Bourdais Prevails in Wet Conditions

Qualifying:

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Report:

It’s the final weekend of the Formula 1 season and with all titles decided, it is now time to advertise yourself to potential employees, employers and sponsors. It was the big question of the weekend: who would be able to take advantage of the Saturday washout? The expected rain arrive and with it, chances for underdogs were born, as tales of heroism are made and ended in wet F1 races.

Qualifying saw an old face coming out of on top, Sebastian Vettel made a mockery of his opponent’s attempts at doing well: he secured pole position by over 7 tenths. If not for the heroic efforts of Conor Daly and Sébastien Bourdais, that lead would have been over a second. It was therefore not a big surprise to see the German pull away from the start and starting to build a major gap to the competition.

Something unexpected did happen on lap 10 though, the Judd engine couldn’t handle Vettel’s awesomeness and exploded. This left the win on the plate for Bourdais and Daly, who continued their battle. However, they nearly got beaten by the “tortoise” Ocon: Precision managed to keep the French driver out of traffic and on fresh tyres by pitting him early. Ocon had an open door for his first victory, but Bourdais shut that door by hunting down the Precision driver.

Meanwhile, Pastor Maldonado and Romain Grosjean found a way past Daly, which basically seals 4th in the WCC for Sauber, being up 14 points on Williams and Cassidy falling victim to an oil leak. Further down the order some drivers struggled in the wet, such as Daniil Kvyat, whom’s P8 is somewhat decent after being eliminated in Q1, but results in Caterham’s lowest point total of the season, and Johnny Cecotto, Jr., who was not able to get valueable points for himself and Haas.

Race:

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Fastest Lap:

Sébastien Bourdais – 1:42.774

Infinite Improbability Drive Of The Race:

Esteban Ocon – Being so close to winning your first race is impressive, even if you can’t pull it off.

Reject Of The Race:

Johnny Cecotto, Jr. – He was just not fast enough with the wet tyres.on.