[RWill2073]

Whoo boy... When did the "discussions" on here devolve into the worst of politics? Political hacks paid to spin would blush at the points being made in here.

This race was overall pretty boring. You lose 7 world championships and the youngest F1 winner in history in turn one and you get that, I guess.

I am struggling to find much logic being used in here. Start with Vettel: No, he is not the #1 driver in the series. He is an all time great, though, because he is capable of accomplishing more with an ideal for him car than anyone else out there now. He is not overrated, as I have seem many others discussed as the top driver along with him, so he's pretty properly rated.

Full disclosure, I am pulling for him to win the championship because I can't stand Hamilton. Even so, I can see that on pure talent, and getting more out any kind of car in any situation, Hamilton is slightly ahead of Vettel. This turn one incident is 100% on Vettel, imo. He squeezed the other two and was setting himself up for a poor entry to the corner in doing so. It was unnecessary and cost him the championship in all likelihood.

But no, he did not spin on his own, F1 guy. For someone supposedly clued in, you should know he spun on fluids from the damage from turn one. I didn't see Ricciardo being called overrated for spinning on his own after he got damage from the incident with Verstappen in (I think) Hungary.

Verstappen could not and should not have been expected to back out. There are 17 other cars hurtling toward him at a rate of speed and closeness unknown to him as he has two red cars squeezing him taking his whole attention. Backing out could have wrecked some guys behind him, or into him. I wonder what the outrage would be if he collected Hamilton into him by backing out? Would that have been inexperience too? By the time he might have thought of backing out, his wheels were locked in between Raikonnen's and Vettel's, so that if he had, one of the Ferrari's would have gone airborne potentially. Would that have been his inexperience?

Raikonnen was in a place that gave him nowhere to go, although it does appear in some photos that he had more room than initially thought. But why are we not asking why didn't back out like we are Max? Was he in a good position for the approaching corner? Is he in the championship? Doesn't he have a teammate that he knows is ahead of him that is wanting that corner? He has more to lose than Max and was in a worse position. Must have been his inexperience.

No, it is 100% on Vettel. You can't cut across the track, off the racing line for the corner, and just hope it works out. Must have been his inexperience. No, just a heavy-handed move that didn't work out. I am maybe judging it more harshly than I should, because of the consequences, as it being a turn one racing incident that happens often is another viewpoint with merit.

One last note: while Alonso made a blinding start, should we be questioning whether he should have backed off slightly? Not because of the incident taking place, but he was noticeably quicker than any car around him, on the outside of two or more cars approaching entry to a tight corner, in the wet. Was he ever going to make that corner, or would he have been making contact somewhere with someone anyway? Kind of a kamikaze move by him, but, again, nothing to lose, so why not?

But let's not forget about Ricciardo in all this. IMO, he is on that top tier around Hamilton, Vettel, Alonso and Verstappen. However, for someone who supposedly had the best car of the weekend, and was expecting to contend for the win, he was wholly disappointing. He never was close to challenging Hamilton, and routinely dropped back further and further during green flag runs. Just a dud of a race from him.

Now, this could mean one of two things: either it was a poor race for Ricciardo, or the Mercedes has the ability to be turned up more when needed, which just shows how dominant they really are, regardless of Ferrari's perceived competitiveness this year.