Phil wrote: ↑30 May 2017, 15:24
@ferkan,
Surely you must be aware that this Formula requires a fine trade-off between tire preservation and out right pushing. E.g. if you push like mad, you might find yourself with overheating tires or worse, tires beyond their optimum range when you need them. Especially in Monaco, this can be costly, as building a too large gap can put you at a disadvantage if for example a safety car later bunches up the field again and you are left with tires in a worse state than the next best guy behind you.
Hence, why we see various teams explicitly tell their driver to push when they are nearing a pit stop. It's so ensure that you extract everything from the tires and try to build a possible gap. This to the best of my knowledge didn't happen for Kimi.
And no, I am not making scenarios. I am questioning why the guy who put the car on pole and has been asked by his team in a public fashion to improve his performance wasn't given the best strategy to also win the race. I'm happy to admit that Vettel looked like the quickest guy out there by some margin, but then so was Hamilton in 2014 and in various other races like Brazil 2015, but he still didn't get the "better strategy" because of it. The leading car did. So to a point, I am questioning why Kimi didn't receive the preferred treatment either, which would have been to pit 2nd.
I think questing the motives behind Ferrari's pitstop strategy is a legitimate question, one that surely Kimi must be asking himself too.
Frankly, I'm surprised someone who is active on this kind of forum even entertains the idea that 38yr old WDC veteran, who raced in Monaco 15 times in his lifetime, and who
actively asked his engineer "are we pitting yet" didn't know he had to push to open gap bigger then 1s over his teammate in 2nd place.
Do you think they don't discuss pit window for certain situations night before? Do you think his engineer and himself are not having a chat in what conditions his tires are, his fuel levels and what competition is doing behind him?
You are asking why he didn't receive preferred treatment, but he did, you are just not (I assume now its on purpose) getting it. He got car on pole, he got first pit stop advantage (like RB and Merc drivers did and like Ferrari agreed upon on briefing), and he got 34 laps in clear air to put some buffer between him and his teammate. 1s is NOT a buffer that you can then use for 2 weeks in arguing how come he lost a race even though he was 1st. Being 1st with 5-6s off your teammate and pitting in lap where your teammate got his nose right in DRS zone are two very different things.
Another thing, Kimi had problems catching backmarkers even 10 laps earlier and he built a train behind him. Maybe he wanted to push Seb back to Bottas for tactical advantage, or he didnt' have a pace, I don't know, but either way it slowed him down far too much and in the end (along with his 5-6 pedestrian laps before pitting) cost him pitting behind these very same back markers after Verstappen pushed everyone into pits.
From Ferrari POV, all they had to do is follow what Verstappen and Bottas did, ghost Ricciardo, and 1-2 was theirs because race is 1 stopper. Is it Ferrari's problem their pole sitter couldn't get a tenth (1/10 of a second) on his teammate in 34 lap time in clear air? Is it Ferrari's job to slow Vettel down once they saw his speed was devastating in comparison to Kimi's? What if Kimi stayed for 2 laps more and Vettel covered Bot/Verstappen? That would be going against something they agreed upon, against something everyone has been touting about (1st driver 1st in pits) and would result in exact same result = Vettel beating Kimi. Vettels in lap + tire change lenght was enough for him to bang wheels with Kimi on their way out.
Some of you are taking this far, and I mean, far to far. Its literally no controversy. I'll explain to you rather easily.
- Kimi starts 1st
- Kimi cant build a gap on Vettel, but can on other 2 contenders (means he is not exactly coasting)
- Kimi has trouble with backmarkers creating a train of cars less then dozen laps before pitting that puts his teammate and WDC leader in danger
- Kimi drives in 17s for his last 5-6 laps and in penultimate lap asks his engineer "Is it time to pit yet?"
- Ferrari then responds with pitting Kimi and defending from anything RB and Merc throw, because at that time Verstappen was flying
- Kimi goes into pits with only 1.1s advantage over Vettel
- He puts on SS tires, passes backmarkers (that he shouldn't have encountered in first place if he upped his pace in those last 5-6 laps) on 1st lap and then bangs few laps all .8-1.5s faster then what he was doing on US
- By that time, Vettel has Ericsson infront of him for lap until he pits
- Vettel bangs few incredibly fast laps
- Goes into pits (with his S3 from inlap being .9 faster)
- Changes tires (.4 tenths faster)
- Gets back infront of Kimi
For anyone even remotely rational, Kimi could NEVER have hopped to get infront of Vettel given that his advantage was literally on the verge of DRS zone, and given that his S3 on his inlap was .5s slower then Vettels. His tire change was .4s worse as well and that means his entire advantage is pretty much whipped out by only these 2 things. This means, without bringing Vettels superior pace in free air, Kimi lost his complete advantage in inlap, outlap and tire change.
As for Hamilton on Brazil 2014, frankly...are you serious? First of all, Merc "races" their drivers until first pit stop. Even if other driver saved tires and can go longer and faster, he would go into pits because that is "100% fair". Well, that was in 2014 when they had 2s on entire field. Now its 2017, Ferrari didn't win title for 10 years and you can bet your final dollar they don't give a damn if Kimi couldn't build gap bigger then 1s over his teammate (that he actually started with) in entire 1st stint. They let them race and that meant Vettel could bang 4 laps in clean air because, well, his tires could take it and they were fastest by almost a second over the entire field. Why pit your WDC leader when he can still bang few blinders and his teammate has to change tires? Because Merc did it 3 years ago when they had 200+ pts over next best team? Please.
In my humble opinion RAI and VER are absolutely right being upset. His pitstop was lousy, but the moment VER pitted I knew he was more or less sacrificed to get a RB on the podium. The entire weekend is was clear that a) the US was quicker vs. the SS and b) the US in principle could last at least half distance without much degradation. In principle, this is the reason why the overcut is always the faster way in Monaco for the last couple of years, and RB just gave the advantage to RIC by pitting VER earlier. Smart move strategy-wise by leaving the choice to Bottas and they snapped the bait; true. Nevertheless, the same thing could've happened if RIC would go first (give or take, Merc would have the luxury of a lap of RIC on SS to determine for sure it would be slower). 
