It’s said that drivers aren’t what they used to be. What with DRS and tyre strategy some reckon they’ve lost their taste for overtaking.
Then, when one of them gives it a go – on the last lap, rather than just after the start, which would have been pretty dumb – he gets hit with a 30 second penalty.
Well, the all-Finnish collision at turn 4 saw Bottas lose a possible podium, on the assumption that he’d have managed to stay ahead and Kimi crossed the line with more sparks flying off the bottom of his car than a Catherine Wheel. More than likely, it was the perception of a strong result lost that led the stewards to be heavy handed.
Of course, everyone will have their own view on the incident, but everyone’s a Race Steward when watching from the sofa. However, in our garage, this fight right down to the final kilometre was viewed as a skirmish between warriors, with each manoeuvre greeted with a roar. It’s a shame really that so much enthusiasm ended up as a few lines of a disciplinary statement.
But at least Kimi was really on it today, as could be seen right from the start when he got the jump on Seb. And all through the race, he was on the attack, even after correctly letting by his team-mate who had forced him into an error. For the record, pointless team orders and a predetermined result only exist in the fevered imagination of a handful of journalists.
- Scuderia Ferrari, Russian GP 2015