I meant the championship.

I remember Panis' win, and also Hill's at Spa in a Jordan. Rain was more fun in those days.

Ah I see, by the end of the season you could probably argue Button in the Brawn, but again that was a bit of a one off due to the blown diffuser debacle and everyone else playing catch up. Prior to that definitely Schumacher in the Bennaton

I've had a fun day winding up Verstappen fans over on Planetf1.com

Mercedes been fined £20,000 for that tyre cockup. Russell gets to keep his points

Obvs there's gonna be more chatter about replacing Bottas with Russell after last weekend, but one thing occurred to me with the talk about Russell's height - maybe another reason Merc opt for Bottas is that he's similar size to Lewis so they can package the car around them tightly? having two drivers with very different heights would likely mean some kind of compromise so both can fit

This is the one I was thinking of escape.

https://the-race.com/formula-1/five-reasons-hills-hungary-arrows-fairytale-happened/

I disagree. It's a formula one season so there's room for a variety of different tracks.

The challenge at Monaco isn't over taking it's the car control and the concentration needed to keep it out of the barriers for 80 odd laps.

We've become a bit fixated with over taking.

The reason we're stuck with these crap Pirelli tyres is that Bernie saw one race where the degradring quickly made for a spectacular race because it caught the teams out. Unfortunately when it's made into a thing the teams quickly work around it. They work around everything. The best thing to generate over taking is have different new tracks or layouts the teams don't have loads of data about. All the races on new tracks have been exciting.

Monaco pretty much has always been a procession but it was the only one on the calendar and was a bit special. Now there's too many tracks where overtaking is too difficult, Austria, Hungary, Barcelona, Singapore etc. so unfortunately its becoming the norm now and hence a bit monotonous.

I hope if they do sort the dirty air issue out (give everyone a standard rear wing and diffuser that creates a usuable pocket) they get rid of DRS. Its such a manufactured way of overtaking, it ruins the purity for me.

That was the first weekend that the Ultra Softs were in use, but the race started off wet (we got absolutely soaked during the support races and start of the F1...) so I don't remember them seeing much race action.

That would be harsh on bottas. There are caveats to the last race. Russell came in, full of confidence wanting to make an impression. Bottas just lost another WC and has again been crushed by lewis. His confidence is down as his driving demonstrated.

Give Russell a season in the car again lewis and he will probably look as haggard as Darth Vader did under his helmet. Being teammates to Lewis, Verstappen, Alonso, Schmie, Senna etc isnt a easy thing to cope with.

He is under contract so will get well paid off to walk away surely. Win win.

I think bottas is unfairly judged at times. Then again, if Rosberg hadn't retired when he did Bottas would prob have spent his whole f1 career in the lower midfield running, so if merc pull the plug he should still ultimately be happy with what he's achieved.

But other than Hamilton only rosberg has managed to do anything for the last 7 years? And achieving what he did broke him and forced him to retire, so which other high achiever are we comparing Bottas against?

Rosberg ran away as he knew he got lucky that season. Hamilton had 3 engine failures that year and it was also the year they swapped the engineers for both teams around. Ok, Rosberg went to the absolute extremes to beat lewis that year. Not sleeping in the same bed as his wife. Thinning out his boots and gloves to save weight. Changing his diet, anything that would give him a marginal gain over lewis. It almost broke him as he has said in interviews since.

The mental pressure being teammates to lewis must be crazy. Dont forget Bottas was seen as a future WDC when he was at Williams. But i dont think Bottas has the ability in the car that Rosberg did. It could also be that both Rosberg and lewis like the car to be setup in a certain way and it doesn't suit bottas. Lewis likes a car with a positive front end. After all the RB is setup and designed around what Max likes in a car. Schmie's ferrari was the same.

Point being i think Bottas is judged unfairly at times. Hes been unlucky on numerous occasions. However to beat lewis in a Mercedes over a course or a whole season? On the grid currently, i dont think anyone could, max included.

I'm not even suggesting Bottas needed to beat Hamilton he just needed to regularly come in second which he doesn't do in the best car on the grid.

I mean he finished 5th in his second season, when his team mate Lewis won the Drivers Championship. I would have got rid then to be honest.