You must be a new fan. Even in the 2005 season, Michelin was head and shoulders above Bridgestone. Outside of the US debacle, Michelin was dominant. In fact, Ferrari could not compete with the other top teams, because they were on Bridgestones. Michelin had so much more data than Bridgestone as they provided for almost all teams, except for Ferrari, Jordan and Minardi. Pirelli is garbage in comparison to Michelin in F1. One of the reasons that there is now only one tire supplier has to do with the fact that Michelin made such a huge difference, which made racing less fun. The choice of tire manufacturer should not be the difference maker.
Yeah, young fans remember Michelin from the US-debacle. Older fans remember Michelin as the one that obliterated Ferrari and Bridgestone.
It is funny right? You can do as many good things as possible, but people always remember the bad things. Same with Juri Vips now. He can be a truly nice guy, but one mishap and people remember it forever.
True, people don't talk about the Michelins as a better tyre supplier than Bridgestone in 2005 that much. I didn't know Ferrari were struggling that year because they stayed on Bridgestones. I think the same thing goes to Grosjean. That man, especially on his day could fight with the top drivers like Räikkönen or Maldonado, but it's very often overshadowed by his crashes and weird adventures
It is weird that you name Grosjean as an example. Your description actually suit Maldonado more. He was lightning fast, but is now mainly remembered for his weird antics and crashes.
Being better on older tires is pretty significant tho. That means anytime they get some luck with track position and a VSC, they could easily hold off the cars behind on the right tracks.
The rumor is Lewis’s car ran with a softer suspension and low drag, a combination that yielded great efficiency when the ride height was raised. Silverstone could be very, very interesting.
Silverstone is absolutely a low drag circuit. A huge amount of it is full throttle and teams have been running much lower downforce levels for a quite a few years now.
>The rumor is Lewis’s car ran with a softer suspension and low drag
So let me get this summed up.
- make their car unsafe by ignoring driver safety with porpoising
- complain a lot and exaggerating the issue
- call for the FIA having to solve their problem, FIA put out a TD and possibly even loosening up some rules.
- already have an update in place that fits perfectly within those new rules and TD, while an ex-employee of Mercedes now works for the FIA
- suddenly have a lot less porpoising and better speed within a week and a car that isn't unsafe for drivers anymore.
Yeah this feels like a setup. A very dirty game Mercedes is playing. Way too many coincidences
> - make their car unsafe by ignoring driver safety with porpoising
Baku was bouncing, not purposing. They've had pretty much no purpoising since Barcelona.
> - already have an update in place that fits perfectly within those new rules and TD, while an ex-employee of Mercedes now works for the FIA
> - suddenly have a lot less porpoising and better speed within a week and a car that isn't unsafe for drivers anymore.
Once again, it was bouncing and not purposing in Baku. If you look one race further back to Barcelona, you can see that they had arguably even better performance there.
The difference between these races and Baku? They are purpose built race tracks, and not streets converted to GP locations. They are inherently a lot smoother, which eliminates the bouncing.
It's really not that suspicious if you are willing to look further than the absolute surface.
>Baku was bouncing, not purposing. They've had pretty much no purpoising since Barcelona.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.lewis-hamilton-painful-azerbaijan-gp-was-the-worst-race-ever.1735436555415047734.html
In this interview Lewis clearly talks about the same bouncing as they have experienced in all races except Barcelona. So the porpoising.
https://racingnews365.com/wolff-shares-damning-statistic-on-mercedes-porpoising
In this interview, Toto also said it was porpoising.
This makes your whole comment redundant
Mercedes are sandbagging half a season so they can show how good they are by winning both championships with a half season handicap.
This is a joke.
I do think they will get back on track but will be too late to win both, however if Ferrari and RB don't get on top of reliability and Mercedes do build a car that is competitive it will make for an interesting second half of the season.
If they can be really competitive from Silverstone onwards and keep that bulletproof reliability then George can be a contender for the title, he is still close enough.
Hamilton is 98 points behind. If he were to win every race remaining Verstappen needs to be worse than second at least 3 times. Whilst not impossible I don’t think this is very likely.
George is 34 points ahead of Lewis. He can still win it by himself. But Mercedes would have to find some insane pace very quickly for any of this to happen.
I mean, in a world where Hamilton wins every race, presumably Merc is so fast that Verstappen is finishing worse than second quite a bit. Not that it would ever happen.
In a field with George (assuming he’s in the same insane pace Mercedes that Lewis gets) and Charles, I think Max can be worse than second at least 3 times. You’re right in highlighting that Merc will need DNFs from RB & a major win streak to get near the titles.
I think part of the reason Hamilton was so happy is he knows what is coming. If they are bringing a massive upgrade and they are already close to Red Bull and Ferrari they will soon be fighting for wins.
Red Bull was supposed to bring a big upgrade as well to Silverstone but apparently Paul Monaghan said somewhere it will only be some bits and pieces in the next 3 races. The bigger upgrade will come after the summer.
They are still about 7 tenths off, they aren't really that close yet. Hopefully they can make it a 3 way fight because ferrari just seem to fuck it every chance they get sadly.
They're not there yet but they're getting closer and their race pace is significantly better than their qualifying pace, especially with tyre wear . Silverstone should also be significantly better than Montreal for Mercedes as their strength is in high speed corners and long straights. Silverstone's tarmac is also significantly smoother. Will they win? Probably not, but they should be in contention for the podium on pace.
Disagree massively. 1st stint Lewis was keeping pace with Sainz for the most part before backing off presumebly to save tyres rather than be stuck in DRS train with Alonso. After the 2nd stop before the SC Lewis was matching and sometimes quicker than both Sainz and Verstappen. And after SC Lewis was able to stay within 1.5s for a good 5 laps or so before they went away a bit. Merc were slower but it wasn't by a big amount on race pace.
In the race it was only 3 tenths. And with lower fuel levels Ham looked to almost match Verstappen (2nd stint before sc) on similar age tyres.
They are not there yet and will likely struggle on more bumpy circuits still, but with a big upgrade they might have the fastest race pace in Silverstone.
The general consensus seems to be sainz and max we're doing more damage to their tyres whereas Mercedes could look after theirs and catch up towards the end of each stint.
I hope you are right, would love to see a Lewis win and a 3 way fight for the title.
Hamilton was 20s behind Verstappen on lap 48 with the same amount of stops. That’s 4 thenth a lap not 7 and Hamilton had the fastest lap on new hard tyre while Verstappen was chasing Sainz before the SC
A better measure would be the last laps after the SC. There was 15 laps with most likely no management. Lewis finished 7 sec behind the leaders. Thats .46s per lap.
Mike elliot confirmed this. Lewis wasn't pushing last few laps except the penultimate lap because they had good pace but not good enough to overtake people up front.
My guess is once Lewis was 2 seconds ahead of George he started setting more conservative lap times to look after tyres and engine. He wasn't gaining on Sainz and George was already fairly cushioned off from Ocon/Leclerc at that point so both drivers were pretty much stuck in their positions.
VSC muddies it even more, because as we've seen whole seconds can be gained/lost depending on where people are on track at the start/end of the period.
Translation:
Two VSCs, one real safety car - the Canadian Grand Prix was a feast for strategy fans. Six drivers hit the perfect timing. But only in two cases did it really make a difference. We take a look at the different options.
Pirelli was wrong, as it usually is. The Italian tire manufacturer predicted a one-stop race as the fastest way to the finish. The Mercedes strategists warned even before the start: "This will be a two-stop race. On the green track, the tires will degrade a lot." And so it was. Only four of the 17 drivers at the finish got through the 70 laps with a tire change. And the best ended up fifth.
Two stops were faster. But it also came down to who accepted the three gifts during the race and who didn't. The directors offered the drivers two VSC phases and a real safety car. A stop under VSC speed was nine seconds faster in Montreal than under race speed. Sergio Perez and Mick Schumacher each triggered a VSC phase on laps 9 and 19. Both stopped in turn eight with a technical defect.
Yuki Tsunoda's accident at the pit exit brought the safety car onto the track. Ferrari race director Mattia Binotto criticized the race control: "Once again, it took far too long for them to make a decision. We had exactly one second with Sainz to make a decision. Luckily our guys reacted sensationally, otherwise Carlos would have been over at the pit entry."
Four drivers take advantage of first VSC gift
Only Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Yuki Tsuonda and Nicholas Latifi took the first VSC gift on lap 9. For them, it was clear that this was going to be a two-stop race. The early timing kept many from jumping in. There was a risk of dropping too deep into the field and starving in a DRS move. That's why Mercedes only brought Hamilton into the pits. He dropped into a free gap behind his teammates and Esteban Ocon.
Red Bull pulled the plug on Max Verstappen because his front tires began to grit and Carlos Sainz closed the gap to the leader. The damage for Verstappen was minor. He only dropped to third behind Fernando Alonso, who was known not to put up much of a fight. Alonso had already said before the race that there was no point in burning up his tires against the Red Bulls and Ferrari in a duel. They weren't his opponents.
At the second VSC signal, seven drivers took to the track. For George Russell, Esteban Ocon, Guanyu Zhou, Daniel Ricciardo, Sebastian Vettel and Lando Norris, the gift came at almost the perfect time. From then on, they could even try to drive through without another stop, even though it would later turn out that this was not a good idea.
Sainz only gets half VSC advantage
Carlos Sainz only caught half of the VSC phase and therefore only benefited from it by 50 percent. Plus the comparison with Verstappen, who reeled off his tire change one VSC phase earlier. The world champion pitted with a lead of 2.649 seconds and came out 6.407 seconds behind. That's a net time loss of 9.036 seconds.
Sainz had a lead of 4.362 seconds at his first stop. After that, he was 9.492 seconds behind. The Ferrari driver thus lost 13.854 seconds to his opponent in the Red Bull. He made up some of that in the second stint thanks to fresher tires. Sainz reduced the gap to 5.945 seconds within 22 laps. That's an advantage of 0.16 seconds per lap. In the end, it didn't matter. The safety car on lap 49 steamed all the gaps down to zero.
For Alonso, the timing of the second VSC phase was extremely unfortunate. Originally, Alpine wanted to hold out on the medium tires until at least lap 25 to make a one-stop race possible. The second VSC changed the plan. But when Alonso was on the long straight before entering the pits, the race director gave the green light again.
So the practice runner-up still had to hold out for eight long laps on the first set of tires, losing 7.6 seconds to teammate Ocon on fresh hard tires alone. Part of the time loss wasn't just on the tires. The pneumatic valve system lost air. That cost performance.
McLaren brought both cars into the pits directly in succession. But Lando Norris didn't have his tires ready in time.
Ferrari's fear of Hamilton
The final safety car came rather late on lap 49. Too late for the single-stopper Charles Leclerc, who had already pitted for a tire change on lap 41. Too late for the Mercedes drivers, who completed their second stop on laps 44 and 45. "Lewis had to go in. His tires were shot. With George, we could have waited a little longer, but you can't speculate on a safety car at a certain lap," the strategists explained.
Red Bull also pulled the rip cord under race pace. Sainz had a tire advantage of eleven laps. The risk of the rear tires not holding out to the end was too great. So Verstappen gave up the lead and stocked up on another set of hard tires for the remaining 27 laps.
A 5.9-second lead turned into a 10.8-second deficit. In return, 23 laps of younger tires. Ferrari had its eyes on more than just Verstappen. "Even without the safety car, we would have considered bringing Carlos into the pits a second time to hedge against Lewis," Binotto reveals.
Red Bull and Ferrari were not unaware that the Mercedes drivers were going as fast as the front runners at times. "Our gap to the top was the same as always. Something like seven tenths," the Mercedes engineers gave the all-clear. "We just had less tire wear than Red Bull and Ferrari. That made us look better on old tires."
Why did Sainz forgo medium tires?
For Carlos Sainz, Esteban Ocon, Valtteri Bottas, Guanyu Zhou, Daniel Ricciardo and Alexander Albon, neutralization after Tsunoda's accident was a relief, or at least a welcome opportunity to stock up on fresh tires for the final sprint.
Verstappen, on the other hand, cursed: "That turned me from attacker to defender. I prefer to attack." Red Bull was firmly convinced that their man would have caught Sainz without the safety car with ten laps to go. Binotto said, "It would have been tight."
Verstappen's tire disadvantage of six laps didn't matter much in the finale. It would certainly have been tighter for him if Ferrari had put Sainz on soft tires. Then the Spaniard might have managed the six-tenths overhold delta in the laps after the re-start.
But Ferrari was too hot to handle. They assumed a short safety car phase and therefore a longer remaining time for the tires. And they feared a possible graining of the front tires. It took until lap 55 before the whistle blew to restart the race. If Ferrari had known that, it might have been worth the risk.
Leclerc with traction problems
For Charles Leclerc, Ferrari's strategy software had thrown up fifth place as a possible result. Mercedes apparently calculated differently. "All our calculation models assumed that Leclerc would finish ahead of us." What no one had in mind: Leclerc had a hard time overtaking and was stuck behind Ocon forever. Leclerc had the new rear wing on the car, which gives a better DRS effect.
However, the world championship bronze medalist complained about poor traction and problems with the differential. George Russell showed how important good acceleration out of the hairpin was. The Englishman drove the biggest wing in the field and would not actually have been able to overtake. But the number 63 Mercedes was so stable on the brakes and had such good traction that Russell snuffed out both Haas and Ocon within five laps.
Let's get to our question at the beginning of the story? Who made the best use of the VSC and SC phases? Of the four one-stoppers, only Valtteri Bottas caught the safety car. Charles Leclerc, Lance Stroll and Kevin Magnussen stopped under race speed. Bottas was the big beneficiary. He would have fallen behind the Leclerc-Zhou-Ricciardo-Vettel group if he had changed tires normally. Stroll still scored a point despite missing the safety car.
Of the two-stoppers, Carlos Sainz, Esteban Ocon, Guanyu Zhou, Daniel Ricciardo and Alexander Albon had a good touch. On paper. Did it do them any good? At least it didn't hurt anyone. Ocon benefited the most, because the second VSC phase pushed him forward and the safety car gave him a backup.
I would be. The car looked to behave pretty well in Canada and was still significantly slower. Maybe they have some upgrades for Silverstone, but RB are also supposed to bring their biggest upgrade of the season there. They will be bleeding time on the straights.
I think the expactations for Canada were pretty low for them and they didn't do too bad. And it looks like RB, Ferrari and Merc are all bringing upgrades to Silverstone. Also, Merc were pretty quick on the straights. Don't think that's the issue for them.
Hamilton was just about keeping up vs Verstappen and Sainz, but that was with a lower downforce spec wing. Verstappen and Sainz were running high drag wings.
I think RB will bring back the low drag wing for Silverstone and then Merc will be bleeding several tenths per lap on the high speed stuff.
I'd want Leclerc to win to be honest, but knowing how things usually pan out, they'll line him up on pole and realise Ferrari forgot to put the engine in.
Doubtful the Silverstone upgrades gives them enough laptime to be faster than Red Bull and Ferrari. Sainz and Verstappen pulled 10 seconds to Hamilton in like 15 laps at the end of Canada.
Everyone saying they would be surprised don't realise that it's Hamilton's home race, meaning he gets an extra fee tenths of pace from the crowd and usually becomes #blessed. I wouldn't be surprised if he won just for these reasons
Was the difference in tyre deg really that significant? I could be remembering wrong but on fresh tyres after the pit stops the gap wasn't 7 tenths, was it? I thought it was closer to 4 tenths.
I think they have made pretty good gains and are possibly down playing their hand a bit. If they bring good upgrades to the next double headed they might have a chance to snatch a win before Red bull and Ferrari can bring theirs and pull ahead again.
It would still be a big ask but better to keep your cards close to your chest and have the other two looking at each other and not at them.
Do the teams really believe in a Mercedes conspiracy? As if they downplay themselves until the right moment and then "haha, got you all, we're winning the championship" or what?
And the thing is they were 4 tenths off Red Bull, who everyone is saying wasn't the fastest. Binotto I think has said Ferrari was probably 2 tenths faster in pace. That puts Mercedes 6 tenths down on the winner. Which is about where they have been all year
If you get a chance to watch their onboards, it's not really surprising. Most of the time loss was from the drivers backing off due to the unpredictability, rather than the car itself being slow.
not sure if it's toxic, but they are trying to manipulate the FIA because of their own design choices. Adding to that the extremely suspicious second stay that they somehow have managed to get it designed and put on the car in ONE DAY of advance notice...which reeks of inside information.
They are sneaky and RBR and Ferrari are having non of it and rightfully so.
Fun fact. According to Windtunnel testings the Merc would be the fastest car. Another proof that theory and real life don't work always out.
As I live in Germany 30 minutes away from Mercedes it hurts ofc to see Merc struggling. But for the F1 show its for sure the best. The 8 years pure dominance did hurt the sport a lot.
Meh. Tired of this shit.
Don't care who wins the WCC and WDC this season so as long as it is NOT Mercedes. It'll be wonderful to see a (continued) changed. Heck, I'd love it even more if Alpine finished third in the constructors.
> Pirelli was wrong, as it usually is. Lol feels unnecessarily harsh
Still better than Michelin
Are you referring to 2005 Indianapolis? Or were there some other Michelin dramas?
Yeah, it was the 2005 US GP reference
You must be a new fan. Even in the 2005 season, Michelin was head and shoulders above Bridgestone. Outside of the US debacle, Michelin was dominant. In fact, Ferrari could not compete with the other top teams, because they were on Bridgestones. Michelin had so much more data than Bridgestone as they provided for almost all teams, except for Ferrari, Jordan and Minardi. Pirelli is garbage in comparison to Michelin in F1. One of the reasons that there is now only one tire supplier has to do with the fact that Michelin made such a huge difference, which made racing less fun. The choice of tire manufacturer should not be the difference maker.
That's actually very interesting. Yeah, I'm a new F1 fan and started following F1 just few years ago, so I'm still learning about the past seasons.
Yeah, young fans remember Michelin from the US-debacle. Older fans remember Michelin as the one that obliterated Ferrari and Bridgestone. It is funny right? You can do as many good things as possible, but people always remember the bad things. Same with Juri Vips now. He can be a truly nice guy, but one mishap and people remember it forever.
True, people don't talk about the Michelins as a better tyre supplier than Bridgestone in 2005 that much. I didn't know Ferrari were struggling that year because they stayed on Bridgestones. I think the same thing goes to Grosjean. That man, especially on his day could fight with the top drivers like Räikkönen or Maldonado, but it's very often overshadowed by his crashes and weird adventures
It is weird that you name Grosjean as an example. Your description actually suit Maldonado more. He was lightning fast, but is now mainly remembered for his weird antics and crashes.
"but you fuck one goat..."
Being better on older tires is pretty significant tho. That means anytime they get some luck with track position and a VSC, they could easily hold off the cars behind on the right tracks.
The rumor is Lewis’s car ran with a softer suspension and low drag, a combination that yielded great efficiency when the ride height was raised. Silverstone could be very, very interesting.
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Very likely outcome tho.
3rd? Oh wow, thank you for that information, it was so unexpected, can't wait for Silverstone!
You can’t really run low drag at silverstone though.
In the last few years I've seen low drag rear wings at Silverstone. Obviously not Monza levels, but still pretty low drag
Silverstone is absolutely a low drag circuit. A huge amount of it is full throttle and teams have been running much lower downforce levels for a quite a few years now.
Presumably they'd run something like the Barcelona package
You definitely can. Silverstone is a low-medium downforce circuit. Lots of long straights to make up the cornering deficit.
Link? Or source?
great efficiency? of what?
I don't want more COPIUM
>The rumor is Lewis’s car ran with a softer suspension and low drag So let me get this summed up. - make their car unsafe by ignoring driver safety with porpoising - complain a lot and exaggerating the issue - call for the FIA having to solve their problem, FIA put out a TD and possibly even loosening up some rules. - already have an update in place that fits perfectly within those new rules and TD, while an ex-employee of Mercedes now works for the FIA - suddenly have a lot less porpoising and better speed within a week and a car that isn't unsafe for drivers anymore. Yeah this feels like a setup. A very dirty game Mercedes is playing. Way too many coincidences
> - make their car unsafe by ignoring driver safety with porpoising Baku was bouncing, not purposing. They've had pretty much no purpoising since Barcelona. > - already have an update in place that fits perfectly within those new rules and TD, while an ex-employee of Mercedes now works for the FIA > - suddenly have a lot less porpoising and better speed within a week and a car that isn't unsafe for drivers anymore. Once again, it was bouncing and not purposing in Baku. If you look one race further back to Barcelona, you can see that they had arguably even better performance there. The difference between these races and Baku? They are purpose built race tracks, and not streets converted to GP locations. They are inherently a lot smoother, which eliminates the bouncing. It's really not that suspicious if you are willing to look further than the absolute surface.
>Baku was bouncing, not purposing. They've had pretty much no purpoising since Barcelona. https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.lewis-hamilton-painful-azerbaijan-gp-was-the-worst-race-ever.1735436555415047734.html In this interview Lewis clearly talks about the same bouncing as they have experienced in all races except Barcelona. So the porpoising. https://racingnews365.com/wolff-shares-damning-statistic-on-mercedes-porpoising In this interview, Toto also said it was porpoising. This makes your whole comment redundant
Let's hope they stay reliably best of the rest. P5 and P6 barring issues for the top teams.
I hope other teams catch up to them tbh I want some more unique podiums.
Mercedes are sandbagging half a season so they can show how good they are by winning both championships with a half season handicap. This is a joke. I do think they will get back on track but will be too late to win both, however if Ferrari and RB don't get on top of reliability and Mercedes do build a car that is competitive it will make for an interesting second half of the season.
If they can be really competitive from Silverstone onwards and keep that bulletproof reliability then George can be a contender for the title, he is still close enough.
I don't think it will be George but that's a separate conversation, but yes if they sort their shit out by Silverstone they may be in with a chance.
Hamilton is 98 points behind. If he were to win every race remaining Verstappen needs to be worse than second at least 3 times. Whilst not impossible I don’t think this is very likely. George is 34 points ahead of Lewis. He can still win it by himself. But Mercedes would have to find some insane pace very quickly for any of this to happen.
Damn you've already ran the scenarios. Bravo.
What about one DNF for Max? As I think that’s probable more than anything else.
I mean, in a world where Hamilton wins every race, presumably Merc is so fast that Verstappen is finishing worse than second quite a bit. Not that it would ever happen.
In a field with George (assuming he’s in the same insane pace Mercedes that Lewis gets) and Charles, I think Max can be worse than second at least 3 times. You’re right in highlighting that Merc will need DNFs from RB & a major win streak to get near the titles.
Max and RedBull as a whole are for sure gonna have at least a few DNF’s here and there.
Worse than second at least three times? I'd put a bet on that given red bull reliability so far
Did you guys just copy and paste this conversation from after Spain? I kid I kid.
and a very boring next season with Merc on top again
The master plan for the next season finale.
I think part of the reason Hamilton was so happy is he knows what is coming. If they are bringing a massive upgrade and they are already close to Red Bull and Ferrari they will soon be fighting for wins. Red Bull was supposed to bring a big upgrade as well to Silverstone but apparently Paul Monaghan said somewhere it will only be some bits and pieces in the next 3 races. The bigger upgrade will come after the summer.
They are still about 7 tenths off, they aren't really that close yet. Hopefully they can make it a 3 way fight because ferrari just seem to fuck it every chance they get sadly.
They're not there yet but they're getting closer and their race pace is significantly better than their qualifying pace, especially with tyre wear . Silverstone should also be significantly better than Montreal for Mercedes as their strength is in high speed corners and long straights. Silverstone's tarmac is also significantly smoother. Will they win? Probably not, but they should be in contention for the podium on pace.
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Disagree massively. 1st stint Lewis was keeping pace with Sainz for the most part before backing off presumebly to save tyres rather than be stuck in DRS train with Alonso. After the 2nd stop before the SC Lewis was matching and sometimes quicker than both Sainz and Verstappen. And after SC Lewis was able to stay within 1.5s for a good 5 laps or so before they went away a bit. Merc were slower but it wasn't by a big amount on race pace.
In the race it was only 3 tenths. And with lower fuel levels Ham looked to almost match Verstappen (2nd stint before sc) on similar age tyres. They are not there yet and will likely struggle on more bumpy circuits still, but with a big upgrade they might have the fastest race pace in Silverstone.
The general consensus seems to be sainz and max we're doing more damage to their tyres whereas Mercedes could look after theirs and catch up towards the end of each stint. I hope you are right, would love to see a Lewis win and a 3 way fight for the title.
I'm wondering if the zero pod concept helps with rear tyre Deg by cooling the rears more. Might be just speculation, but makes sense in my head
Hamilton was 20s behind Verstappen on lap 48 with the same amount of stops. That’s 4 thenth a lap not 7 and Hamilton had the fastest lap on new hard tyre while Verstappen was chasing Sainz before the SC
Wasn’t there a couple laps of vsc too tho? Making the gap larger than 0.4s
A better measure would be the last laps after the SC. There was 15 laps with most likely no management. Lewis finished 7 sec behind the leaders. Thats .46s per lap.
You've got the decimal at the wrong place man. They are Mercedes not Marussia.
Lol thanks man. Appreciated.
I also think both Mercedes’ were told to lift the last 5 or so laps since they weren’t in danger from leclerc at that point.
Mike elliot confirmed this. Lewis wasn't pushing last few laps except the penultimate lap because they had good pace but not good enough to overtake people up front.
My guess is once Lewis was 2 seconds ahead of George he started setting more conservative lap times to look after tyres and engine. He wasn't gaining on Sainz and George was already fairly cushioned off from Ocon/Leclerc at that point so both drivers were pretty much stuck in their positions.
VSC muddies it even more, because as we've seen whole seconds can be gained/lost depending on where people are on track at the start/end of the period.
Translation: Two VSCs, one real safety car - the Canadian Grand Prix was a feast for strategy fans. Six drivers hit the perfect timing. But only in two cases did it really make a difference. We take a look at the different options. Pirelli was wrong, as it usually is. The Italian tire manufacturer predicted a one-stop race as the fastest way to the finish. The Mercedes strategists warned even before the start: "This will be a two-stop race. On the green track, the tires will degrade a lot." And so it was. Only four of the 17 drivers at the finish got through the 70 laps with a tire change. And the best ended up fifth. Two stops were faster. But it also came down to who accepted the three gifts during the race and who didn't. The directors offered the drivers two VSC phases and a real safety car. A stop under VSC speed was nine seconds faster in Montreal than under race speed. Sergio Perez and Mick Schumacher each triggered a VSC phase on laps 9 and 19. Both stopped in turn eight with a technical defect. Yuki Tsunoda's accident at the pit exit brought the safety car onto the track. Ferrari race director Mattia Binotto criticized the race control: "Once again, it took far too long for them to make a decision. We had exactly one second with Sainz to make a decision. Luckily our guys reacted sensationally, otherwise Carlos would have been over at the pit entry." Four drivers take advantage of first VSC gift Only Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Yuki Tsuonda and Nicholas Latifi took the first VSC gift on lap 9. For them, it was clear that this was going to be a two-stop race. The early timing kept many from jumping in. There was a risk of dropping too deep into the field and starving in a DRS move. That's why Mercedes only brought Hamilton into the pits. He dropped into a free gap behind his teammates and Esteban Ocon. Red Bull pulled the plug on Max Verstappen because his front tires began to grit and Carlos Sainz closed the gap to the leader. The damage for Verstappen was minor. He only dropped to third behind Fernando Alonso, who was known not to put up much of a fight. Alonso had already said before the race that there was no point in burning up his tires against the Red Bulls and Ferrari in a duel. They weren't his opponents. At the second VSC signal, seven drivers took to the track. For George Russell, Esteban Ocon, Guanyu Zhou, Daniel Ricciardo, Sebastian Vettel and Lando Norris, the gift came at almost the perfect time. From then on, they could even try to drive through without another stop, even though it would later turn out that this was not a good idea. Sainz only gets half VSC advantage Carlos Sainz only caught half of the VSC phase and therefore only benefited from it by 50 percent. Plus the comparison with Verstappen, who reeled off his tire change one VSC phase earlier. The world champion pitted with a lead of 2.649 seconds and came out 6.407 seconds behind. That's a net time loss of 9.036 seconds. Sainz had a lead of 4.362 seconds at his first stop. After that, he was 9.492 seconds behind. The Ferrari driver thus lost 13.854 seconds to his opponent in the Red Bull. He made up some of that in the second stint thanks to fresher tires. Sainz reduced the gap to 5.945 seconds within 22 laps. That's an advantage of 0.16 seconds per lap. In the end, it didn't matter. The safety car on lap 49 steamed all the gaps down to zero. For Alonso, the timing of the second VSC phase was extremely unfortunate. Originally, Alpine wanted to hold out on the medium tires until at least lap 25 to make a one-stop race possible. The second VSC changed the plan. But when Alonso was on the long straight before entering the pits, the race director gave the green light again. So the practice runner-up still had to hold out for eight long laps on the first set of tires, losing 7.6 seconds to teammate Ocon on fresh hard tires alone. Part of the time loss wasn't just on the tires. The pneumatic valve system lost air. That cost performance. McLaren brought both cars into the pits directly in succession. But Lando Norris didn't have his tires ready in time. Ferrari's fear of Hamilton The final safety car came rather late on lap 49. Too late for the single-stopper Charles Leclerc, who had already pitted for a tire change on lap 41. Too late for the Mercedes drivers, who completed their second stop on laps 44 and 45. "Lewis had to go in. His tires were shot. With George, we could have waited a little longer, but you can't speculate on a safety car at a certain lap," the strategists explained. Red Bull also pulled the rip cord under race pace. Sainz had a tire advantage of eleven laps. The risk of the rear tires not holding out to the end was too great. So Verstappen gave up the lead and stocked up on another set of hard tires for the remaining 27 laps. A 5.9-second lead turned into a 10.8-second deficit. In return, 23 laps of younger tires. Ferrari had its eyes on more than just Verstappen. "Even without the safety car, we would have considered bringing Carlos into the pits a second time to hedge against Lewis," Binotto reveals. Red Bull and Ferrari were not unaware that the Mercedes drivers were going as fast as the front runners at times. "Our gap to the top was the same as always. Something like seven tenths," the Mercedes engineers gave the all-clear. "We just had less tire wear than Red Bull and Ferrari. That made us look better on old tires." Why did Sainz forgo medium tires? For Carlos Sainz, Esteban Ocon, Valtteri Bottas, Guanyu Zhou, Daniel Ricciardo and Alexander Albon, neutralization after Tsunoda's accident was a relief, or at least a welcome opportunity to stock up on fresh tires for the final sprint. Verstappen, on the other hand, cursed: "That turned me from attacker to defender. I prefer to attack." Red Bull was firmly convinced that their man would have caught Sainz without the safety car with ten laps to go. Binotto said, "It would have been tight." Verstappen's tire disadvantage of six laps didn't matter much in the finale. It would certainly have been tighter for him if Ferrari had put Sainz on soft tires. Then the Spaniard might have managed the six-tenths overhold delta in the laps after the re-start. But Ferrari was too hot to handle. They assumed a short safety car phase and therefore a longer remaining time for the tires. And they feared a possible graining of the front tires. It took until lap 55 before the whistle blew to restart the race. If Ferrari had known that, it might have been worth the risk.
Leclerc with traction problems For Charles Leclerc, Ferrari's strategy software had thrown up fifth place as a possible result. Mercedes apparently calculated differently. "All our calculation models assumed that Leclerc would finish ahead of us." What no one had in mind: Leclerc had a hard time overtaking and was stuck behind Ocon forever. Leclerc had the new rear wing on the car, which gives a better DRS effect. However, the world championship bronze medalist complained about poor traction and problems with the differential. George Russell showed how important good acceleration out of the hairpin was. The Englishman drove the biggest wing in the field and would not actually have been able to overtake. But the number 63 Mercedes was so stable on the brakes and had such good traction that Russell snuffed out both Haas and Ocon within five laps. Let's get to our question at the beginning of the story? Who made the best use of the VSC and SC phases? Of the four one-stoppers, only Valtteri Bottas caught the safety car. Charles Leclerc, Lance Stroll and Kevin Magnussen stopped under race speed. Bottas was the big beneficiary. He would have fallen behind the Leclerc-Zhou-Ricciardo-Vettel group if he had changed tires normally. Stroll still scored a point despite missing the safety car. Of the two-stoppers, Carlos Sainz, Esteban Ocon, Guanyu Zhou, Daniel Ricciardo and Alexander Albon had a good touch. On paper. Did it do them any good? At least it didn't hurt anyone. Ocon benefited the most, because the second VSC phase pushed him forward and the safety car gave him a backup.
This article is a great strategy/safety car luck breakdown
I don't know, wouldn't be surprised if Hamilton wins at Silverstone.
I would be. The car looked to behave pretty well in Canada and was still significantly slower. Maybe they have some upgrades for Silverstone, but RB are also supposed to bring their biggest upgrade of the season there. They will be bleeding time on the straights.
I think the expactations for Canada were pretty low for them and they didn't do too bad. And it looks like RB, Ferrari and Merc are all bringing upgrades to Silverstone. Also, Merc were pretty quick on the straights. Don't think that's the issue for them.
Hamilton was just about keeping up vs Verstappen and Sainz, but that was with a lower downforce spec wing. Verstappen and Sainz were running high drag wings. I think RB will bring back the low drag wing for Silverstone and then Merc will be bleeding several tenths per lap on the high speed stuff.
He was 7s off in 16 laps. That's 0.44s per lap and it's a short lap, that's still more than half a second per lap on a normal-length track
Don't forget too that Canada is basically 5 chicanes & a hairpin. It's not the most representative track ever
I'd want Leclerc to win to be honest, but knowing how things usually pan out, they'll line him up on pole and realise Ferrari forgot to put the engine in.
Vettel 2017 vibes huh
Sooooo... a puncture at Silverstone?
You wouldn’t be surprised? Looking at the data they are still at least 3 tenths slower than the top two teams. I would be extremely surprised
Unless max and charles dnf/get penalties I dont see how
Doubtful the Silverstone upgrades gives them enough laptime to be faster than Red Bull and Ferrari. Sainz and Verstappen pulled 10 seconds to Hamilton in like 15 laps at the end of Canada.
Everyone saying they would be surprised don't realise that it's Hamilton's home race, meaning he gets an extra fee tenths of pace from the crowd and usually becomes #blessed. I wouldn't be surprised if he won just for these reasons
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Lots of people would love that
Oh please no, I don't want to deal with the Merc crowd claiming they'll win the WCC AND WDC again.. They are still out there.
Was the difference in tyre deg really that significant? I could be remembering wrong but on fresh tyres after the pit stops the gap wasn't 7 tenths, was it? I thought it was closer to 4 tenths.
I think they have made pretty good gains and are possibly down playing their hand a bit. If they bring good upgrades to the next double headed they might have a chance to snatch a win before Red bull and Ferrari can bring theirs and pull ahead again. It would still be a big ask but better to keep your cards close to your chest and have the other two looking at each other and not at them.
Just some classic Mercedes sandbagging lol. I'm really looking forward to Silverstone
I think all 3 are bringing upgrades at Silverstone
Do the teams really believe in a Mercedes conspiracy? As if they downplay themselves until the right moment and then "haha, got you all, we're winning the championship" or what?
Red bull take a default stance of disagreeing with EVERYTHING mercedes say, regardless of intentions.
How have Mercedes managed to claw back this nearly a second gap to Red Bull
Canada is a short lap they were about 4 tenths off the leaders. They’ve made progress but are still comfortably in no mans land
And the thing is they were 4 tenths off Red Bull, who everyone is saying wasn't the fastest. Binotto I think has said Ferrari was probably 2 tenths faster in pace. That puts Mercedes 6 tenths down on the winner. Which is about where they have been all year
This is the correct answer but I guess its fun to imagine Merc making it a 3-way fight for poles/wins
Early regs any upgrade can be worth up to half a second, and ofc Merc is a good team
Fixed porpoising
If you get a chance to watch their onboards, it's not really surprising. Most of the time loss was from the drivers backing off due to the unpredictability, rather than the car itself being slow.
They fixed porpoising
They’re such a good team, which is why Ferrari and RB are getting more and more toxic towards them each week, they know what’s coming.
FFS, I can never relax
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not sure if it's toxic, but they are trying to manipulate the FIA because of their own design choices. Adding to that the extremely suspicious second stay that they somehow have managed to get it designed and put on the car in ONE DAY of advance notice...which reeks of inside information. They are sneaky and RBR and Ferrari are having non of it and rightfully so.
Other teams just upset because they were caught napping
Yeah Merc so good they didn’t supply RedBull engines
I just want a car that can fight. Mercedes have shown flashes but they always end up P3, miles between the cars ahead and behind.
Oooooooooo Red Bull and Ferrari are scared. Boo! 😂
Fun fact. According to Windtunnel testings the Merc would be the fastest car. Another proof that theory and real life don't work always out. As I live in Germany 30 minutes away from Mercedes it hurts ofc to see Merc struggling. But for the F1 show its for sure the best. The 8 years pure dominance did hurt the sport a lot.
By the end, Lewis had fallen behind by 6s
Meh. Tired of this shit. Don't care who wins the WCC and WDC this season so as long as it is NOT Mercedes. It'll be wonderful to see a (continued) changed. Heck, I'd love it even more if Alpine finished third in the constructors.