ali623 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 20, 2023 10:26 am
AR3-GP wrote: ↑Mon Nov 20, 2023 3:13 am
Verstappen said he doesn't know why the mediums didn't work in the race because it worked in practice, but he must have forgotten that they changed the wings.
In the press conference, Verstappen was asked why. Why didn't things really want to flow in that first stint on the yellow-cheeked tyre? "Yes, I don't know. Right now we have to analyse why that was, because in the long runs they were fine in free practice," said the three-time world champion.
Looked like he pushed too early in the stint, initially was pulling easily away from Leclerc then it levelled out. I assumed he was trying to pull a 5s gap to counter the penalty.
Compare this to Brazil where he managed the tyres early in the initial stint, whereas Norris pushed early and wrecked his. These tyres just seem super sensitive if you don't manage them properly, GP is always going on to Max about it on the radio.
Critical difference at Vegas was that max pushed for that gap twice on the mediums. Max opened 2s gap prior to Norris incident, then SC bunched everything up, then he did it again and pulled 2s.
Charles mentioned post-race that the heat cycle he put through his hard tyres prior to the SC made them harder to heat up for the SC restart and subsequent laps.
It's possible that the heat cycle made the second warmup after the SC bad and max was pushing regardless and that is what made the graining so horrendous
I think in lots of other scenarios, max and GP ease that first set of mediums in both before and after SC but they hyper-focused on breaking away from Leclerc here.. probably because tow beyond DRS was quite powerful itself