{"id":21518,"date":"2014-04-06T15:52:01","date_gmt":"2014-04-06T19:52:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=21518"},"modified":"2014-04-06T15:52:01","modified_gmt":"2014-04-06T19:52:01","slug":"boring-f1-hits-back-with-bahrain-bonanza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/boring-f1-hits-back-with-bahrain-bonanza\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Boring&#8217; F1 hits back with Bahrain bonanza"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>F1 on Sunday issued the strongest-possible retort to all those playing down the spectacle of the sport&#8217;s new era.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"ngg-singlepic ngg-left alignleft\" style=\"margin: 5px 10px;\" alt=\"Lewis-Hamilton-Nico-Rosberg-Bahrain-2014\" src=\"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/gallery\/f1-2014-rif-images\/f1-2014-others\/Lewis-Hamilton-Nico-Rosberg-Bahrain-2014.jpg\" width=\"384\" height=\"256\" \/>Even before the race began under Bahrain&#8217;s spectacular new lights, McLaren supremo Ron Dennis was talking tough after a weekend of what he described as &#8220;whinging&#8221; about the 2014 rules.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Most of the moans are coming from uncompetitiveness,&#8221; he told British television Sky on the grid, telling the naysayers: &#8220;Just get on with it and develop your car.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Undoubtedly, his comments were pointed at the likes of Red Bull, and Ferrari&#8217;s Luca di Montezemolo, whose motives for talking down the sport are arguably political.<\/p>\n<p>Mercedes&#8217; Niki Lauda agrees with Dennis.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Everyone is fighting for his own interests,&#8221; he told German RTL television.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is known that the Ferrari engine is heavier than the Mercedes engine,&#8221; the great Austrian surmised.<\/p>\n<p>Granted, the spectacle in Australia and Malaysia was questionable, but even Ferrari&#8217;s own Fernando Alonso pointed out at the start of the Bahrain weekend that two races into a 19-event campaign is too early for judgement.<\/p>\n<p>Likening F1 to football, he said: &#8220;Some matches you watch are 0-0 and it&#8217;s terrible and then the next week you see 5-4 and enjoy the game so much.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sunday in Bahrain was 5-4.<\/p>\n<p>There were wheel-to-wheel battles throughout the field on every single lap, but the jewel in the crown was the extended fight for victory between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.<\/p>\n<p>Team boss Paddy Lowe even tried to impose team orders to ensure an orderly one-two, but Lauda laughed afterwards that the feisty silver-wearing teammates &#8220;ignored&#8221; him.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think today was a day for the sport,&#8221; said German Rosberg, who although ultimately defeated nonetheless excitedly embraced Hamilton in celebration of a much-needed boost for F1.<\/p>\n<p>Lauda said Sunday made those calling F1 boring look like &#8220;idiots&#8221;, with Mercedes adding on Twitter: &#8220;It&#8217;s absolutely official &#8212; F1 2014 kicks ass!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #888888;\"><em>\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>F1 on Sunday issued the strongest-possible retort to all those playing down the spectacle of the sport&#8217;s new era. Even before the race began under Bahrain&#8217;s spectacular new lights, McLaren supremo Ron Dennis was talking tough after a weekend of what he described as &#8220;whinging&#8221; about the 2014 rules. &#8220;Most of the moans are coming &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[2120,3],"tags":[864,5262,149,93,5340,154,148,4,598,551,129,880],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21518"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21518"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21519,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21518\/revisions\/21519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}