Formula 1 2019

[Pete the Elaner]

3 hours ago, Gareth Collier said:

Definitely one of the better races from Hungary and an inspired strategy call.

Quite an easy call when you think about the position at the time (which is what the strategists are there for).

It looked like Mercedes were easier on tyres, so Red Bull were not going to bring Verstappen in for new tyres just in case Mercedes didn't need to. The practise sessions were ruined by rain, so the longevity of the tyres was more of an unknown than usual.

Hamilton had already tried & failed to pass & that was with fresh tyres. His chances of getting past with older tyres were virtually non-existent.

LeClerc was 40 seconds behind in 3rd place, so they would not lose anything.

 

So the worst Hamilton could have done was stayed in 2nd place, but got the extra point for fastest lap. For 10 laps, it looked like that is exactly what was going to happen....until Verstappen's tyres started to drop off quite rapidly.

[Gareth Collier]

1 hour ago, Pete the Elaner said:

Quite an easy call when you think about the position at the time (which is what the strategists are there for).

It looked like Mercedes were easier on tyres, so Red Bull were not going to bring Verstappen in for new tyres just in case Mercedes didn't need to. The practise sessions were ruined by rain, so the longevity of the tyres was more of an unknown than usual.

Hamilton had already tried & failed to pass & that was with fresh tyres. His chances of getting past with older tyres were virtually non-existent.

LeClerc was 40 seconds behind in 3rd place, so they would not lose anything.

 

So the worst Hamilton could have done was stayed in 2nd place, but got the extra point for fastest lap. For 10 laps, it looked like that is exactly what was going to happen....until Verstappen's tyres started to drop off quite rapidly.

Sort of agree but Hamilton may not have caught up again, he didn't think he could. However his tyres were 6 laps younger than Max's and as his fell off the cliff at the end Hamilton could have passed anyway as he was right behind him. Who knows?

[57xx]

Hears people say Hungaroring  is boring and no one can overtake.

 

Watches loads of great racing and overtaking moves.  

 

Great qualifying from Max yesterday, an outstanding lap. Fantastic racing today from both Max and Lewis.

[Andrew P]

Yes a great Race, just a shame, (well for me anyway) that Vettel got past Leclerc.

[RJS1977]

37 minutes ago, Andrew P said:

Yes a great Race, just a shame, (well for me anyway) that Vettel got past Leclerc.

 

Yes, I was half hoping they'd take each other out and we'd have a McLaren on the podium!

 

 

Interesting to hear one of the commentators say the last driver to get his first pole after he'd already won six races was Jackie Stewart, as Jackie founded the Stewart F1 team, which became Jaguar and then Red Bull....

[Andrew P]

6 minutes ago, RJS1977 said:

 

Yes, I was half hoping they'd take each other out and we'd have a McLaren on the podium!

 

 

Interesting to hear one of the commentators say the last driver to get his first pole after he'd already won six races was Jackie Stewart, as Jackie founded the Stewart F1 team, which became Jaguar and then Red Bull....

I think we will see a McLaren on the Podium before the season is over, and I hope it's Norris.

 

I also think that Christian Horner is kicking himself for letting Carlos Sainz go.

 

[Jonboy]

Impressed Russell kept the 16th place.

[Andrew P]

17 minutes ago, Jonboy said:

Impressed Russell kept the 16th place.

Yes, I forgot about that, very impressive.

[woodenhead]

11 hours ago, Andrew P said:

I think we will see a McLaren on the Podium before the season is over, and I hope it's Norris.

 

I also think that Christian Horner is kicking himself for letting Carlos Sainz go.

 

I'd say the only person kicking himself at the moment remains Ricciardo.

 

 

[Pete the Elaner]

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

I'd say the only person kicking himself at the moment remains Ricciardo.

 

 

Verstappen's continual improvement was making Ricciardo a no.2 driver, which he did not want.

He is certainly not a no.2 at Renault so I don't think he will be too unhappy about his move.

He was popular within RB & they were sad to see him go.

[woodenhead]

1 hour ago, Pete the Elaner said:

Verstappen's continual improvement was making Ricciardo a no.2 driver, which he did not want.

He is certainly not a no.2 at Renault so I don't think he will be too unhappy about his move.

He was popular within RB & they were sad to see him go.

But as Christian Horner said yesterday, he's almost invisible now and with other young drivers coming to the for he's taken a massive backwards step.

 

Lets hope Renault have a plan

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Interesting measure of the relative performance of the Red Bull vs Ferrari, averaged a good half a second a lap quicker on the Hungaroring over race distance. So the Red Bull has been improved significantly over the Ferrari, from the season start.

 

But still nowhere near the Mercedes, which can probably outrun it a second a lap in full distance race pace terms.

 

Verstappen as driver of the day seems reasonable. He clearly beat one of the two much faster cars, and surely couldn't have squeezed any more out of the car in nearly getting to the line in the lead despite several repeats of Hamilton all over the back of his gearbox. Max is a whole different driver this season on the showing so far; talent tempered by experience.

[Oldddudders]

2 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Lets hope Renault have a plan

Indeed. As I observed earlier, the Renault engine is a cracker, clearly best-of-the-rest in a McLaren, i.e. faster than customer Merc and Ferrari engined cars, and the Honda in Toro Rosso.

 

What I think we are seeing is that engine ‘packaging’ is a critical art in this era. So McLaren are better at it than Renault, and no doubt Adrian Newey’s RB design learnt a lot from TR having the Honda unit last year.  I’m sure we all welcome Red Bull’s competitive performance right now, even though it means we see even more of Mr Smug Horner. He still manages to disparage Renault at every opportunity - I wouldn’t want him as a business partner. 

 

What has happened to Ferrari, of course, remains this year’s mystery. 

[woodenhead]

57 minutes ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

Interesting measure of the relative performance of the Red Bull vs Ferrari, averaged a good half a second a lap quicker on the Hungaroring over race distance. So the Red Bull has been improved significantly over the Ferrari, from the season start.

 

But still nowhere near the Mercedes, which can probably outrun it a second a lap in full distance race pace terms.

 

Verstappen as driver of the day seems reasonable. He clearly beat one of the two much faster cars, and surely couldn't have squeezed any more out of the car in nearly getting to the line in the lead despite several repeats of Hamilton all over the back of his gearbox. Max is a whole different driver this season on the showing so far; talent tempered by experience.

I think Verstappen knows he is on his way now towards a championship with a team focussed on him, he's clearly had support in managing his excesses so what we see now is someone focussing bigger picture and growing into a future world champion.

 

56 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

Indeed. As I observed earlier, the Renault engine is a cracker, clearly best-of-the-rest in a McLaren, i.e. faster than customer Merc and Ferrari engined cars, and the Honda in Toro Rosso.

 

What I think we are seeing is that engine ‘packaging’ is a critical art in this era. So McLaren are better at it than Renault, and no doubt Adrian Newey’s RB design learnt a lot from TR having the Honda unit last year.  I’m sure we all welcome Red Bull’s competitive performance right now, even though it means we see even more of Mr Smug Horner. He still manages to disparage Renault at every opportunity - I wouldn’t want him as a business partner. 

 

What has happened to Ferrari, of course, remains this year’s mystery. 

I think Ferrari only have one problem, themselves, McLaren finally appear to be finding their feet again and quietly moving to the best of the rest, perhaps soon they will be fighting for podiums again.

[njee20]

1 hour ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

But still nowhere near the Mercedes, which can probably outrun it a second a lap in full distance race pace terms.

 

I disagree, any advantage is nowhere near that, which is a colossal gap. You certainly can't infer that from yesterday's result where tyre strategies were totally different. That would have Merc lapping the entire field over the course of a race.

 

If Verstappen had pitted at the same time as Hamilton (or potentially the following lap) then the Merc wouldn't have just romped off into the distance.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

3 minutes ago, njee20 said:

I disagree, any advantage is nowhere near that, which is a colossal gap...That would have Merc lapping the entire field over the course of a race...

Look at the data.

 

Hamilton finished a full minute ahead of Vettel, after spending most of the race behind the slower Red Bull of Verstappen. So even held up, the Merc was faster over race distance by a minute, than the best of the rest.

 

In fairly clear air after second pit stop, Hamilton reeled in the Red Bull, he demonstrated 1.5 seconds a lap advantage. Yes, on fresh tyres, but the point is that this performance is there in the car, to give away a pit stop and then drive right up to the back of the guy who didn't stop,  and then overtake. We don't normally see the Merc. 'turned up to 11' like that, the team are very canny in hiding just how much they have in reserve.

 

Your estimate of the Merc's overall race distance advantage may well differ from mine, but I feel a second a lap if fully opened out is a realistic guess at where it lies.

[njee20]

You said the Merc was quicker than the Red Bull by a second a lap over a race distance.

That's not borne out in any data (and looking at one race then claiming "the data shows this at a macro level" is grossly flawed). Lewis beat Max by 18 seconds. Gasly beat Bottas. I'm failing to see your statement proven.

[Pete the Elaner]

6 minutes ago, njee20 said:

If Verstappen had pitted at the same time as Hamilton (or potentially the following lap) then the Merc wouldn't have just romped off into the distance.

None of those vere viable options.

 

1 lap was enough to perform the undercut, so pitting Verstappen on the following lap would have put him in 2nd place.

 

They couldn't pit him first because they didn't really know how the tyres would last. If they had tried & Hamilton stayed out, Verstappen may not have been able to catch up again. This would have made them look very silly.

They were probably all lacking tyre data because the practise sessions were wet.

 

They couldn't pit them together because Mercedes are often selling dummies with pit stops, even though it is not really allowed...so RB would not know for sure that Hamilton was pitting until Verstappen had passed the pit lane entry.

 

Once this happened, it was simply a question of could Hamilton catch up again....& for 10 laps it looked like he would not be able to.

[royaloak]

Good strategy call from Mercedes, and you cant say that very often!

[njee20]

17 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

None of those vere viable options.

 

1 lap was enough to perform the undercut, so pitting Verstappen on the following lap would have put him in 2nd place.

 

They couldn't pit him first because they didn't really know how the tyres would last. If they had tried & Hamilton stayed out, Verstappen may not have been able to catch up again. This would have made them look very silly.

They were probably all lacking tyre data because the practise sessions were wet.

 

They couldn't pit them together because Mercedes are often selling dummies with pit stops, even though it is not really allowed...so RB would not know for sure that Hamilton was pitting until Verstappen had passed the pit lane entry.

  

Once this happened, it was simply a question of could Hamilton catch up again....& for 10 laps it looked like he would not be able to.

 

They could, of course, have pitted him first, but it would have been a pointless (at that point) strategy risk. Purely one to state with hindsight.

 

The following lap would potentially have been ok, as I said. Lewis's stop wasn't sensational, RB have been quicker, Lewis was 1.023 seconds adrift of Max on the lap before he pitted. He gained 1.057 seconds on the outlap, meaning it could have worked for Max if he'd come in immediately.

[Pete the Elaner]

13 minutes ago, njee20 said:

 

The following lap would potentially have been ok, as I said. Lewis's stop wasn't sensational, RB have been quicker, Lewis was 1.023 seconds adrift of Max on the lap before he pitted. He gained 1.057 seconds on the outlap, meaning it could have worked for Max if he'd come in immediately.

The team didn't think they could pull it off. They told him that over the radio.

At the time they were not even sure Verstappen had to stop again. The fact that they stopped him so late proved they were not planning a second stop.

[njee20]

No, I know, I said potentially. You told me that it wouldn’t have worked, I’m giving you the data that shows it may have done had they reacted immediately. I fully understand why RB didn’t pit Max, I was surprised by Merc doing it at the time. You clearly weren’t.

 

Given the team apparently took 7 laps to decide if it was a good idea I don’t know why you’re on here and not chief strategist for Merc, you’re obviously better at their jobs!

[Hobby]

2 hours ago, njee20 said:

You said the Merc was quicker than the Red Bull by a second a lap over a race distance.

 

Depending on who was driving the RB he's right!

[njee20]

Of course, hence my comment about Gasly besting Bottas, but that’s not the context it was used. Last week the RB was significantly quicker than the Merc after all!

[Pete the Elaner]

RB said over the radio they he had been undercut & they seemed quite certain about it. They only had a guess as to when Verstappen's tyres would drop off & by how much. If they were expecting them to drop off by so much, they would have pitted Verstappen first.

 

I was very surprised when Hamilton pitted but only because I was not looking at the gaps very closely. If I had been watching these, I would have noticed that they would not have lost any places by changing tyres.