team orders. Gasly was asked several times but refused to let Hartley by until two laps from the end. There were no points involved but the relationship seems to be fragile with Gasly moving to Red Bull and Hartley fighting to stay in F1. You must listen to the radio chatter in the F1 YouTube channel!

Whilst we are talking about Gasly, I have to say that he hasn’t been as impressive as he was compared to the first half of the season and he will need to take things to another level next year when he is Verstappen’s teammate. He won’t be allowed to have things his own way as well.

Brazil always seems to produce a good race and the whole weekend was just as eventful as this season has been. I hope Interlagos stays on the calendar for the foreseeable future but 2019 might be the last race there. Hopefully not, because Sunday’s race was a classic.