2015 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir

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Ral
Ral
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Re: 2015 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir

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multisync wrote:
ringo wrote:Brake issue was maybe for a split second. It's something the drivers can resolve with pressing some buttons. But it just happened at the wrong time for Rosberg. His lap time was affected much. Kimi would have still got past him i believe.
Can you link where you got the 'split second' brake issue which he could have resolved by pressing buttons? Seems to me you're making far too many assumptions in order to be able to make your final comment.
Hamilton in post-race interview said he managed to reset his brakes.

George-Jung
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Re: 2015 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir

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What a great photo!

You can see it two ways;

1- Alonso jealous at Raikkonen and Vettel..
or
2- Alonso thinks "you can laugh now, but I will end on top.."

Besides the action in the front.. I think Alonso drove an excellent race too..
Move of the day for Alonso, unlapping himself against the leader Raikkonen at that time.

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Shrieker
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Re: 2015 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir

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I thought for a moment Rosberg completely lost the plot. Good to hear it was a mechanical problem and not driver error. Lewis is making it look too easy at the moment... He has slightly more than a race's worth in hand which doesn't bode too well for a championship scrap, especially when you consider he was very much behind at this point last year...
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iotar__
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Re: 2015 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir

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- with some better driving and strategy at 1-4 it could have been the best race of the season candidate, still pretty good - ups and downs, nice overtakes by Rosberg on Ferraris, far from obvious on pace

- Ferrari should be challenging Merc for 1st, maybe not beating but challenging every second, especially today with brakes problems, interesting stint on mediums by KR,
- Vettel had 2014 race, difference compared 3 previous ones - some competition, no excuses for that especially vs much slower Bottas, not even 1 attempt?
- RB with some pace, Lotus is depressing in comparison considering the engine and track

zeph
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Re: 2015 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir

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I missed the last bit of the race (say from around RAI's second pitstop), but up to that point I thought Rosberg drove very well. Vettel seemed out of sorts today, he looked a little amateurish at times.

I don't understand how Raikkonen's second stint on the mediums was just as fast the other guys on the softs...

tranquility2k4
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Re: 2015 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir

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Unc1eM0nty wrote:
giantfan10 wrote: one of those cars from the chasing pack that cant seem to challenge mercedes destroyed a 19.871 second gap in 16 laps and passed rosberg in the uncatchable mercedes... go figure.... to claim that they are unchallenged is a pretty wild and incorrect statement when they were beaten in Malaysia.
For me it was Kimi's his middle stint on the mediums that impressed me more, he didn't loose any time at all to the three cars in front, I still can't work out how he did this.
Yeah I agree. If you see the performance he gained on softs, albeit newer, but still he was matching Hamilton throughout on mediums at all stages - almost as though he managed to keep them in the perfect operating window and suffer no deg. Kimi's very precise driving style can achieve this in certain situations as we've seen before. I originally thought after the first stint or so that Merc cleary had a big advantage over Ferrari still, however, after seeing the whole race, it looks like Seb was just not on it today and suffered bad deg - Kimi was all over him at end of first stint. I would have liked to have seen Kimi vs Hamilton from the start - I think it would have been close. Indeed Kimi has been the one who at Aus and Malaysia showed great bursts of speed and also in most practice 2 sessions.

giantfan10
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Re: 2015 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir

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Shrieker wrote:I thought for a moment Rosberg completely lost the plot. Good to hear it was a mechanical problem and not driver error. Lewis is making it look too easy at the moment... He has slightly more than a race's worth in hand which doesn't bode too well for a championship scrap, especially when you consider he was very much behind at this point last year...
i wouldnt even call it a mechanical error..... i would call it a team decision error that came back to bite mercedes... this is clear cut evidence that ferrari is pushing mercedes out of their comfort zone and all the people claiming that mercedes is just cruising to victories are wrong. from Wolf:

"Mercedes said the issue was a known one from the very first lap, but due to the amount of hard braking the German was forced to do as he overtook cars, meant it failed sooner than Hamilton's."

Meanwhile Toto Wolff explained that it was the result of a compromise due to changes made to the cars in order to get better tyre wear in the hope off keeping Ferrari behind them.

"It is set-up issues and we knew the changes we made on the car were compromising a little bit the brake temperatures," he added. "We knew what we were doing.
from grandprixtimes.com

one more quote for a certain poster : )
"It is never one single solution, so you try to tackle the problem that we had on the Friday and the Saturday afternoon with a couple of adjustments."
mr spy care to explain why mercedes who were sandbagging in FP2 and 3 would have to change their setup and set their car up in such a way they knew could possbly compromise their brakes? oh i know why :lol: because ferraris ability to match their race pace in FP2 and 3 was legitimate and it also explains why mercedes race pace was better in the race than expected..
they did win the race though so it cant be called a failed strategy BUT cracks are beginning to show
Last edited by giantfan10 on 20 Apr 2015, 02:53, edited 1 time in total.

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ringo
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Re: 2015 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir

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Regle wrote:
ringo wrote: Great race from Kimi and Sergio Perez. Kimi showed his quality. He is still a more complete driver than Vettel. Vettel was showing flashbacks of last year when he is actually fighting with other cars. He can't keep things together and this is why Ricairdo blew him away in 2014. Seb is great and masterful when he leads in the front. He manages tyres well from the front and is on point with strategy and taking care of the car.. but once he's under a bit of pressure he cracks.
Kimi is the total opposite in this regard, and i feel we will see more of Kimi ahead of Vettel as the season wears on.
Just like in Malaysia when he was about to take his first victory for Ferrari and was being chased by two superior Mercedes cars. There either was no pressure or he cracked. Tell me which.
Where was Vettel under pressure in Malaysia?
Which mercedes was 2 seconds behind him and sticking on to his tail at any point?

Still doesn't contradict my point, Vettel is great at the front. Not so much when fighting in the middle.
For Sure!!

Wayne DR
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Re: 2015 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir

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Unc1eM0nty wrote:For me it was Kimi's his middle stint on the mediums that impressed me more, he didn't loose any time at all to the three cars in front, I still can't work out how he did this.
Maldonado pitted on Lap 10, and was doing mid-1:38's, so the information was available to suggest the conditions and fuel loads suited the Primes (medium) more than the Options (soft).

Seb pitted first, so Nico and then Lewis followed to cover him off. All 3 put on Options, and as Kimi pitted last, it made sense for him to put on Primes as a strategy change. I assume Merc would have always copied whatever tyre Seb put on, to cover him off, and this opened up the opportunity for Kimi.

Kimi's last lap of the race (in clear air) was a 1:38.0, so his Options were in good nick. If they considered pitting him on Lap 38 (rather than 40 - Kimi's 38th and 39th lap were a 1:39.7 and a 1:40.7 respectively on his worn Primes, where as he was doing 1:36.8s on the fresh Options to 1:38 on worn Options at the end of the race) this may have given him a good crack at Lewis at the end. Lewis' last lap was a 1:40.8, and Nico's was a 1:39.2, so they were in trouble!

I think Mercedes only maintain their edge on Ferrari (at rear tyre limited tracks) when they match tyre strategy, so this is what we will see them doing for the rest of the year - covering off every move. (We need a tyre with no markings to hide teams strategies from each other!)

All in all Kimi was driver of the race for me!

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Chuckjr
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Re: 2015 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir

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@giantfan10:
After hearing Toto say they compromised the cars brakes to try and stay ahead of Ferrari, imo, is basically an admission they are not sandbagging, are not hiding any pace, and literally are having to work to stay ahead of Ferrari. It will be interesting to see what happens in Spain. To bad Fred is at Macca...that may be the race they finally pass Merc. We'll see.
Watching F1 since 1986.

giantfan10
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Re: 2015 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir

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Chuckjr wrote:@giantfan10:
After hearing Toto say they compromised the cars brakes to try and stay ahead of Ferrari, imo, is basically an admission they are not sandbagging, are not hiding any pace, and literally are having to work to stay ahead of Ferrari. It will be interesting to see what happens in Spain. To bad Fred is at Macca...that may be the race they finally pass Merc. We'll see.
i dont know if they will catch up by spain...that depends a lot on how much mercedes can update their car in this 3 week break....same for ferrari...all depends on if mercedes has reached the point of diminishing returns...its 2 financially sound teams so finances shouldnt be a factor in this development race we are witnessing.
it sure is better to watch than the 2 man race last year.

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Phil
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Re: 2015 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir

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Wayne DR wrote:I think Mercedes only maintain their edge on Ferrari (at rear tyre limited tracks) when they match tyre strategy, so this is what we will see them doing for the rest of the year - covering off every move. (We need a tyre with no markings to hide teams strategies from each other!)
I think some here are being sidetracked by Kimis performance. Comparing his Ferrari with the Mercedes is difficult, because they weren't running the same race. Kimi was on a OPO - Rosberg and Hamilton were on a OOP. The reason why Kimi even got a chance to pass Rosberg for P2 wasn't because the Ferrari was quicker (it wasn't), but because Mercedes compromised their race in order not to give up track position. In effect, they compromized Rosbergs race more than Lewis's at a crucial point in the race (end of 2nd stint).

Ferrari was very cunning. As Sector already rightly pointed out, they lured Mercedes into pitting early with both cars - first with Rosberg where the undercut worked, and then Lewis who was vulnerable and nearly got passed by both when they pitted him. That saw a 6 second gap evaporate into less than a second (he also had a slightly slow stop), which shows how much of an effect the "undercut" had at this race. Pitting early ment they were slightly outside their comfort zone and Ferrari brilliantly exploited this by running Kimi on pretty much optimal stints for a OPO strategy. The same happened at the end of the 2nd stint, when the gap was small between Ham, Ros and Vet and again, Ferrari pitted Vettel early. Mercedes at this point had two options; pit Rosberg first to neutralize the undercut from Vettel but leave Lewis vulnerable, or secure the win by pitting Hamilton first and leave Rosberg out vulnerable. They opted for the latter which was perfectly reasonable, but again that ment that Rosberg again found himself behind Vettel after he came out.

Meanwhile, Kimi was simply driving his race, in clean air and not being pushed into early stops...

Had Mercedes run their stints accoarding to their optimum range, they wouldn't have covered the Ferraris for the undercut. They would have run longer, but naturally found themselves behind the Ferraris at some point of the race and would have needed to pass them. On the plus side though, they would have been able to run a higher pace because their stints would have been optimally set-up for their performance and the tyres. If they had done that, Kimi's strategy would have been less effective because the gaps would have been bigger and he probably wouldn't have caught either Mercedes. That is assuming Vettel wouldn't have been able to hold up both Mercedes...

Also, regarding Kimi's strong middle stint on the medium tyres. This is nothing new, really. Anyone with doubts over the OPO strategy should just watch last years race when Rosberg was precisely on the same strategy vs. Lewis on OOP and they will see that even then, the prime tyre did a wonderful job in the middle stint. Last year too, I think the OPO strategy was the better strategy. The end to the race with the safety car just made us forget that.
Not for nothing, Rosberg's Championship is the only thing that lends credibility to Hamilton's recent success. Otherwise, he'd just be the guy who's had the best car. — bhall II
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Kiril Varbanov
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Re: 2015 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir

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Awesome race for Kimi and Hamilton, not really for Vettel and Rosberg.

The driver of the day is here - http://www.f1technical.net/poll/index.php?dispid=295 (sorry for the delay). This time I included more drivers, which, more or less, have impressed. If you think a change is needed, please PM me.

PistoniRoventi
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Re: 2015 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir

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Chuckjr wrote:@giantfan10:
After hearing Toto say they compromised the cars brakes to try and stay ahead of Ferrari, imo, is basically an admission they are not sandbagging, are not hiding any pace, and literally are having to work to stay ahead of Ferrari.
This is OBVIOUSLY part of the ACT, they are sandbagging alright. With 8 tenths advantage they'll have an indigestion of cake all year round. :lol:

evered7
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Re: 2015 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir

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So when Toto says Lewis did no wrong, he is telling the truth. But when he says they compromised the brakes or were run close by Ferrari, he is lying to put up a show.

How selective it works to show Mercedes in better light :)

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