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Old 13 May 2019, 09:30 (Ref:3903448)   #64
ApexTurtle
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Originally Posted by sparkione View Post
Spot on. They need better leadership all round. One senses that Vettel is aware of this, as well as being utterly discombobulated by his rookie team-mate's speed. There will be many questions to be addressed and answered in Maranello tonight...
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Originally Posted by sparkione View Post
Don't agree. Toto let's them race, unlike Ferrari who impose team orders with promiscuous abandon. It's management, rather than drivers', skills which set the two teams apart. Maranello's 'musical chairs' policy here has not served them well – nor will it until they find their own 'Toto'!
I have to unfortunately say that while this is a very erudite and well worded analysis of the race, I think it's also quite far off the mark. First off, Leclerc is not a rookie . Vettel has had the better of Leclerc for every weekend except Bahrain. Ferrari's problem is not Leclerc's speed, it's the gap to Mercedes. Vettel knows this, which is why he made that three wide lunge into T1:
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“It was clear that I could not win the race in the first corner but I saw that there was something to try. I tried and it didn’t work, but I was hoping that I could mix things up a little bit for my sake and your sake.”
I think he's also slightly wrong here, at this track you can actually win the race in the first corner as Hamilton demonstrated. And once you're in front, there is no getting past in equal cars. Bottas knows this too:
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“In the beginning of the stint I was pretty close to Lewis all the time, and just waiting if there was going to be any opportunity,” Bottas explained. “On this type of track if you’re within four seconds then you start to slide around quite a bit. Once you’re in free air, it’s so much better.
“That’s why the gap became bigger, as that was also when I had to go through some of the slower cars. At the same time the tyres started to drop off and with less tread on the tyres I lost a bit of temperature, so my tyres were finished much earlier than Lewis.”
Your assertion that Toto 'let's them race' extends to the first set of corners only. It's frankly a bit laughable to suggest Mercedes lets their drivers race when they are the most egregious and ruthless users of team orders as demonstrated last year. The complaint about Ferrari is not the using of team orders, that just makes good sense. It's rather the seemingly delayed decision-making. But even that is overblown, in the end it makes very little difference, and the only reason it came up in this race is the very fact that Vettel had a flatspot and hence lost pace in the first stint. (The fact that these tyres are not meant to actually race with is a whole other complaint in itself).

Ferrari seems desperate because they are. The gap to Mercedes is huge and it has been since the end of summer last year. They cannot win on pace, they have to try other things. The reason Red Bull seems to be doing so well is just because they do their thing and pick up 4th places and the odd podium when they can. They're not in the championship fight and they know it. But Ferrari feels they should be in the fight and if you can't win on pace you are simply forced to try something else. But I fear at this point even that won't help anymore, both championships have been decided already.


Sorry for the long ramble but I felt this deserved a proper reply
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