This race certainly has to stablish Alonso as one of the greatest drivers in F1 history, if not the best. Not that I take away the credit from Hamilton, who also had a splendid race beating his team-mate Nico Rosberg starting from the pit lane, but Alonso has not the best car in the paddock.
Anyway, this was a really interesting race. It might have been another parade for Rosberg and his Mercedes were it not for the downpour just before the race and a couple of accidents —Ericsson first, and Grosjean slightly after while still under the SC— which had the Safety Car released from lap 9 to 13. Some drivers took the opportunity to switch to Soft dry tyres but for Rosberg, Bottas, Vettel and Alonso out front.
A few laps later, the Safety Car was back out when Sergio Perez lost control sliding into the pit wall. At the restart, Fernando Alonso was leader until Ricciardo managed to snatch the lead from the Spaniard with three laps to go. Alonso managed to hold on to a superb second place, while Hamilton secured a scarcely believable third place after starting from the pitlane.
Following, I provide the plots so you may draw your own conclusions.
Average pace
This plot shows the difference to the average pace of the race winner. That is, the difference to the average lap time, including pit stops.
The steeper the curve, the faster the lap; and as the curves are generated from cumulative sums of lap times, a negative slope implies a lap time which is quicker that the average. Read more ›
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