Formula 1-2021 Season

Keith Tanner said:

Mazepin: 3.6 seconds off pole.

The dough in Marzipan weights a lot. 

At the urging of one of my friends I ponied up the $80 for the F1 TV premium subscription. Last year I did the mower one for a month and I thought it was kind of useless.  The premium subscription Is awesome. I watched P3 and Quali using it. The in car options are awesome. Like my friend said $80 for 20 remaining races. That's a good deal per race. 
 

MotoGP (and the associated classes) has this exceeding track limits thing sorted. Do it three times in a race, get a warning on your dash, do it twice more and you get a long lap penalty which is a loop off the main track that adds 2-4 seconds depending. They can also get double long laps depending on what the infraction is. F1 would have to tune their long laps for whatever they're trying to do, but it should work. 

Wow, no one was talking about that happening. I guess it's hammer time.

Brilliant. 

Man, that was great.  Mercedes and Hamilton can put together a strategy to make a pass for the win on a track that you can't pass at.  So fun to watch.

So essentially Mercedes played them from the start after Lewis lost the lead into turn 1. Pit Bottas slightly early forcing Max to react and leave Lewis out a bit longer. Then let Lewis loose on Max both taking life out of their tires and then pull out a surprise stop and leave Max hung out to dry on track. Sucks for Bottas but he proved early on that he only had the pace to match Max where it was apparent Lewis had more than that.

That was great to watch. A strategic race that gave us a real chase. Lewis probably had a great time doing that. And good lord, that fight at the bottom of the points.

Note that Mazepin started in 23rd place and still managed to affect the leaders. 

So, did the front wing adjustment Mercedes made to Lewis' car make that much difference, or is it the case of the silver arrows liking harder tires like we've seen for the past couple of years? He really picked up some relative pace after that first stop.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

I don't think we saw Lewis's true pace until he was in clear air, he spent the first stint within a second of Max. They probably adjusted for the second stint as it would be the same.

One thing that Red Bull never seems have ever learned- how to really manage a race.   While it *seems* smart to open up a gap to allow for a pit stop, I'd argue that it's better to not do that, especially if you are planning on a one stop race.  If you open up the gap enough, that opens up a 3rd stop option for the people behind you- which has happened twice to RBR.

Mercedes and Hamilton have done that in the past- to the point that when the pit stop window opens up, then you go for the real pace, now allowing anyone to even have the option of an undercut.  Let alone for an alternate strategy to open up like that.

Horner and Max should have been able to keep Hamilton right on the ragged edge of being in traffic had he pitted- but all they ever do is drive off into the distance, making the race just among the leaders.

In reply to alfadriver :

I don't think they had the option of that. Lewis was so close to getting it done under DRS already, if Max had held anything back through the rest of the lap Lewis would have driven by the next time down the main straight. What they needed was Perez in that gap, simple as that.

Edit - That all comes down to Redbull's own fault, the fact that they've just churned through second drivers is their downfall.

That was a race of surprises for me. I really thought Max was going to win that one and when Mercedes stayed out after Max pitted, I thought "they really screwed up" and when they pitted Lewis a second time and he was 22 seconds behind, it just reinforced my hunch. But, clearly they knew more than me because that come from behind win was a big shock. What kind of celebrations will we see for Lewis' 100th win?

I don't know why they didn't pit Max immediately after lewis.  He would of came out on same life tires in the lead.  Even 3-4 laps later would of put him just behind on tires fresher.  I'm not paid to be a F1 strategist but it always seems like redbull never adjusts their plan after the race starts.  

In reply to nocones :

There really wasn't much time to react. Mercedes just plain ambushed them. I don't think anyone saw that move coming. 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

But how long does it take to unwrap 4 tires?  The window to come out in front was almost 5 min long.  Closer to 6 if you count from the Moment lewis pitted.  I understand that it would of taken decisive immediate action by Redbull.

I don't remember it like that. Lewis was right on Max's butt when he dove into the pits. So if RB had done a perfect pit stop the next time around, Max would have lost a couple of seconds and come out behind Lewis due to the undercut. Given the Mercedes pace, Max would not have been able to get by. So there's the race done. 

All they could do was hope that Max could lose less than 1 second/lap for 22 laps. Which looked possible for a couple of laps and then it clearly wasn't. 
 

Maybe I remember it wrong and will have to rewatch. 

The other detail I didn't hear in all that was what tires did Red Bull have left to give Verstappen had they reacted instantly. The commentators said Mercedes had kept a set of mediums in reserve for Lewis.

adam525i said:

In reply to alfadriver :

I don't think they had the option of that. Lewis was so close to getting it done under DRS already, if Max had held anything back through the rest of the lap Lewis would have driven by the next time down the main straight. What they needed was Perez in that gap, simple as that.

Edit - That all comes down to Redbull's own fault, the fact that they've just churned through second drivers is their downfall.

I think they did have that option- pick and choose which corners to back the field up, and let it loose when coming to a DRS zone.  Lewis has done that before, with lots of complaints from the other drivers for him to speed up.  On equal tires, Lewis was not really so much faster that a DRS pass would be easy.  

By that, Red Bull would force the entire field into a one stop race.  For sure, Max would be able to preserve the soft tires to put in a massive lap- but if he kept the lead to make sure Lewis would end up in traffic had he tried an undercut....  And that would have kept Perez in play, too- make sure Perez is always within 20 seconds of Max, and there would have been zero chance Lewis could even attempt an undercut.

Having seen Red Bull and Max do this exact same thing before, I wonder how they miss that.

Watching the highlights over again, there is no solution for Red Bull in that race.  Lewis was in the faster car, that was easier on the tires.  Had Merc pulled Lewis in on the lap after Max's first stop, he would have passed him and wandered off into the distance.  Had they not pulled Lewis in for the second set of mediums, Lewis would have eventually pushed Max's tires so far off that he would have passed him.  

Three times on three different sets of tires Lewis got to within a second of Max,  twice on much younger tires.

In retrospect, that was Lewis's race all damn day.

Streetwiseguy said:

Watching the highlights over again, there is no solution for Red Bull in that race.

The solution would have been for Perez to be close enough behind Hamilton that he couldn't pit without losing a spot to him as well.

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

Streetwiseguy said:

Watching the highlights over again, there is no solution for Red Bull in that race.

The solution would have been for Perez to be close enough behind Hamilton that he couldn't pit without losing a spot to him as well.

True, although Valteri was there to help deal with RB#2 if they were to ever manage to get one in place to help...

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

Streetwiseguy said:

Watching the highlights over again, there is no solution for Red Bull in that race.

The solution would have been for Perez to be close enough behind Hamilton that he couldn't pit without losing a spot to him as well.

Max could have arranged that.  He could have used the right parts of the track to keep the field close.

alfadriver said:

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

Streetwiseguy said:

Watching the highlights over again, there is no solution for Red Bull in that race.

The solution would have been for Perez to be close enough behind Hamilton that he couldn't pit without losing a spot to him as well.

Max could have arranged that.  He could have used the right parts of the track to keep the field close.

I think that undervalues the speed of the MB and the passing skills of Hamilton. Max was in a defensive drive from the end of lap 1. Sir Hamilton was all over him at various points of the lap such that if Max gave him just a few tenths in the wrong place he would be dusted on the pit straight with DRS. So Max had to hold the track position and just hope that his tire wear was equal or better to Hamilton's. Near the end of the first stint for Max I think Hamilton could tell that, just like he does with Bottas, he had pushed Max to the point that he would have to pit soon and could then focus on either taking a longer first stint or doing hammer time for a lap or two. 

Pitting first meant that Max needed to immediately commit on his outlap to pushing to retain the lead after Hamilton pits OR to go at a pace to make it to the end. MB could then react to whichever plan RB chose. Hamilton going long was a good plan given the delay in Max's pitstop. It meant that Hamilton could stay out longer and follow his own pace (bar lapping Mazepin) to stretch his first stint and maybe allow a good run on Max with the mediums. 

As it turned out Hamilton just couldn't make a pass work on the second stint but he didn't have to take a big risk as he could just push Max to use up his tires again like in the first stint. And so he did until his second stop leaving plenty of time to run down Max on fresh Mediums. I think about the time that Max would want to pit a second time for the softs, the only tire he had left, he would come out 3-4 seconds behind Hamilton and would have maybe one or too passing attempts available with the softs before they would be done enough to warrant protecting 2nd. 

Cool strategy calls on both side. 

The only reason Max was able to hold Lewis behind was because Max was faster through that last sector. Lewis would lose just a tenth or two and fall out of DRS range at the perfect time for Max. And I agree that Lewis was probably playing a long game, his ability to make tires last has given him some real strategic options.

It also seems that the cars can follow much closer without a big drop in performance than was possible in previous years. We've seen it a couple of times this year. And someone needs to tell the commentary team that the whole " the Mercedes only works when it's not following someone" thing is obviously not true anymore.

I'm going to enjoy watching this race again.