2013 Belgian GP - Spa

[el-Magico]

I'm new here, normally I only read.. but know I wanted to react on the issue that the Bulls were faster trough Eau Rouge..
My guess is that it is all about gearing, like they always do... They sacrifice top speed for fast acceleration..

Ps. Really love this forum, keep up the good work! =D>

[marcush.]

forget about fuel tank designs and thirsty engines..
RedBull play it more knife edge with fuel allocation and bank on Vettel pushing it through .Just lok how webber is struggling with the same car not even making the podium.I wouldn´t be surprised if these two had considerable difference in fuelloads.
So my guess is Mercedes has played it a tad to sfafe this weekend and paid the price at the beginning of the race.

[marcush.]

the team radio of raikkonen was just too good todays ...First when they asked him to nurse his car and he gave the fitting answer and even better when overshot busstop with loss of brakes and even before leaving the track radioing to his crew that it was all over -sorry guys i´m coming in -lost he brakes....most other drivers would have tried to catch their breath but kimi is as cool as ever....

[SectorOne]

I disagree, 2012 was equally good chance, car slower but season more competitive, without McLaren's unreliability (Singapore) we would have had unsettled Vettel much earlier, under pressure Vettel is the one making mistakes like in Brazil and USA. Plus potentially three horse race.

Mistake in the usa? You call getting blocked in high speed section by a moving chickane a mistake? Had he not been blocked hamilton never would have gotten passed him.

Are you Nostradamus?

[SectorOne]

and he noted that Mercs were lifting while the bulls were flat all the way. I don't buy into the argument that it's easy nowadays. If you have more downforce, it will make a difference - which is what we witnessed today.

Again, it´s flat in a Cup Porsche these days.
The reason for not taking it flat is to minimize the floor scrubbing the speed off. This was most likely what Mercedes were doing.
For the race you just flick down one gear to pull the car up the hill but it´s flat all day everyday except rain.

Hamilton also mentioned in an interview how he straight away in FP1 takes it flat. Just for kicks.

[Ozan]

I think Merc and RBR took a gamble, merc took the wet setup, rbr took the ultra-low df dry setup, and for merc the gamble didn't pay off. I hope in monza they will decide ultra-low df.

I don't get this. If they had an ultra low df setup, then surely their speed at Eau Rouge should've suffered ? They were the fastest round Eau Rouge all weekend easily. I think everyone was on low df wing setups but Red Bull's underbody simply creates that much more downforce to make the difference.

It's the high fuel balance problem that makes the issue at Eau Rouge.

[theformula]

forget about fuel tank designs and thirsty engines..
RedBull play it more knife edge with fuel allocation and bank on Vettel pushing it through .Just lok how webber is struggling with the same car not even making the podium.I wouldn´t be surprised if these two had considerable difference in fuelloads.
So my guess is Mercedes has played it a tad to sfafe this weekend and paid the price at the beginning of the race.

Disagree, the mercs just had no pace compared to the bulls.

Their setup really let them down in my opinion and coupled with the fact that they didn't seem to have any inherent pace just compounded their problems.

Good thing is though, they seemed to have solved their tyre issues.

[SiLo]

I thought he just ran wide, compromising his exit at the top of Eau Rouge, but Vettel was faster today, looked like the Bulls had a dry setup and Merc went for mixed set up in case of rain. Far shout in my opinion and more of a gamble by RB.

[raymondu999]

I don't think Hamilton made a mistake on Lap 1 actually, in terms of driving. But looking at the way they were driving, Vettel was so much more aggressive, really maximising the corner and kerbing at Eau Rouge, whereas Hamilton seemed more tentative on Lap 1 and didn't take nearly as much kerbing. I don't see where Hamilton ran wide or got wheelspin.

[Cocles]

Having read everything Merc related I could get my hands on, it looks to me to be a combination of what Diego.liv and Marcush suggested.

The Merc's have always been thirsty. They carry more fuel, so run slower at the start. No doubt they are doing everything they can to minimize this problem, but no doubt Red Bull are in turn doing everything to exaggerate it by running their own cars, which already require less fuel, on the bleeding edge of falling under the fuel limit (at least on Vettel's car).

Fortunately this fuel weight problem will be mooted in 2014, since the cars will by definition carry 50kg less fuel (a 33% drop).

That said, with Spa, it isn't as if Hamilton and Rosberg started seriously chasing down the front runners as the race went on. It seems on top of their fuel weight, Mercedes also had set up issues. Specifically, they were counting on mixed conditions, while Red Bull was betting on full dry.

The seriously awesome news that shouldn't be lost in all this noise? The Merc's continue to show no sign of problems with these new tires. Huzzah.

[WhiteBlue]

la source

[Hobbs04]

I thought he just ran wide, compromising his exit at the top of Eau Rouge, but Vettel was faster today, looked like the Bulls had a dry setup and Merc went for mixed set up in case of rain. Far shout in my opinion and more of a gamble by RB.

I saw this too. Looked like was pulling a good gap until he started up hill then vettel caught him. It might have been Hamilton pushed too hard and lateral acceleration up the hill caught him out.

[prince]

It has been a trend that, every time there is mixed weather anticipated, Mercs lose out on set up. Australia, Malaysia and now Spa. It tells a story that they anticipated mixed conditions and lost out as the race conditions turned out to be dry. It appears that they always bet for a bit of rain on race day and set up the car for such conditions. It would be the same story if Monza turns out to be mixed. If it is strongly forecasted to be dry, then they have much better advantage.

[Juzh]

They are more efficient because they've got less power. What goes around comes around.
Could also be that mercs have a worse fuel tank design.

With the allowed update for Renault they could very well have bumped up the horsepower and still maybe even improved fuel economy even further.

They'll bring a lower low drag rear and front wings, RB were already using the Monza rear wing

They were only using it during FP1 and even then only on vettel's car. They reverted to a slightly more DF concentrated canada-like spec after fp2 I believe.

They ran a tiny little rear wing on the car in the race.
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Spo ... -B-008.jpg

Vettel said they ran canada spec setup
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRMfTx7s ... OC3K1B3rGQ[/youtube]

[FW17]

Spa previously had a great entry into the pits where cars would run straight bypassing the bus stop chicane completely, after seeing pastors mistake, the entry into the pits may need a relook.


It was funny the way LH let FA past at La Source with the intention of regaining it at les combes only to see FA do one of the late late braking he is famous for.