The NON-Mercedes crash Spanish GP Thread

[Manoah2u]

Hoping to return to a civil and normal discussion on the Spanish GP without a vicious battle on the Mercedes duo crashing.

instand thread rule: - any discussion or mentioning of either of the Mercedes drivers, or the team as a whole, and anything about Mercedes F1 team related to the Spanish GP is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN.

keep this civil.

Matter of fact, please also keep any Max-Sainz-Kvyat measuring contest also out of this thread, please.

Let's recap the 'rest' of the Spanish GP, things that have not been discussed or have been 'covered' by the 'crap' that was going on in the original Spanish GP thread.

things not having discussed or interesting to adress

- what happened to Grosjean
- what happened to Alonso
- what happened to Massa
- what happened to Ferrari
- what caused the fire to Hulkenberg?
- the heated battle between Ericsson and Nasr
- annoyed Button about Haryanto ?

* ps MODS, if i am out of boundaries starting this thread, apologies, that is not my intention.

[turbof1]

I personally think this is a good solution. The official topic got closed for the correct reasons, but it is a darn shame for the members who wanted to discuss the other events in serenity.

So I endors this. Total prohibition on discussing anything Mercedes related. Trying to touch the subject here will lead to a 2 day ban. And for the record: we will apply 2 day bans for inappropiate posts in the closed topic!

[SunsAnvil]

What do you mean "annoyed Button about Haryanto ?". What did I miss???

[Manoah2u]

Button was on the radio, complaining "I know Haryanto thinks he's fast, but he's not!".
I assume this means Haryanto was somehow bothering Button. I'm inclined to assume this might have something to do with top end speed on the Manor being higher due to the mercedes engine, but i'm not sure. I don't know if Button also lapped Haryanto or not?

[F1NAC]

Button was on the radio, complaining "I know Haryanto thinks he's fast, but he's not!".
I assume this means Haryanto was somehow bothering Button. I'm inclined to assume this might have something to do with top end speed on the Manor being higher due to the mercedes engine, but i'm not sure. I don't know if Button also lapped Haryanto or not?

wasnt it that Haryanto passed him because of new tyres and Button complained on that fact?

[notsofast]

My understanding is that he didn't slow down on the straight under blue flags, because after all, Haryanto has the fastest car in the speed trap. Hence the comment, "he thinks he's fast".

[superdowg316]

The backmarkers as a whole were confused I think because of how they could keep up with the leaders, which made them indecisive as to whether they should ruin their race by slowing down or just see what happens since the leaders couldn't catch them most of the time.

[iotar__]

What happened to Grosjean? I'm glad that you care and want to discuss top drivers for a change:
- he had a a great qualifying and a great start, something you might not be familiar with if you mostly follow Ferrari and Mercedes .
- then: "my front wing decided to go, for some reason. We came back to the pits, fitted a new nose, got some tires, but then the brakes went. The car wasn't having a good day.".
- wing was a faulty manufacturing. As for setup/car problems, broader than this race topic there are quotes in Haas car thread. Draw your conclusion, I'm pretty sure it's not cracks in the chassis situation.

Most things already discussed but:
- Something new, Ferrari are trying to turn this into "weaker third sector" is to be blamed for losing the race. Sounds like another created backwards headline-soundbite that excuses driving and ignores important elements: qualifying, start, pace, inability to overtake weaker engine and overall slightly slower(?) cars. I don't recall them saying: "we're not winning this race because of a problematic third sector" before it. Barcelona is not exactly a track full of surprises they barely know either.

[mikeerfol]

My understanding is that he didn't slow down on the straight under blue flags, because after all, Haryanto has the fastest car in the speed trap. Hence the comment, "he thinks he's fast".

F1NAC is right, from the McLaren website:

“Well that's great! I've just been overtaken by HAR. Get him out of the way!”
Jenson

[basti313]

My view on the RedBull and Ferrari strategies:
RedBull made a very early stop to avoid the undercut. They knew they could manage the Medium well and went for aggressive early stops and a long last stint on Mediums from the beginning. During the second stint Ric was too slow, Ves was closing the gap and was under pressure from behind. Staying on a 2-Stop for both cars would have left Ves as an easy target for Vet as he would not have had the grip advantage in the last corners to produce a gap before the straight due to dirty air of Ric and, thus, would have been a sitting duck on the straight due to the Renault engine.
This is in my point of view the reason why they put Ric on a 3-Stop. This 3-Stop simply did not work because Ric was too slow before (tire conserving for 2-Stop?) and was not fast enough on the Soft as they extended the Soft stint to have a tire advantage to Vet in the end.

Ferrari had the plan to go with a long stint for Vettel to put him into tire advantage in the end once RedBull made the early stops. The pace on the Mediums looked like they can not overtake Ves on the track and RedBull showed that they will go aggressive with the undercuts. So the options to go were to stay on 2-Stop and finish 2-3 with the danger of a good 3-Stop from Ric which may lead to attacks in the end or to try to mirror the 3-Stop and go for a super aggressive undercut on Ric and finish 2-3 as well. Vet was better on the Softs in the first stint, so he was the one to use for the 3-Stop. The optimum stint length on the used Soft should have been something like 10-12 laps, so they went for an undercut with 8 laps.

Overall I think it was a nice game of strategists. The only thing I do not like is to go for Vet instead of Rai for the 3-Stop. Vet had younger Mediums and, thus, could have gone longer to produce a tire advantage on Ves in the last stint. Rai was ~0.3sec faster than Ves on the Mediums...no idea if it would have been enough for Vet with maybe 5 laps younger tires to overtake Ves. 3 laps advantage in the second stint have not been enough.

What do you think about these strategies? Can you think of a strategy that would have ended in a win for Ferrari?

What do you think about this?

[NL_Fer]

I think the VET-RIC battle ruined both their races. The 3 stop executed by Riciardo showed he was really faster and if he was not overtaken by Vettel, he must had a better chance in overtaking VES/RAI. Same for Vettel, if didn't need to overtake Riciardo he could have taken 3 stop like Ric and had a much better chance in overtaking the two stoppers.

By following Webber en undercutting him, Vettel ruined both races. He lost any chance on catching up on the leaders and was preventing Ricciardo to do the same.

Still it puzzles me, since this the testing circuit, it wasn't that hot. They must have known the mediums would last 30 laps.

[basti313]

I think the VET-RIC battle ruined both their races. The 3 stop executed by Riciardo showed he was really faster and if he was not overtaken by Vettel, he must had a better chance in overtaking VES/RAI. Same for Vettel, if didn't need to overtake Riciardo he could have taken 3 stop like Ric and had a much better chance in overtaking the two stoppers.

By following Webber en undercutting him, Vettel ruined both races. He lost any chance on catching up on the leaders and was preventing Ricciardo to do the same.

I do not think Ric had the pace to catch Rai: He had a pace advantage of 0.6sec with the newer tires and 6.6 sec on Rai on lap 55 (clean air before catching Vet) with 11 laps to go. That means he would have caught Rai in the last lap with 0.6s offset which is not enough to overtake.
No, same conclusion as above: Ric was too slow. The 3-Stop was the faster strategy and he did not really loose time due to dirty air or long overtakes. He should have caught the 2-Stoppers much earlier.

Still it puzzles me, since this the testing circuit, it wasn't that hot. They must have known the mediums would last 30 laps.

If you look at the lap times they knew perfectly when the tires were done: Each time before a pitstop the times dropped. Same for Ves in the last lap. RedBull used all the tire life they had on the 2-Stop.

[Just_a_fan]

Max's overtake of the Ferrari in the first couple of corners (just before the unmentionable thing happened) was pretty special. On a track where overtaking is so difficult, that move actually gave him the win, in effect. Very mature move for one so young and reminiscent of a couple of the current top drivers in their early days in F1.

[ThumbsUp]

Max's overtake of the Ferrari in the first couple of corners (just before the unmentionable thing happened) was pretty special. On a track where overtaking is so difficult, that move actually gave him the win, in effect. Very mature move for one so young and reminiscent of a couple of the current top drivers in their early days in F1.

Max mentioned he watched some previous starts of several years and did the same as Alonso did a few years ago. Don't know which year it happened though. But it was a great move. It was his move to victory.

[notsofast]

Max's overtake of the Ferrari in the first couple of corners

This one?