2024 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[Luscion]

Lewis' pitstop

[Bill_Kar]

That is weird. Hamilton’s total time in the pits was 3 seconds slower than Sainz yet he had the second fastest pit stop. Was he held in his pit box to let others through?

3s seems too much. 1s deviation would be reasonable, given actual stop times are withing a few tenths. You sure about this number?

I also remember Sainz doing a 30.something spent in the pit lane and LH doing a 33.something . I thought it was a timing error.

[Juzh]

That is weird. Hamilton’s total time in the pits was 3 seconds slower than Sainz yet he had the second fastest pit stop. Was he held in his pit box to let others through?

3s seems too much. 1s deviation would be reasonable, given actual stop times are withing a few tenths. You sure about this number?

I also remember Sainz doing a 30.something spent in the pit lane and LH doing a 33.something . I thought it was a timing error.

Surely it must be.

[atanatizante]

HAM was faster than RUS in race pace. Would have probably passed him on track if it wasn't for going offtrack at Acqua Minerali.

Did we watch the same race?

On hards, he was absolutely faster. Got the gap down from over 9 seconds to about 3.5 seconds in about 15 laps.

Had HAM not lost 5 seconds going off track, he would have absolutely been in RUS' gearbox. Whether he would have passed him on track, who knows.

RUS did not have good pace on those hards which is why his engineer offered a late pit stop at the cost of track position.

Some needed clarifications about this matter:

Since the hybrid era, it is well-known that HAM prioritizes race setup rather than the qualy one with RUS doing just the opposite since the ground effect car era and that`s why the latter has a quicker tyre warmup phase and better qualy results in general speaking.

In doing so, he emphasized optimizing the car setup for the softer tyre range for that event hence for the first stint race tyre, here being the case of the medium one. Unfortunately, this strategy had a downside in the second stint when he couldn`t maintain the core temp in that set of hard tyres sliding more thus overheating them and ending in a pronounced thermal deg. This strategy is better for a 2 stop race and maybe he bet on that and wished for an SC/VSC phase for this race which unfortunately didn't happen...

This was the main reason why he on the radio requested to stop for new tyres and more of that was willing to let HAM in front knowing that having a big tyre delta he could both pass him and set the fastest lap of the race at the end of it.

[Seanspeed]

Some needed clarifications about this matter:

Since the hybrid era, it is well-known that HAM prioritizes race setup rather than the qualy one with RUS doing just the opposite since the ground effect car era and that`s why the latter has a quicker tyre warmup phase and better qualy results in general speaking.

This isn't 'well known', just frequently speculated.

I dont really believe it personally. Nobody in this era of F1 is biasing their setup towards qualifying.

[maygun]

Some needed clarifications about this matter:

Since the hybrid era, it is well-known that HAM prioritizes race setup rather than the qualy one with RUS doing just the opposite since the ground effect car era and that`s why the latter has a quicker tyre warmup phase and better qualy results in general speaking.

This isn't 'well known', just frequently speculated.

I dont really believe it personally. Nobody in this era of F1 is biasing their setup towards qualifying.

I agree and on top of that I don't think a whole set of engineers are this stupid to choose qualy pace over race if there is a big sacrifice for one of them.

[mkay]

That is weird. Hamilton’s total time in the pits was 3 seconds slower than Sainz yet he had the second fastest pit stop. Was he held in his pit box to let others through?

3s seems too much. 1s deviation would be reasonable, given actual stop times are withing a few tenths. You sure about this number?

Yes. From recollection, Sainz clocked in at ~30.x seconds pit lane time, while Hamilton went up all the way to 33.x

Though it seems to me that this is a FOM issue (i.e., the pitstop was fine) rather than a Merc/HAM issue as we have video footage of Hamilton's stop which was smooth as it could have been.

[TeamKoolGreen]

Russell had a puncture ? Why did he pit ?

Oh. His tyre pressures were fine. But he couldn't manage the pyschological pressure of losing pace hand over fist with a charging 44 car behind him.

I wont take the bait this week. This speaks for itself.

[AR3-GP]

On lap 53 of 63, Russell had a 29 seconds gap to Perez. Then Mercedes suggest that they boxed Russell to cover a Perez threat? I don't think that makes sense. They got an extra point for fastest lap because of it so maybe that was the real objective.

[ringo]

They W14B upgrade was done in Monaco last year. No coincidence they bring upgrades here again.
The w15 had excessive understeer in the slow speed corners in China and Miami. I dont expect it to go well in Monaco. Unless the car was compromised for high speed performance at those two tracks and with Monaco they can fully hedge on a low speed setup and this will remedy the weak front end.

As for qualy and race setups. Yes drivers have setup cars for qualy over the years. Too many examples to count. Just depends on the best compromise. In Monaco for sure the bias will be to qualy. No one will car about race pace. Ask Alonso who was driving slow as frozen molasses last year was it?

[j_ste]

On lap 53 of 63, Russell had a 29 seconds gap to Perez. Then Mercedes suggest that they boxed Russell to cover a Perez threat? I don't think that makes sense. They got an extra point for fastest lap because of it so maybe that was the real objective.

If his tyres completely died to the point where they needed to pit him 6-7 laps later, he would have come out behind Sergio.

They were being proactive and overall, it was to their benefit

[Luscion]

[AR3-GP]

On lap 53 of 63, Russell had a 29 seconds gap to Perez. Then Mercedes suggest that they boxed Russell to cover a Perez threat? I don't think that makes sense. They got an extra point for fastest lap because of it so maybe that was the real objective.

If his tyres completely died to the point where they needed to pit him 6-7 laps later, he would have come out behind Sergio.

At that point, Russell's pace was quite stable. He was lapping high 1.20, low 1.21 fairly consistently.

I'm not implying that they were favoring Hamilton. Instead, I think it was a "Mercedes" strategy...one that doesn't make sense on its own. They are known for this... I don't think fastest lap was a primary motivation either. That was coincidence. They were really concerned that Russell couldn't manage 10 more laps with a 30 second lead and that objectively doesn't make sense...It's not the first time Mercedes does a strategy that doesn't make sense.

[Hammerfist]

I think they just wanted the fastest lap point. The rest is baloney imo. If Hamilton had the gap to pit and get back in front of perez he would have been pitted instead.

[j_ste]

On lap 53 of 63, Russell had a 29 seconds gap to Perez. Then Mercedes suggest that they boxed Russell to cover a Perez threat? I don't think that makes sense. They got an extra point for fastest lap because of it so maybe that was the real objective.

If his tyres completely died to the point where they needed to pit him 6-7 laps later, he would have come out behind Sergio.

At that point, Russell's pace was quite stable. He was lapping high 1.20, low 1.21 fairly consistently.

I'm not implying that they were favoring Hamilton. Instead, I think it was a "Mercedes" strategy...one that doesn't make sense on its own. They are known for this... I don't think fastest lap was a primary motivation either. That was coincidence. They were really concerned that Russell couldn't manage 10 more laps with a 30 second lead and that objectively doesn't make sense...It's not the first time Mercedes does a strategy that doesn't make sense.

Thats the issue with the cliff. There isnt a huge warning, you just fall off it. And then there was also the chance of a late safety car, which pitting George also covered them from.

And in this instance, with the gap to Perez it was an easy decision to make at the time.