The Loud Pedal EditorComment

'16 Malaysian Grand Prix-The Shoey

The Loud Pedal EditorComment
'16 Malaysian Grand Prix-The Shoey

For a few races of the 2016 F1 season there was nothing to say.  No story to to write about, no race action to analyze and critique.  Watching some races this season has become a chore...a real effort to finish just to say you'd watched.  Something of a habit had formed...for us, sadly, F1 races on Sundays had largely become television background noise while we'd be performing other tasks.

This race was different.  This was the slump-buster.  For the first time in the hybrid era, a non-Mercedes team would come home with a 1-2 finish.  It was all set up for the usual Mercedes parade lap as both Mercedes drivers started on the front row.  As the opening lap began, first corner ambition would ruin the day of Ferrari’s Vettel and knock Nico Rosberg back to last place.  Lewis Hamilton sped off into the lead....but it was to be no parade lap.  A rare Mercedes gremlin would grenade his engine in the final third of the race, leaving the door open for the Red Bulls of Ricciardo and Verstappen.

Associated Press

The Red Bull duo, for several laps, demonstrated some of the best racing seen all year.  Within millimeters of each other, Verstappen attempted the move but Ricciardo was not about to let anyone takeaway his chance for a shoey (that's drinking victory champagne from your shoe...apparently a MotoGP "thing." .

Takeaways:

Mercedes—Rosberg got punted to last place, and was hit with a 10 second time penalty, yet still finished in third place, extending his championship lead by 23 points.  Mercedes had a chance to claim the constructors title but with Hamilton out, they will have to wait for another opportunity.  In the post race interviews, Hamilton set off a firestorm of conspiracies as he implied that something or someone was out to prevent him from winning.  

"My questions are to Mercedes -- we have lost so many engines," Hamilton told the BBC immediately after the race. "There are eight drivers and mine are the only ones who has failed. Someone has to give me some answers and it is not acceptable. Something or someone doesn't want me to win this year.

"It's a brand new engine," he added. "I've done one race with it. I did P3 with it, qualifying, it's a brand new engine from the three that I had. It's just odd. There's been like 43 engines from Mercedes [this season] and only mine have gone."

After the adrenaline and the disappointment faded later he would clarify that he was not questioning his team, but rather pondering if fate was out to get him.

"It feels right now that the man above, or a higher power is intervening a little bit but I feel like I've been blessed with so many big opportunities, firstly being here with all these people around here, the opportunity in this great team winning the last two championships. Lots and lots of big trophies and records that I'm breaking time and time [again]…"

It is easy to understand that in the heat of such a disastrous race, that logic and rational thought have flown out the window.  However, it does no one any good to question the effort of a team that has performed so well as a unit with thousands of employees at the factory and corporate offices that spend every waking moment searching for tenths of a second to give their drivers on Sunday.  

Vettel & Verstappen— The flying Dutchman would continue to claim, even in the post race, that the first corner incident that took out Vettel and compromised Rosberg was Vettel's fault.  While Vettel’s inside approach to the first turn was bold, he had space and had the car along side Verstappen.  The replay is open to some interpretation.  Either Verstappen closed down on Vettel or it was a racing incident. 

The stewards would see it differently, and after the race issued an three place grid penalty for Vettel in the upcoming Japanese Grand Prix.  The steward would release the following statement:

"Having thoroughly reviewed the video and having spoken to the driver concerned, the Stewards determined that although the cars involved in the incident were all moving at relatively similar speeds, the driver of Car 5 made a small error entering to the inside of turn 1 that led to the contact with Car 6," the stewards said.

"As a consequence, Car 6 was caused to spin from second place and loose multiple positions, which the Stewards determined was predominantly the fault of the driver of Car 5 and therefore ordered the penalty above for causing a collision.”

Riccarido—If it was going to be a non-Mercedes winner, there was no one better to take the victory than the Australian.  It also provideed him with the opportunity to do a proper shoey.  Not to be alone in his plan, he shared the shoey with podium mates Verstappen and Rosberg.