Nico Rosberg winning over the doubts in his self-contained bubble, Lewis Hamilton's mistake makes a mess, and lessons for Baku...
Monday 20 June 2016 18:09, UK
Winners
Nico Rosberg
Back in control of the title race after an afternoon spent, appropriately enough, in cruise control.
Rosberg is yet to beat Lewis Hamilton in a straight fight this year - all five of Rosberg's 2016 victories have occurred in races where Hamilton has made a mistake, or has suffered mechanical failure, or both.
But if he continues to maximise every opportunity that falls his way - and it has been too readily overlooked that Rosberg has been faultless whenever the cards have fallen his way - then it won't matter a jot. It certainly doesn't to Nico. His 'trick' this year, or so it seems from afar, has been to ignore what his team-mate is doing and instead simply entirely focus on his own performance.
In very different scenarios, it's a consistent strategy which has paid dividends in the last three races. While in Canada and Baku it translated into incremental pace improvements, culminating into one very near miss at pole position in Montreal and a pressure-inducing surge in Q1, Q2 and Q3 this Saturday, Rosberg's self-contained bubble also meant he was able to take all the sting out of Mercedes' instruction for him to pull aside in Monaco for Hamilton and instead simply stay focused on fathoming his own loss of pace.
Interestingly enough, Nico's only notable mistake this year occurred when he shifted perspective to include his team-mate. Explaining his unwise decision to tackle Hamilton around the outside in Montreal, Nico's account included the telling remark: "If not, I would have just accepted l would be behind him".
The 'trick' for Hamilton is to engage Rosberg more often on track and take him out of his comfort 'bubble'. Until he does, the redoubtable Rosberg will be tough to beat.
Martin Brundle
Even when he's commentating from the sofa via Twitter he's still the definitive voice of reason in F1:
'F1 radio ban has gone too far, should only prevent driving technique/coaching not complex car functions, takes away key info for us too'.
After that, there's not much else to add.
Sergio Perez
Here's a question: just how would Perez be rated if only he hadn't joined McLaren for 2013 in a salutatory example of 'wrong driver, wrong time'?
The Mexican now boasts seven career podiums. It's worth stressing that none of those top-three finishes were achieved in a McLaren car, or anything close to what could be considered a top car. Instead, all of Perez's career highlights were delivered in either a Sauber or a Force India.
To put that record of seven career podiums in further context, it's seven more than his Force India team-mate Nico Hulkenberg has registered in an almost-identical number of race starts (101 for Sergio, 102 for Nico), is only two fewer than Valtteri Bottas has recorded at Williams but still one more than Kimi Raikkonen has managed since returning to Ferrari three years ago.
So that question again: just how would Perez be rated if only he hadn't joined McLaren for 2013?
Sebastian Vettel
Driving beautifully this year but a championship challenge is slipping away. The Spanish GP remains the only race this year in which he has beaten both Mercedes.
Felipe Nasr
Far more comfortable with the Sauber since it was tweaked. It may sound modest in the grand scheme of a 22-car grid, but Nasr's qualifying position of 15th in Baku was nevertheless his best of the year to date and 3.5 places higher than his season average. His finishing spot of 12th, meanwhile, matched the best of Marcus Ericsson earlier in the year when the Swede was a cut above in adversity. Credit where it's due for a good weekend's work.
Baku
It's no mean feat to host a Grand Prix event, particularly one crammed in at the end of a week which began on the other side of the Atlantic. But Azerbaijan pulled it off to impressive effect.
Inevitably, there were teething issues along the way, most notably with the botched kerbing that caused Friday's GP2 race to be abandoned. But these things happen; Monaco has been doing GPs since the year dot and Baku's kerbing issue was a trifle compared to the dislodged drain cover that did such grievous damage to Button's McLaren last month.
Traffic cones
Still useful and finding gainful employment even in the most technically-advanced sport on the planet. Splendid stuff.
Jenson Button
There might not have been a tangible point to show for his charge from 19th on the gird to 11th at the chequered flag but there was a point proved.
Losers
Lewis Hamilton
The world champion was right. A car travelling at 220mph, a complex steering wheel and a increasingly frustrated driver did add up to a dangerous melting pot. And it wasn't Hamilton's fault that his Mercedes team had mistakenly applied the wrong settings for his engine mode before the race. And no, more time in the simulator and even more hours of homework wouldn't have helped either.
But Mercedes wouldn't have felt the need - justifiably - to tamper with the settings on Hamilton's car in order to give him an overtaking boost had he not been 10th on the grid after what Lewis himself described as "probably the worst qualifying I've ever had".
In that critical respect, the mess Hamilton found himself in the race was entirely of his own making. The upshot was fifth place in a race which Mercedes could have won by almost a minute had their two cars pushed each other and a 24-points deficit in the championship. One step backwards after two leaps forward in Montreal and Monaco.
It's never straightfoward with Lewis.
The European GP
Daniel Ricciardo, Saturday: "It could potentially be race of the season so it's going to be fun"
Daniel Ricciardo, Sunday: "I got everyone's hopes up yesterday by saying it could be the race of the season, It was, however, pretty uneventful".
Which is putting it mildly. Sunday's race was the first genuinely disappointing Grand Prix of the year and Hamilton's radio shenanigans provided the only real talking point.
Perhaps the field was spooked into their best behaviour by the chaotic carnage in both GP2 races. If so, perhaps they ought to be applauded for driving so diligently.
But along with a second DRS detection point, Baku also lacked the critical missing ingredient of viable third tyre to be thrown into the race mix. Whereas in Monaco the top three finished the race on three different compounds, this Sunday's race was invariably run on the soft compound with Red Bull, forced onto the mediums after overcooking the softer compounds, and Romain Grosjean diverging from type by running long on the mediums. Had the ultrasofts been selected - and Pirelli can hardly be blamed for a conservative choice at a brand-new venue - then this race could have lived up to its billing. Delay judgement on the Baku circuit for another 12 months.
Red Bull
All at sea by the Caspian. No matter what they tried, the former world champions just couldn't get the Pirellis switched on - and it didn't matter what type of tyres they were running either as their lap times on the softs, supersofts and mediums remained nearly identical during the race. The biggest concern, however, was both cars churning through the supersofts within just a few minutes of the start. Ricciardo said he felt his rear tyres falling away as early as the third lap.
Max Verstappen
Although his race pace continues to startle - the youngster actually set the third fastest lap of the race in the closing stages when running on mediums, the slowest of the three compounds available - Verstappen's Saturday struggles relative to Ricciardo are becoming a headache. "I need to find a way how to get a bit more out of it in qualifying," he admitted on Thursday.
While there was mitigation for his latest defeat as Max became embroiled in rather odd aggro with Valtteri Bottas, he'll be under a bit of pressure in Austria next Saturday to finally beat Ricciardo over a single lap at the fifth time of asking.
Esteban Gutierrez
He last scored a point in F1 32 races ago at the 2013 Japanese GP.
Felipe Massa
One of the worst races of the Brazilian's long and generally-illustrious career on a weekend when his team admitted that, in addition to re-negotiating with Felipe and Valtteri Bottas, they are "talking to a lot of drivers in the paddock" about 2017.
Pascal Wehrlein
Should a driver with designs on a promotion to a race seat with Mercedes be getting out-qualified by Rio Haryanto quite as often as Pascal currently is?
Don't miss the F1 Report: Baku review on Sky Sports F1 at 8.30pm on Wednesday with Marc Priestley, Kevin Eason and Mark Gallagher
