2014 British GP - Silverstone

[myurr]

http://184.106.145.74/f1-championship/f ... is_V01.pdf

Looking here it looks as though Nico's pace was consistent up until the lap before he retired. Not sure why his times dropped off in his first stint, hurt his tyres maybe.

It would appear you have the evidence! His pace is pretty consistent and doesn't show any sign of unduly slowing until lap 28. Maybe there's a half second wobble buried somewhere in there due to him playing with the settings but it's pretty unequivocal that he wasn't being held back. Tyres definitely went off in the first stint, degrading thermally as his engineer said they still had 50% of their tread left.

[Bob Brown]

This is most likely the only time a Ferrari driver will win a race this year,

[ringo]

Didnt Paddy say on Sky that Lewis was on a two-stop? In that case he had to overtake Niko. The prime tire just showed to be alot faster than the option tire

He awkwardly denied knowing the strategy and ended up saying that a two stop was impossible, which is demonstrably false. Other's ran far longer in the 2nd stint that Lewis would have had to.

that was before the race. After the race he said that the strategy for Lewis was a two stop -- Option-Prime-Option. Just like Niko in Bahrain and Spain.

That was political by Paddy. Hamilton did over 20 laps on the medium tyre. It would have been easy to go to the end on the hard tyre with less fuel. After i saw that he passed the half distance on one tyre, i figured more or less he was on a one stop.
Being 2.x seconds behind rosberg made it much easier too. Rosberg had to pit and that would have put 20+ seconds between them with Hamilton in the lead. All he would have to do is control the pace to the end. No need to fight rosberg.
Even redbull which is worse on tyres did 31 laps on mediums. So no way Hamilton could not have finished on the hard tyre with 25 laps of racing on it. Easy peasy stuff. Rosberg lost the minute hamilton started to close the gap with the hard tyre.
Rosbergs only chance of forcing hamilton to pit a second time was to increase the gap by up to a pitstop's time with some change, and that wasn't going to happen.
Nico was beat soundly today by pace alone. The gearbox failure actually worked out better for the team as a whole because we would have started to hear that Hamilton's side went rogue and switched to a strategy last minute to jump P1. And to prevent that suspicion Paddy came up with this 2 stop for Lewis thing which was never going to happen.
Great job by Lewis' side. Becuase this whole sharing data and P1 gets priority even if it means compromising P2 is too much micro management. It's not real racing. Mclaren has that over them at least. At Mclaren both cars can race independently.
Even by some distant chance that both would have clashed on track. I don't think Lewis would have needed DRS to pass Rosberg. He would have got him anyway as i've yet to see where Rosberg has held a candle to Hamilton this year when it comes to wheel to wheel racing.

[Edax]

.

that was before the race. After the race he said that the strategy for Lewis was a two stop -- Option-Prime-Option. Just like Niko in Bahrain and Spain.

It probably was. But Hamilton took the first set of tires almost to the halfwaypoint. From a 2 stop strategy that makes little sense unless you are contemplating to move to a one stop.

Anyway. It would have been nice to see them fight it out on the track.

But that said I think it was one of the more enjoyable races this year, with some high quality wheel to wheel action. Its been a while that I have seen a race with so many balsy overtakes. I think quite a few drivers really showed the best of their abilities today.

With racing like this who cares about the sound

[SectorOne]

Here´s a visual representation of the HAM/ROS battle.
Rosberg is faster up until lap 9 then Hamilton starts to cut down the gap considerably only for it to swing the other way again, both set their fastest laptime on the same lap then Rosberg´s gearbox went caput.

It would be interesting to know exactly when Rosberg started realizing something wasn´t right with the gearbox.

[myurr]

It would be interesting to know exactly when Rosberg started realizing something wasn´t right with the gearbox.

He said after his first pit stops on lap 20 something started to go wrong. That was when he was on the radio saying he was having an issue on the downshift.

[SectorOne]

If he had no issue at all prior to lap 20 then i think he was never going to win this race. Frankly if i would have to guess where things might have gone wrong would be lap 9 and onwards because that´s when Hamilton just started reeling him in.

I guess he blew his tires and was so marginal on fuel his pace was already set by that while Hamilton perhaps did not have to save fuel as much and could attack more into braking zones.

A shame it was a DNF as it robbed us of a thriller but on the other hand the DNF just made the championship even more of a thriller.

-

And he got the golden trophy as well after complaining
https://twitter.com/fraz3alpha/status/4 ... 6698053632

[PlatinumZealot]

I put William up there if only because they are good at getting heat into the tyres this year. The extra tyre traction will make up for their slight downforce deficit.

pat maself on the back.

[PlatinumZealot]

I don't think that's it - Lewis's car is usually fueled less than Nico's, and even was at the last race where he started ninth. If anything, starting low on the grid, you want a light car at the start to help passing.

Lewis car fueled lighter is a rumour. Just a silly rumour.

At this point, it's much more than just a rumour. Lewis repeatedly uses less fuel than Nico - we have the facts there. The team will not waste precious tenths of a second leaving extra fuel in the car.

If Rosberg was fueled heavier why was he told that his fuel was on the limit at early as lap 15 or so?

Again - because Lewis repeatedly uses less fuel than Nico. This was borne out today - Lewis' fuel usage was substantially lower.

Surely hamiton would be the one closer to the limit being fueld 4kg lighter as some uninformed people claim.

Lewis was using substantially less fuel than Nico.

It's all rubbish if you ask me. If rosberg was fueled heavier he would have been able to save more fuel thN ham esp if he was in clean air.

Except again - he wasn't - we saw the fuel usage throughout the race. Lewis was using less. Something about Nico's style takes more both out of the tyres, and out of the fuel tank than Lewis.

But for the tenth race in a row it is not materialising. It is about time we give up on this faulty logic that Hamilton is fueled lighter.

Lewis is fuelled lighter exactly because he uses less.

Bob, what I was implying is that the cross over point between Hamilton and Nico's fuel conservation mode would not have been as early as Lap fifteen if Hamilton was fueled lighter even by 4kg. There would not be any cross over point until much much further into the race AND Hamilton would be the one to get the fuel saving message FIRST as his fuel load would have a higher sensitivity to driving styles, tyres and race scenarios. This alone substantiates that Hamilton is not fueled lighter.

[myurr]

Bob, what I was implying is that the cross over point between Hamilton and Nico's fuel conservation mode would not have been as early as Lap fifteen if Hamilton was fueled lighter even by 4kg. There would not be any cross over point until much much further into the race AND Hamilton would be the one to get the fuel saving message FIRST as his fuel load would have a higher sensitivity to driving styles, tyres and race scenarios. This alone substantiates that Hamilton is not fueled lighter.

Not sure I follow. If Hamilton can complete the race with 95kg of fuel and Rosberg needs 100kg, and both start at those levels, then either could get the fuel save message first depending on who is actually using more than their targeted amount. If Hamilton was always on target but Nico was marginal then he'd get that message first regardless of who started with more fuel.

[SectorOne]

That´s the thing. If Hamilton uses less fuel, people say he´s gonna have less in the tank.
And therefore have the same exact margins as Rosberg to finish the race but it´s always Rosberg that gets told he´s on the limit.

If the margins is the same you would expect both to get a somewhat equal amounts of radio messages about saving fuel.
Or am i missing something? Probably am.

I´ve only heard the usual from Hamilton´s radio saying "yea save a little bit in Tx"

But usually when it´s Rosberg it´s "ok fuel is critical, you need to save fuel"

[PlatinumZealot]

That´s the thing. If Hamilton uses less fuel, people say he´s gonna have less in the tank.
And therefore have the same exact margins as Rosberg to finish the race but it´s always Rosberg that gets told he´s on the limit.

If the margins is the same you would expect both to get a somewhat equal amounts of radio messages about saving fuel.
Or am i missing something? Probably am.

I´ve only heard the usual from Hamilton´s radio saying "yea save a little bit in Tx"

But usually when it´s Rosberg it´s "ok fuel is critical, you need to save fuel"

The flaw in that reasoning is that the drivers target the last lap to use their targeted amount. This is not true. The target that the drivers see is a moving target and they driver drives as fast as he can until he the warnings come up.
For both driver's their fuel usuage when in fuel saving modes are similar as their driving style would be dictated by staying under the given target.
That's why we always see that 4% difference that stabilizes before the closing laps. The driver's are tempering their style to stay within the limit.
If Hamilton was fueled lighter he would get that call before Rosberg does.

[beelsebob]

That´s the thing. If Hamilton uses less fuel, people say he´s gonna have less in the tank.
And therefore have the same exact margins as Rosberg to finish the race but it´s always Rosberg that gets told he´s on the limit.

If the margins is the same you would expect both to get a somewhat equal amounts of radio messages about saving fuel.
Or am i missing something? Probably am.

I´ve only heard the usual from Hamilton´s radio saying "yea save a little bit in Tx"

But usually when it´s Rosberg it´s "ok fuel is critical, you need to save fuel"

The flaw in that reasoning is that the drivers target the last lap to use their targeted amount. This is not true. The target that the drivers see is a moving target and they driver drives as fast as he can until he the warnings come up.
For both driver's their fuel usuage when in fuel saving modes are similar as their driving style would be dictated by staying under the given target.
That's why we always see that 4% difference that stabilizes before the closing laps. The driver's are tempering their style to stay within the limit.
If Hamilton was fueled lighter he would get that call before Rosberg does.

No, he wouldn't - because again - he's using less fuel. The teams have an expected curve of fuel usage for the race. If you're above that curve, you'll get told you can use higher engine modes. If you're below it, you'll get told to fuel save. Nico gets told to fuel save more because he tends to dip below the curve more. He does that because his style requires that he uses a lot of fuel. When he drives fast, he uses a lot, he drives slower by not using as much. Meanwhile, something about Hamilton's style means that he can get the pace out of the car while driving fast still. The result is that he doesn't need to use lots of fuel to drive fast, and hence starts on less fuel, and doesn't get warned as much.

[avatar]

Here´s a visual representation of the HAM/ROS battle.
Rosberg is faster up until lap 9 then Hamilton starts to cut down the gap considerably only for it to swing the other way again, both set their fastest laptime on the same lap then Rosberg´s gearbox went caput.

It would be interesting to know exactly when Rosberg started realizing something wasn´t right with the gearbox.

http://i.imgur.com/dtv7TUB.jpg

The both lost time on the lap their teammate was in the pits...
...gap looks big enough for it not to be a hold up...
...both over-driving, or is the pit-in that much shorter that the car in the pitlane crosses the start/finish before they would on circuit?

[henra]

Alonso overtook Vettel on lap 34, it wasn't until lap 47 that Vettel overtook Alonso, Vettel tyres where 7 laps newer. It pretty much only took Alonso one shot to get Vettel but it took Vettel 13 laps to get Alonso.

If Vettel would have held his position after his pit-stop or overtook alonso quicker RBR strategy would have worked.

Yup to both Points.
Alonso caught him on his out- lap out of the box when his tyres were still cold. Plus the Ferrari seemed to have a top speed/acceleration advantage. Had Vettel managed to stay in front of Alonso he might have even caught Ricciardo despite one more stop.
I would consider this one of the better rdrives of Vettel this year. Sometimes it is small things that messes up the result despite generally good driving.
Ask Hamilton or Webber on that Topic...