Fulcrum wrote: ↑16 Apr 2018, 06:41
aral wrote: ↑15 Apr 2018, 13:33
I guess that you are overlooking the fact that until the SC came out, Vettel was lining up to pass Bottas, on newer tyres.
So even if Ferrari were tardy in calling Vettel in, there was a reason for it, and frankly it was actually working.
2 laps fresher? Describing that strategy as 'working' is a bit of a stretch.
The differential in performance between the two vehicles was low, and the differential in tyres was also low. Vettel's best chance to pass was the Raikkonen roadblock. He was already beginning to fall out of DRS range at parts of the track when the SC was triggered.
Without the safety car, I think many - if not all bar Raikkonen - might have pitted again and/or had to defend from those who did.
Vettel’s tyres are hard to judge with the damage to both them and the car caused by the Verstappen incident, but Bottas’ had all but gone by the end - hence even Kimi catching him hand over fist. The Red Bulls, in my opinion, would have really struggled to get to the end quickly on the mediums they put on lap 18.
All of which is just to say I think there might have been another twist in the tail even without the safety car. RB seemed to manage the US pretty well in the first stint, so I suspect you could easily make up 2s per lap for the last 13/14 laps or so and make a two stop work. If Vettel had rolled the dice on it - perhaps in response to RB doing the same - Bottas probably would have been forced to try and go to the end as the undercut would have been too strong to react.
We’ll never know if any of that’s true but I think we would have been in for an interesting finale without the safety car.