mds wrote:
We've done this before... Given the outlook for the final races of the season, he needed every single point he could get. Not winning in Singapore meant 7 points lost that would highly likely come back and bite him. So yes he did.
What outlook? As far as I remember it was still very much debatable who would be stronger in the run in. Ferrari had just arguably been the quicker car in race trim in Spa which was supposed to be the big Mercedes stronghold. They messed Monza up by set up. They went on to be competitive everywhere but AD. There was more than a few people backing them to be the best car in the run in because of expected warm track conditions and how Ferrari had done in Spa, I think Pat Symonds backed them to be the better car more often than not.
Lewis was driving a worse car that weekend and was stuck in 5th on a track you can't really pass on, there was simply no need to be that aggressive to hold onto 1st never mind a need to be that aggressive because of the context of the championship battle with Lewis.
It's the opposite of the Suzuka situation Alonso faced in the dry, in a car in 6th(?), no track suiting them coming up, his rival in the best car and sitting on pole.
That's when you need to get aggressive and make things happen at the start I feel. But even I thought it was too aggressive (The initial squeeze on Kimi) so I've got to think the same here.
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Vettel did not compromised his own entry that much - as I said, he isn't on the slippery "ideal line" any more which isn't necessarily a bad thing, in the wet often a good thing.
Yes but Max is right beside him wherever Seb goes so still only needs to outbrake him unless Seb was planning on taking T1 with no regard if a driver had his nose alongside.
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Because in Suzuka Alonso actually pushed Raikkonen out of the track, while Vettel didn't. The fact that "it was still going on" doesn't mean that it would have came to the point. Facts are in Suzuka something illegal happened (again, understandable, and only slightly, but still), and in Singapore not.
No it just means we can't speak of Seb's move as if we saw it play out so saying it wasn't a hard squeeze and he left room isn't correct as he'd clearly not finished moving left when Max touched Kimi.
Imagine if there was a car on the inside of Kimi in Suzuka that Alonso was oblivious too and still tried to run Kimi to tracks edge and the contact happened earlier. Alonso would still get the lions share of the blame from most because of the initial aggressive squeeze I think and that seemed to reflect the feeling after Singapore.
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Only in hindsight it was high risk. The wet doesn't change that. We've seen it in all kinds of conditions and nobody ever says "wow, that was a high risk manoeuvre".
The wet changes it for me, most things around defending and attacking in the wet carry increased risk and squeezing a competitor at race start certainly does for me.
I can't speak for everyone though but when I saw starts like Germany and Singapore 2010 I was thinking what the beep are they playing at because of that very risk and I thought it again when I saw Seb try it here. It looked like a more aggressive version of Germany 2003 with Ralf,Rubens and Kimi but this time in the wet.