The debate goes on with regards to if and what changes are needed to improve the show after some processional and let’s say uninspiring races earlier this season. However, F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone has claimed that the sport has ‘got lucky’ at Silverstone and Hungary.
Speaking to motorsport.com, Ecclestone claimed that circumstances and in particular the race starts provided the entertainment: “I’m just saying… The circumstances. These things happen. [Hungary] was a very good race, the crowd was good… It seemed to work alright. We got lucky.” Nevertheless, Ecclestone admitted that F1 has always had good and bad races but “we don’t have enough good races!” Does the F1 chief have a point or is it a usual tenuous comment from the 84-year-old?
The answer is both yes and no.
Not every race will be gripping from start to finish especially whilst one team dominates and the rest try to catch up. Without errors or weather intervention, Mercedes (particularly with Lewis Hamilton) should and could win every race this year. We were spoiled with some cracking races in 2014 as Rosberg truly mastered qualifying putting him in contention but he also had the race pace to match and beat Lewis. This year for whatever reason, we have not seen the same level of competitiveness from the German in qualifying (outperformed 9-1 so far) or in the races (apart from in Austria) as his wins in Spain and Monaco were helped by Mercedes’ errors in the pit lane significantly costing Lewis. Therefore, if the chasing teams are unable to sufficiently close the gap and there is no interference from weather or driver errors, then we might have to endure some “bad races” ahead.
However, the DNA of Formula 1 is its unpredictability and no one can be guaranteed a race win in this sport until the chequered flag falls. Both of the last two races were significantly affected by “circumstances”. Firstly, poor starts for the dominant Mercedes cars at both tracks allowed the slightly less competitive Williams and Ferrari to run 1-2 in the early stages of those races. Thus, preventing Mercedes from using its raw pace to pull away and instead forcing them to battle through and use their strategists (and mirrors) more. At Silverstone, Hamilton was cruising to victory until the rain came which suddenly plunged the result into doubt and an inspired tyre change helped the Brit to a home victory.
Meanwhile, at the Hungaroring, the poor starts, 
mysterious lack of pace from Rosberg and Hamilton’s error strewn race gave us a first podium without a Mercedes driver since Brazil 2013 and a second Ferrari win for Sebastian Vettel. Although Lewis proved Mercedes were still the team to beat with some supremely fast lap times between the traffic in Hungary, Vettel proved that track position is everything. With the German always running at the front in clear air, he was able to build a comfortable lead throughout the first two stints whilst his rival Hamilton battled through the pack. Even with such a lead, there’s always a risk of an accident or safety car at any race. Hulkenberg’s front-wing failure caused race direction to deploy both a Virtual and then the actual safety car wiping Vettel’s advantage and now the result was suddenly in doubt as the fast Hamilton ran fourth and Ricciardo with soft tyres fitted in fifth. Even the incidents and penalties that followed at the restart for Ricciardo and Hamilton added to the enthralling race and led to a result that no one truly expected when the red lights went out 69 laps earlier.
So the true question is do we have to rely on mistakes from Mercedes and their drivers to provide thrilling races? Or, with changes to the start procedures from Belgium onwards (which threatens to shake up the order when the lights go out), are we in store for an enthralling second half of the season? Only time will tell…
Images courtesy of Mercedes AMG F1 Team
