Strategies

[marcush.]

I´m not sure if Matlab is exactly what´s needed to improve their strategies...maybe a step back and a realistic view on the state of affairs might do the trick...And a car that is at it´s best during the race ,maybe.
But they seem to need to expose themselves into that feeling of having his car wrong somewhere at the rear ....for how many races this year?

but back to strategies..
It´s beyond me why them backmarkers and even those further up the field waste precious time fighting for position.
It may be useful to do what Schumacher did with Hamilton last year ..but why try to hold back a massively quicker car ,it´s just using up your own weapon and you have no real gain apart from a bit of ego enhancement maybe and a bit of entertainment for the spectators at best.
with those big variables in tyre deg it makes sense todrive your own race ,avoid losing time and optimise for running in free air.not exactly thrilling but the result is what s counting not the pleasure ..right?

[f1316]

I've been saying for a while that a team like Mercedes, who clearly have problems with their tyre usage, would be better off building in an extra stop to their strategy and being aggressive with the way they push the car; rather than reacting to the tyre drop off and trying to nurse the tyres, whilst still having to do the extra stop anyway but in a last minute, "splash and dash" type way.

We've discussed it elsewhere and I calculate that by finding an extra 0.3s per lap by driving more aggressive, you generally make up the extra pit stop. From what the drivers comments tend to indicate, the way they nurse the tyres - especially at the start of the race - does indicate that this amount of time, and more, could be possible to find. It might not be the optimum strategy, but by trying to match the front runners they find themselves making the extra stop anyway without the benefit of pushing harder in the early going.

Obviously this only really applicable on circuits where overtaking is possible.

[mep]

I start to wonder if we are talking about Mercedes GP or strategy in general?

[f1316]

I start to wonder if we are talking about Mercedes GP or strategy in general?

Well, it's an example of a team I think could benefit from this sort of strategy. I don't think it'd be worth doing if you're Red Bull or Ferrari, but sometimes McLaren have similar issues to Mercedes and could, with a naturally agressive driver like Hamilton, benefit from this pre-emptive thinking.

You're even less likely to do it if you've got good tyre management like Sauber or Lotus, but what amazes me is that nobody appears to have tried it.

[mep]

Actually I have a different opinion on that. I think the further you are on the front the more "aggressive" you can use your tires. It is simply less likely that you have a other car in front of you when you have fresh tires. When a car starts in the midfield, after bad qualifying you should rather save your tires because there is high probability to get stuck in traffic anyways. Also you can have the chance to mess up the strategies of the front runners when they come out behind you after their stops. I wish back the times of refuelling which gives a much higher leverage for aggressive or conservative strategies.

[marcush.]

I think you could do the following:
Set up the car for the hard (er)tyre and try to make them live for a much longer stint -wich is what Perez seems to follow
or set the car up to please the softer tyre but that might put you into trouble with the harder ones.....so you might be better off not to use them as long as they would go but only for a handful of laps to fulfil your obligations.