The on-board mix was up for most of the race and their own on-board choice was much better than normal, I would rate it as 6/10 rather than the usual 1/10

I really like the track but the DRS ruined the race as there was no real racing/overtaking going on.

I also think how far off the pace there driving managing tyres/fuel resulted in drivers pushing less & making less mistakes which also probably didn’t help.

I also continue to think that the radio restrictions have gone too far & need to be toned down.

Knew it.

I think you're being generous, I thought it was dull as heck.

Croft said something like "It wasn't really the race we were expecting" - in other words it was a bit shit. Probably not helped by them being a bit hyperbolic pre-race when they seemed to be expecting some sort of 1970's Monza-era slipstream fest that any of 10 cars could win. On the other side, if you watched the GP2 races it was probably a reasonable expectation there'd be a bit more chaos and carnage in the F1 race too or at least a safety car, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.

Not short of overtaking, that's true, but given 95% of it was done by DRS I found it hard to get excited. I'd rather have seen those battles unfold with just normal slipstreaming, even if it means cars take 5, 10, whatever attempts to get it done instead of breezing by at the first attempt.

But yes for large chunks of the race the most interesting thing was the discussion on team radio - why the drivers have suddenly turned the swearing up to 11 and why the engineers can't answer them.

I blame the commentators and the fans for the team radio restrictions - plenty of them asking last year whether it was right that drivers had so much instruction from the teams during the race.

After seeing the gp2 races and how exciting they were, the F1 race was dull. To think the best bit was a discussion of team radio as above says a lot.
Really weird that either of those cameraman did not notice that they were filming trees and not cars on track. They seemed to have grown since the start of the weekend or the angles were different.
Had the onboard mix too, and was moving amongst drivers well.

I'm utterly convinced DRS is strangling the life out of F1.

I look at the calendar and instantly pick out the swathe of races where DRS does more harm than good. There's a small number of races it's worth having it for but on balance it spoils more races (and individual battles within races) than it improves, and has consistently done that for years.

Perez made up 1.5 seconds when he passed/just after he'd passed Raikkonen solely on the use of DRS. That is not right.

The ban is right in principle, they were literally coaching drivers per-corner and telling them how to drive. However I'm not sure it should extend to engine settings, particularly with such complicated cars. Nico managed it though...

Anyway the race was utterly ruined by DRS, that straight is long enough for a slipstream without it. Let alone getting another go after the corner.

Yeah there no point trying a risky move anywhere else on the track because getting past on the main straight was so easy. The best races at places like Singapore and Monaco happen because overtaking is so hard.

Whiting is on record saying that if overtaking is harder with the 2017 cars then he'll simply give DRS "more authority"

World feed wise, more of the same from earlier in the weekend unsurprisingly: the camera placement wasn't great, there were often trees in the way, though we did get the other side of the run through the castle which I can't remember seeing earlier.

Onboards were still breaking up though not so much as earlier in the weekend, or they just weren't using them as much.

There were 3 angles on the start where the lights were in view and they went with the worst one imo.

If we'd heard one or two messages from Nico going "oh, I've got a problem, what's happening" and then another one later going "I've fixed it" or whatever, it would be easy to then compare with Lewis and say "actually, the drivers are driving the cars without outside help, and on a level playing field Rosberg did the better job by finding and correcting the issue - hats off".

But if you only find out after the race then it looks like one driver had a Sunday stroll and the other had a (metaphorical) box full of neutrals, hampered by an over-zealous rule book.

It's not the first time this season that post-race it's turned out Rosberg apparently had the same problem as Hamilton had, it just wasn't referred to during the race. Though maybe Nico is just better at seeing the problem, and solving it without any radio histrionics.

Interesting to know when Rosberg had the problem - there was a period that went uncommented by Sky when his lead went from around 20 seconds down to 14 before stabilising, but not sure if that's when it was or if Rosberg was just cruising by then.


Somewhere at the FIA someone has said "number of overtakes correlates perfectly to quality of race", even when that's blatantly not true. I can't think why else they think DRS overtakes get folk excited.

I'm glad it wasn't just me who found it dull, but I do find I struggle with F1, when it is on the same weekend as Le Mans as I think I am all raced out.

I watched a lot of the Le Mans coverage on Eurosport and this year felt better than others. The adverts didn't seem as close together but I do wish the commentators would stop talking when there is pit/driver radio being played.

Real hard luck for Toyota, I had popped out and missed the last 2 hours, turned the TV on with the clock showing 3 minutes to go and the Toyota coming to a stop.

Luckily time wise the checkered flag dropped just right and I could flip over the the Sky F1 coverage while the cars where on the formation lap.

Just spotted that the documentary 'Grand prix the killer years' that was shown on BBC four a few years ago has popped up on Channel 4's website & I presume it was shown on one of there channels at some point?
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/g...mand/64460-001

Yes - was shown following their Canada highlights programme

Simon Lazenby confirming Davidson is returning for Austria, shame Le Mans clashed with this race as he could have been a great replacement for Brundle, and the finish to Le Mans...

I was happy enough with Di Resta actually, he spotted a few things very quickly.

Very dull race, track wasn't much better.

And FOM never hire that helicopter again, it was very juttery, almost like the gimbal was broken.

Quite a lot of onboard breakup again, it isn't so bad it happens but because its digital at times the picture goes bright purple which makes it so obvious.

Did anyone else get annoyed by the number of times we saw a yellow flag notice, but FOM never bothered to show a replay of what happened? Surely some of them were worth showing, even just to add to the narrative of the race...

Race-wise was a big let down all-in-all!
Whoever decided we needed 2 DRS zones with that MASSIVE pit straight needs a smack up the side of the head because the 2nd zone killed alot of what would have been great racing!

Watched on Channel 4, (My first full weekend only on C4) the coverage was excellent throughout!
Some funny bits, serious discussion, good questions asked not only of the pundits but by the pitlane reporters Lee MacKenzie and Karun Chandhok to the drivers etc!

Commentary was interesting. Ben Edwards gets thrown so easily when DC cuts in but he was miles ahead of Crofty IMHO!

Miles ahead of Sky, miles!!!



Think it was a more a case of over-zealous marshals flapping them around for next to nothing because they were up and then gone as quickly as the appeared!

On a catch up now race wise. Garbage track. Terrible race. Croft with so many "That is Kvyat.... Sorry Sainz" ID'ing issues.

Not bothering with the post-race. Hope Crofty didn't try and talk this one up.

the post race interviews were terrible. rachel brookes tried to put words in the drivers mouths about radio restrictions to create a story luckily the drivers were having none of it. shocking even by skys standards.

was she ? I heard her ask what they thought of the restrictions, and if they thought they were too restrictive, all of the answers seemed to be 'yes' seemed a valid question, bearing in mind the comments made by a few Drivers during the race.