View Poll Results: Who will win?
Perez
0
0%
Ocon
0
0%
Stroll
0
0%
Hulkenberg
0
0%
Sainz
0
0%
Grosjean
0
0%
Magnussen
0
0%
Gasly
0
0%
Hartley
0
0%
Vandoorne
0
0%
Ericsso
0
0%
Leclerc
0
0%
Voters: 39. You may not vote on this poll
Spanish F1 Race - Who Will Win?
05-14-2018, 03:14 PM
#32
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Thank you for that article in 2011, however the article does not give any details on why it was done and from recollection, it didn't specifically favor any one team (IIFC, Red Bull was dominating that era). The comparison to the 2017 Ferrari blowing tires is not valid because if Ferrari wanted to change the thickness of the tread in 2017, all they had to do was petition the FIA or F1 on the grounds of safety and the tires would have been shaved the very next race. I'm not saying Ferrari doesn't have influence, but don't discount the influence of a manufacture such as Mercedes who not only has a factory team, but supply more engines on the grid than Ferrari, Renault or Honda.
Again, I'll reference a recent autosport article where Toto Wolff is defending himself and Mercedes for the change in compound thickness. Toto, thou protestith too much.... https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/13...r-us--mercedes
It's true that there was overheating issues during the Barcelona winter testing and what Toto says is also true that the temps were cold back during winter testing (thank you Captain Obvious), but it's common knowledge that the Mercedes is harder on tires and not very good in warm conditions. Typically, in Catalonia, the weather is very hot in May for this race and Mercedes knew they were going to have issues with their tires if they didn't lobby to have the tread changed. As it was, the weather was unusually cool and Mercedes they walked away with everything as they perform really well in cooler conditions, coupled with the thinner tread.
Again, there isn't any test data at Silverstone and Paul Ricard, so why assume there's a need to have a thinner tread there? Make no mistake about it, Mercedes have done a great public relations job with the fake news that Ferrari is the team to beat and "we need to match their pace etc". Toto can look to 3 consecutive poles by Vettel to give his argument some semblance of validity, but the Mercedes race pace is what it is. Were it not for the crazy circumstances this year, the win figures would be Hamilton 2, Bottas 2, and Vettel 1. Toto is telling everyone it's raining, but in fact he's pissing on everyone.
Again, I'll reference a recent autosport article where Toto Wolff is defending himself and Mercedes for the change in compound thickness. Toto, thou protestith too much.... https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/13...r-us--mercedes
It's true that there was overheating issues during the Barcelona winter testing and what Toto says is also true that the temps were cold back during winter testing (thank you Captain Obvious), but it's common knowledge that the Mercedes is harder on tires and not very good in warm conditions. Typically, in Catalonia, the weather is very hot in May for this race and Mercedes knew they were going to have issues with their tires if they didn't lobby to have the tread changed. As it was, the weather was unusually cool and Mercedes they walked away with everything as they perform really well in cooler conditions, coupled with the thinner tread.
Again, there isn't any test data at Silverstone and Paul Ricard, so why assume there's a need to have a thinner tread there? Make no mistake about it, Mercedes have done a great public relations job with the fake news that Ferrari is the team to beat and "we need to match their pace etc". Toto can look to 3 consecutive poles by Vettel to give his argument some semblance of validity, but the Mercedes race pace is what it is. Were it not for the crazy circumstances this year, the win figures would be Hamilton 2, Bottas 2, and Vettel 1. Toto is telling everyone it's raining, but in fact he's pissing on everyone.
05-14-2018, 03:23 PM
#33
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05-14-2018, 03:40 PM
#34
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This wasn't some Thursday morning switcheroo. The article I linked to up above was dated April 7, 2018, before the Bahrain, China and Azerbaijan events even took place and their results were known. They've had 5+ weeks to make the adjustments.
05-14-2018, 04:42 PM
#35
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There are a few known flaws to the MB chassis -- it doesn't like the heat - it consumes tires faster than it's competitors chassis in hot conditions and the body work needs to be opened up to get better cooling reducing it's aero efficiency. The other weakness is that the car does not like to run in dirty air. When the Merc is leading, it's unstoppable, but with the Ferrari's qualifying ahead of it, the Merc needs to pass the Ferrari on track and is not able to do so because Ferrari have found some HP in their PU and their car is slippery. The only passes made on Ferrari or Mercedes have been in the pits, from damage (think when Vettel was hit in the side pod by Verstappen in China), and extraordinary circumstances like the SC and VSC period when the deck was shuffled and RBR stacked their pits for fresh tires.
Make no mistake about it, Toto, Niki Lauda etc, have been working on Pirelli to petition this change since February and the above weaknesses are the reason why they have lobbied for the change. It's no coincidence on how dominant the Mercs were in qualifying and the race itself yesterday. Let's see if the gap comes down again at the next race. If it does, it only validates my point further.
EDIT: The next GP is at Monaco, not exactly a good gauge of total performance. Let's see how the Canadian GP goes.
05-14-2018, 04:57 PM
#36
Understood. My point is that after the Barcelona testing, Mercedes knew their gap to the rest of the field had shrunk and in order to maintain complete dominance (the current Mercedes era is statically most dominant period a single team has every known). They lobbied since the testing to have a change to the compound. The 5 weeks to make adjustments is irrelevant because EVERYONE'S chassis is virtually the same and have inherit flaws and strengths -- it's almost impossible to change a chassis to fit a certain tire in such little time, but it is possible to have one component changed to fit your chassis..
There are a few known flaws to the MB chassis -- it doesn't like the heat - it consumes tires faster than it's competitors chassis in hot conditions and the body work needs to be opened up to get better cooling reducing it's aero efficiency. The other weakness is that the car does not like to run in dirty air. When the Merc is leading, it's unstoppable, but with the Ferrari's qualifying ahead of it, the Merc needs to pass the Ferrari on track and is not able to do so because Ferrari have found some HP in their PU and their car is slippery. The only passes made on Ferrari or Mercedes have been in the pits, from damage (think when Vettel was hit in the side pod by Verstappen in China), and extraordinary circumstances like the SC and VSC period when the deck was shuffled and RBR stacked their pits for fresh tires.
Make no mistake about it, Toto, Niki Lauda etc, have been working on Pirelli to petition this change since February and the above weaknesses are the reason why they have lobbied for the change. It's no coincidence on how dominant the Mercs were in qualifying and the race itself yesterday. Let's see if the gap comes down again at the next race. If it does, it only validates my point further.
EDIT: The next GP is at Monaco, not exactly a good gauge of total performance. Let's see how the Canadian GP goes.
There are a few known flaws to the MB chassis -- it doesn't like the heat - it consumes tires faster than it's competitors chassis in hot conditions and the body work needs to be opened up to get better cooling reducing it's aero efficiency. The other weakness is that the car does not like to run in dirty air. When the Merc is leading, it's unstoppable, but with the Ferrari's qualifying ahead of it, the Merc needs to pass the Ferrari on track and is not able to do so because Ferrari have found some HP in their PU and their car is slippery. The only passes made on Ferrari or Mercedes have been in the pits, from damage (think when Vettel was hit in the side pod by Verstappen in China), and extraordinary circumstances like the SC and VSC period when the deck was shuffled and RBR stacked their pits for fresh tires.
Make no mistake about it, Toto, Niki Lauda etc, have been working on Pirelli to petition this change since February and the above weaknesses are the reason why they have lobbied for the change. It's no coincidence on how dominant the Mercs were in qualifying and the race itself yesterday. Let's see if the gap comes down again at the next race. If it does, it only validates my point further.
EDIT: The next GP is at Monaco, not exactly a good gauge of total performance. Let's see how the Canadian GP goes.
The Mercs didn't dominate. LH did. Bottas would have finished behind Seb had it not been for Ferrari strategy. Max would have passed Bottas in another two laps the chunks he was gaining. As it is Red Bull laid down the fastest lap of the race. They didn't change the compound at all, that changed the thickness by 4mm. Straight from Pirelli:
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/p...depth-1037374/
"The compound is exactly the same and the construction is exactly the same, the difference is the thickness," said Isola.
"It is difficult to explain from the technical side because if the supersoft was excluded during the race because the general feeling was that it was too soft, the problem is a bit on the other side."
Isola stressed the decision to make the change in tread thickness was made in consultation with the teams, with Ferrari understood to be among those with blistering in testing.This year's pole position time was three seconds quicker than in 2017 and the difference in race pace in the four-to-five second bracket.
"We investigated the reason why we had this blistering, and to be sure that the track surface played the biggest role and not maybe the new cars or the new compounds we had to wait until Melbourne," said Isola.
"Once we confirmed that in Melbourne everything was back to a normal situation, I personally contacted all the teams to ask for their opinion and I collected different opinions.
"After that, we had an internal meeting in Pirelli where we evaluated everything and then we prepared a report for the FIA explaining why we were requesting this change."
Isola also hit out at suggestions the change might have been made to help Mercedes and disadvantage Ferrari.
"We would never do something like that," said Isola."We work with all the top manufacturers, more than just those in F1, so why would we give an advantage to one?"
"It is difficult to explain from the technical side because if the supersoft was excluded during the race because the general feeling was that it was too soft, the problem is a bit on the other side."
Isola stressed the decision to make the change in tread thickness was made in consultation with the teams, with Ferrari understood to be among those with blistering in testing.This year's pole position time was three seconds quicker than in 2017 and the difference in race pace in the four-to-five second bracket.
"We investigated the reason why we had this blistering, and to be sure that the track surface played the biggest role and not maybe the new cars or the new compounds we had to wait until Melbourne," said Isola.
"Once we confirmed that in Melbourne everything was back to a normal situation, I personally contacted all the teams to ask for their opinion and I collected different opinions.
"After that, we had an internal meeting in Pirelli where we evaluated everything and then we prepared a report for the FIA explaining why we were requesting this change."
Isola also hit out at suggestions the change might have been made to help Mercedes and disadvantage Ferrari.
"We would never do something like that," said Isola."We work with all the top manufacturers, more than just those in F1, so why would we give an advantage to one?"
05-14-2018, 05:04 PM
#37
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Understood. My point is that after the Barcelona testing, Mercedes knew their gap to the rest of the field had shrunk and in order to maintain complete dominance (the current Mercedes era is statically most dominant period a single team has every known). They lobbied since the testing to have a change to the compound. The 5 weeks to make adjustments is irrelevant because EVERYONE'S chassis is virtually the same and have inherit flaws and strengths -- it's almost impossible to change a chassis to fit a certain tire in such little time, but it is possible to have one component changed to fit your chassis..
There are a few known flaws to the MB chassis -- it doesn't like the heat - it consumes tires faster than it's competitors chassis in hot conditions and the body work needs to be opened up to get better cooling reducing it's aero efficiency. The other weakness is that the car does not like to run in dirty air. When the Merc is leading, it's unstoppable, but with the Ferrari's qualifying ahead of it, the Merc needs to pass the Ferrari on track and is not able to do so because Ferrari have found some HP in their PU and their car is slippery. The only passes made on Ferrari or Mercedes have been in the pits, from damage (think when Vettel was hit in the side pod by Verstappen in China), and extraordinary circumstances like the SC and VSC period when the deck was shuffled and RBR stacked their pits for fresh tires.
Make no mistake about it, Toto, Niki Lauda etc, have been working on Pirelli to petition this change since February and the above weaknesses are the reason why they have lobbied for the change. It's no coincidence on how dominant the Mercs were in qualifying and the race itself yesterday. Let's see if the gap comes down again at the next race. If it does, it only validates my point further.
EDIT: The next GP is at Monaco, not exactly a good gauge of total performance. Let's see how the Canadian GP goes.
There are a few known flaws to the MB chassis -- it doesn't like the heat - it consumes tires faster than it's competitors chassis in hot conditions and the body work needs to be opened up to get better cooling reducing it's aero efficiency. The other weakness is that the car does not like to run in dirty air. When the Merc is leading, it's unstoppable, but with the Ferrari's qualifying ahead of it, the Merc needs to pass the Ferrari on track and is not able to do so because Ferrari have found some HP in their PU and their car is slippery. The only passes made on Ferrari or Mercedes have been in the pits, from damage (think when Vettel was hit in the side pod by Verstappen in China), and extraordinary circumstances like the SC and VSC period when the deck was shuffled and RBR stacked their pits for fresh tires.
Make no mistake about it, Toto, Niki Lauda etc, have been working on Pirelli to petition this change since February and the above weaknesses are the reason why they have lobbied for the change. It's no coincidence on how dominant the Mercs were in qualifying and the race itself yesterday. Let's see if the gap comes down again at the next race. If it does, it only validates my point further.
EDIT: The next GP is at Monaco, not exactly a good gauge of total performance. Let's see how the Canadian GP goes.
05-14-2018, 05:42 PM
#38
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Paul, I totally understand your point related to Mark Marquez and Pedrosa in MotoGP. Marquez could eventually break all the records and is a freak on a motorcycle. Agree that Hamilton is in a different league from Bottas, but Bottas has been extremely unlucky this year and should have won 2 races by now. To his own admission, Hamilton has been off his game this year and should have won the Australian GP and yesterday. The win at Baku was a gift when Bottas was leading with a handful of laps to go and ran over debris giving him a puncture. Bottas also had Bahrain in the bag before the SC and crashes late. The only race Vettel should have won was China, but again, crazy crashes at the end and Ferrari blowing the pit strategy to cover Mercedes led to Ricciardo winning.
05-14-2018, 06:32 PM
#39
This was brought up before the race weekend, but hardly got any coverage. The links I provided, especially the second one by Allen is from journalists who cover F1 on a day in and day out basis. It does amaze me how somethings get swept under the rug while other things get the spot light. For example, did you wonder like me why Ricciardo was so far behind Max Verstappen in the later stages of the race despite putting in the fastest lap of the race? Ricciardo spinning during the VSC was the reason, but we got none of that info from the world feed or SKY Sports. It only came to the light of day when Christen Horner mentioned it in a post race interview, otherwise we would not have know. The fact that Mercedes won in such a fashion is why it's gaining more traction (pun intended) now. F1 has always been political, it's why Ferrari has done so well with the FIA, Mercedes have exploited it and why a manufacturer like Toyota didn't perfect the political side of F1 and weren't successful.
Paul, I totally understand your point related to Mark Marquez and Pedrosa in MotoGP. Marquez could eventually break all the records and is a freak on a motorcycle. Agree that Hamilton is in a different league from Bottas, but Bottas has been extremely unlucky this year and should have won 2 races by now. To his own admission, Hamilton has been off his game this year and should have won the Australian GP and yesterday. The win at Baku was a gift when Bottas was leading with a handful of laps to go and ran over debris giving him a puncture. Bottas also had Bahrain in the bag before the SC and crashes late. The only race Vettel should have won was China, but again, crazy crashes at the end and Ferrari blowing the pit strategy to cover Mercedes led to Ricciardo winning.
Paul, I totally understand your point related to Mark Marquez and Pedrosa in MotoGP. Marquez could eventually break all the records and is a freak on a motorcycle. Agree that Hamilton is in a different league from Bottas, but Bottas has been extremely unlucky this year and should have won 2 races by now. To his own admission, Hamilton has been off his game this year and should have won the Australian GP and yesterday. The win at Baku was a gift when Bottas was leading with a handful of laps to go and ran over debris giving him a puncture. Bottas also had Bahrain in the bag before the SC and crashes late. The only race Vettel should have won was China, but again, crazy crashes at the end and Ferrari blowing the pit strategy to cover Mercedes led to Ricciardo winning.
LH dominated yesterday, A LOT of people in and around F1 don't like that, Ferrari fans especially and that's why the story is gaining traction (no pun intended) in my opinion.
05-14-2018, 06:50 PM
#40
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So actually you kind of prove my point... Bottas has been extremely unlucky this year and should have won 2 races by now. Completely agree! He has been just as fast as Lewis almost all year yet yesterday he was nowhere near his teammate even when they were both in clean air. You can certainly put that down to driver but you can't put that down to tire depth... The other Merc with VB in it was really no faster than anyone else out there. Yesterday was just LH's day, the weather was cooler, he got out in front and literally drove away from lap 1 but had Seb somehow jumped Lewis on the start and managed to put him into that dirty air then we may have a totally different conversation. Point is none of this has anything to do with Pirelli minimally adjusting tread depth to avoid blistering. Heck, if Red Bull can figure out a way to put in the one lap qualifying pace and start up front they have proven even yesterday they have the race pace to win. It also seems like Mercedes fixed their VSC software glitch yesterday and it backfired on Ferrari or they finish a comfortable P2 maybe 10 seconds off LH which seems to be about the normal F1 winning gap LOL
LH dominated yesterday, A LOT of people in and around F1 don't like that, Ferrari fans especially and that's why the story is gaining traction (no pun intended) in my opinion.
LH dominated yesterday, A LOT of people in and around F1 don't like that, Ferrari fans especially and that's why the story is gaining traction (no pun intended) in my opinion.
Post race yesterday, Hamilton stated that is was the first time all year he felt a synergy with himself and the car and the results speak to that even with a SC and VSC, he was long up the road. You say that I make your point, but I don't think so. The fact that Mercedes should have won 4 of 5 races this year even with Lewis off his game speaks to how strong their car is, but the gap to the others had been reduced leading to wins by Vettel and Ricciardo. With the construction of the tire fundamentally changed in 3 of the 21 races (14% of the season), one of their weaknesses is diminished and they will dominate those races. The test case tracks will be Montreal 2 races from now, Silverstone and France. If the latter 2 see Merc dominance to the level we saw yesterday and if Ferrari and RBR are more competitive with MB in the former, then my point will be more clear to others.
05-14-2018, 10:03 PM
#41
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Yes, Leclerc. I'm glad someone else recognized what he did yesterday. An amazing drive, and up and coming talent for sure. I'll be watching him carefully over the next few races. He's putting Ericsson to shame. Heck he was almost putting Alonso to shame!
I thought I heard on the broadcast that Hartley will be going, to be replaced by Wehrlein as soon as Montreal. That would be great for him as I always thought he got screwed out his ride to Force India by Ocon and then ousted because of the weaker driver Ericsson staying at Sauber. Pascal needs to be back in F1.
I thought I heard on the broadcast that Hartley will be going, to be replaced by Wehrlein as soon as Montreal. That would be great for him as I always thought he got screwed out his ride to Force India by Ocon and then ousted because of the weaker driver Ericsson staying at Sauber. Pascal needs to be back in F1.
05-14-2018, 11:41 PM
#42
Maybe I’m missing something, if everybody gets issued the same tires and each team has the exact same amount of time / testing on the tires, how does it benefit Mercedes? Same tires, same time to test/adjust to the new compound...plus the weather wasn’t even that hot in Spain! Could it simply be that either Vettel is slipping or Ferrari is botching it’s race-day strategy.
05-15-2018, 12:56 AM
#43
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I’m not sure why people are not getting this. The tires didn’t work well for Mercedes during winter testing because they’re hard on tires and coupl d with a new surface, they overheated them. Other teams did not have the problems to the extent that Mercedes did. There were no shaved tires during winter testing so no, all the teams did not have an opportunity to test shaved tires. It was common knowledge that the changes tonthe rread depth would favor Mercedes in particular. To be clear, the F1 teams stayed at Barcelona this week to test these shaved tires and get a better handle on them
Speaking of LeClerc, he complained that his shaved tires blistered and grained yesterday so they didn’t work the same with all chassis.
Speaking of LeClerc, he complained that his shaved tires blistered and grained yesterday so they didn’t work the same with all chassis.
05-16-2018, 08:59 AM
#44
I’m not sure why people are not getting this. The tires didn’t work well for Mercedes during winter testing because they’re hard on tires and coupl d with a new surface, they overheated them. Other teams did not have the problems to the extent that Mercedes did. There were no shaved tires during winter testing so no, all the teams did not have an opportunity to test shaved tires. It was common knowledge that the changes tonthe rread depth would favor Mercedes in particular. To be clear, the F1 teams stayed at Barcelona this week to test these shaved tires and get a better handle on them
Speaking of LeClerc, he complained that his shaved tires blistered and grained yesterday so they didn’t work the same with all chassis.
Speaking of LeClerc, he complained that his shaved tires blistered and grained yesterday so they didn’t work the same with all chassis.
"I think it's pretty straightforward," he said. "Obviously you don't get the chance to revisit this kind of decisions that are made [very often], but we did it today and the result is that if we had had the normal tyres on Sunday, it would have probably been worse, so it was the correct call. It was our fault for not having the same tyre wear or life as other people."
