2017 Monaco Grand Prix, Monte Carlo, 26-28 May

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Unlike most people, I have no problem with #1 and #2 driver in a team, even if that #2 is a former champion. I have absolutely no problem with Merc favoring Hamilton. I have a problem with their hypocrisy concerning this subject, with their driver (but not the team leaders obviously, as they want to keep their hands clean) openly denying this and trying to project this on their opponents. But again, my view is that this subject is artificially and ridiculously inflated by the media using some very poor arguments...

The problem here is, when it is Ferrari who is being accused of favoring their No.1 driver, there is no case to fight for Ferrari as it has been their Basic Principal of racing. But some supporters of Ferrari deny this as if Ferrari is some kind of holy thing and that is hypocrisy.

Had it been Ferrari dominating in the past years, they would have always wrapped up the Driver's championship by the time they go to European leg! Not a distant long ago in Baku last year, even when there was remote chance for Vettel to fight for championship, they asked Kimi to move over openly. This time, Vettel is leading the championship and would Ferrari not blatantly do what they did last year? The only difference in Monaco was that, they were atleast a little more smarter in getting the same thing done.

Mercedes on the other hand, based on the past history, can always claim that they give equal priority to both drivers. Instances where one driver is considerably slower, as was the case in Bahrain and in Spain, there is nothing wrong to ask the struggling driver to move over as it was done even last year in Monaco while they let their drivers' to race for championship.

Well, I don't think it is wrong to have a No.1 and No.2 when the fight is the way it is between Ferrari and Mercedes now. I don't see what Ferrari did was wrong and neither would I see it as wrong when in a similar situation, Mercedes does anything like that.

[ferkan]

Unlike most people, I have no problem with #1 and #2 driver in a team, even if that #2 is a former champion. I have absolutely no problem with Merc favoring Hamilton. I have a problem with their hypocrisy concerning this subject, with their driver (but not the team leaders obviously, as they want to keep their hands clean) openly denying this and trying to project this on their opponents. But again, my view is that this subject is artificially and ridiculously inflated by the media using some very poor arguments...

The problem here is, when it is Ferrari who is being accused of favoring their No.1 driver, there is no case to fight for Ferrari as it has been their Basic Principal of racing. But some supporters of Ferrari deny this as if Ferrari is some kind of holy thing and that is hypocrisy.

Had it been Ferrari dominating in the past years, they would have always wrapped up the Driver's championship by the time they go to European leg! Not a distant long ago in Baku last year, even when there was remote chance for Vettel to fight for championship, they asked Kimi to move over openly. This time, Vettel is leading the championship and would Ferrari not blatantly do what they did last year? The only difference in Monaco was that, they were atleast a little more smarter in getting the same thing done.

Mercedes on the other hand, based on the past history, can always claim that they give equal priority to both drivers. Instances where one driver is considerably slower, as was the case in Bahrain and in Spain, there is nothing wrong to ask the struggling driver to move over as it was done even last year in Monaco while they let their drivers' to race for championship.

Well, I don't think it is wrong to have a No.1 and No.2 when the fight is the way it is between Ferrari and Mercedes now. I don't see what Ferrari did was wrong and neither would I see it as wrong when in a similar situation, Mercedes does anything like that.

I agree, but its also much easier to "let them race" when your car is head and shoulders better then every other on grid. Also, Arrivabene said until its not critical, with new team, there won't be any TO and they will let them race. They did just that in China, while Merc said that now TOs might come into play because they can't just race into distance like they used to and will have to maximize points.

From my personal perspective, neither Merc nor Ferrari used TO this year. Merc used Bottas as roadblock, yes, but they still maximized available points that both of drivers could get. Ferrari as well, Kimi got his pole, had 35 laps to make 1 second on Vettel in clean air and he wasn't able to do even a tenth (difference before pitting was 1.1s, exactly like it was in 1st lap). They did what they had to do. Pitted 1st driver after Merc and RB pitted like they agreed upon before race (it was not early, Pirelli said fastest way was pitting in 28th lap) and then left Sebastian for few laps once they saw he completely wrecked any times Kimi could put in clean air. No TO in either case nor a faul play. Just butthurt fans in both cases, although it seems like in this case its much, much worse given that English media has big influence and they surely dont like Vettel maximizing pts starting from 2nd.

[jonas_linder]

Another article showing the same thing.
http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433/ ... aps-win-it

Poor sportsmanship from Ferrari to rob Kimi of the victory and not even acknowledging that they did it!

Great article. Comparing out lap to regular lap. How do these people get a job? We can talk all night and all day about this one, but Kimi had no buffer (1.1s is no buffer) to make pits look easy in streets of Monaco. His own fault.

In my humble opinion Ferrari was well aware that Kimi would come out behind BUT and WEH, that is what lost Kimi the race (the difference in outlap pace). At the time, the front runners were lapping considerably faster than the backmarkers and a few laps more would've put him infront of them. As they showed in the article, VET gained roughly 1sec by his fast laps which would not have put him in front of Kimi simply by his "blinding pace" alone.

I don't mind team orders, I understand why the team would do it, but I think it is crappy not to admit that they gave VET the beneficial strategy!

[Juzh]

Another article showing the same thing.
http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433/ ... aps-win-it

Poor sportsmanship from Ferrari to rob Kimi of the victory and not even acknowledging that they did it!

Great article. Comparing out lap to regular lap. How do these people get a job? We can talk all night and all day about this one, but Kimi had no buffer (1.1s is no buffer) to make pits look easy in streets of Monaco. His own fault.

In my humble opinion Ferrari was well aware that Kimi would come out behind BUT and WEH, that is what lost Kimi the race (the difference in outlap pace). At the time, the front runners were lapping considerably faster than the backmarkers and a few laps more would've put him infront of them. As they showed in the article, VET gained roughly 1sec by his fast laps which would not have put him in front of Kimi simply by his "blinding pace" alone.

I don't mind team orders, I understand why the team would do it, but I think it is crappy not to admit that they gave VET the beneficial strategy!

There's also an inlap.

[ferkan]

Another article showing the same thing.
http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433/ ... aps-win-it

Poor sportsmanship from Ferrari to rob Kimi of the victory and not even acknowledging that they did it!

Great article. Comparing out lap to regular lap. How do these people get a job? We can talk all night and all day about this one, but Kimi had no buffer (1.1s is no buffer) to make pits look easy in streets of Monaco. His own fault.

In my humble opinion Ferrari was well aware that Kimi would come out behind BUT and WEH, that is what lost Kimi the race (the difference in outlap pace). At the time, the front runners were lapping considerably faster than the backmarkers and a few laps more would've put him infront of them. As they showed in the article, VET gained roughly 1sec by his fast laps which would not have put him in front of Kimi simply by his "blinding pace" alone.

I don't mind team orders, I understand why the team would do it, but I think it is crappy not to admit that they gave VET the beneficial strategy!

So Kimi should have stayed out for few more laps so he doesn't come behind backmarkers? What about Sainz and what about RB/Merc pitting and defending against Ric who was flying? Pit Vettel then instead of Kimi obviously, Ferrari had to pit someone. Pitting Vettel who is -1s and is then doing low 16s and 15s on SS tires while Kimi does few laps in 17s is sure way to undercut someone.

Kimi's only issue was his pace. He had no (in comparison to Seb) and that cost him a win. If he was 3 tenths faster in last 10 laps of his first stint on US tires not only would he make few seconds on Vet, but he would have enough not to get behind Sauber and Button. He wasn't fast enough and that resulted him getting behind these two, not Ferrari pit wall.

[LionKing]

Another article showing the same thing.
http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433/ ... aps-win-it

Poor sportsmanship from Ferrari to rob Kimi of the victory and not even acknowledging that they did it!

Great article. Comparing out lap to regular lap. How do these people get a job? We can talk all night and all day about this one, but Kimi had no buffer (1.1s is no buffer) to make pits look easy in streets of Monaco. His own fault.

It is SKY sports, usual pathetic reporting...
So in-lap difference: -1.366 sec
3-lap pace difference: -0.764 sec
out-lap difference: -0.868 sec
Total: -2.998 sec
The gap between Vettel and Raikkonen at the end of lap 33 is + 1.138. Which would have come done further after sectors S1 and S2 on the lap Kimi pitted.

[basti313]

Nice article on espn F1 website and makes sense ... http://www.espn.in/f1/story/_/id/194903 ... nen-monaco.
It also discusses relative sppeds of other drivers too.

Puh...I think it is rather poor:
1. It does mention but not discuss the really fast outlap of Ver. The sector times match low 16 lap times and this matches the radios to Vettel.

Verstappen's pit lap (32) - 1:35.170
........
So where is that out lap of low 1m16s?

Sector times? Difficult word?

While Verstappen was doing a good out lap, Bottas was brought in and even before Ferrari knew exact complete sector times (S2 and S3), Bottas came back ahead of Verstappen and held him up. How was Verstappen a threat at that point?

When they called Rai for the stop, no one knew S3 of Ver and if he or Bot will be in front. The only thing they had was a very fast S2. This sector was so fast, that it looked like they have exactely two laps to pit Vettel if they do not want to rely on traffic.
For me this was a no-brainer to pit Rai or Vet at that point.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Sector times? Difficult word?

Well, stick to a proper argument. You said, Verstappen's lap was a low 1m16 based on sector times and that is what I questioned.

While Verstappen was doing a good out lap, Bottas was brought in and even before Ferrari knew exact complete sector times (S2 and S3), Bottas came back ahead of Verstappen and held him up. How was Verstappen a threat at that point?

When they called Rai for the stop, no one knew S3 of Ver and if he or Bot will be in front. The only thing they had was a very fast S2. This sector was so fast, that it looked like they have exactely two laps to pit Vettel if they do not want to rely on traffic.
For me this was a no-brainer to pit Rai or Vet at that point.

Now you saying, no one knew S3 then how did you claim in your earlier post that, Verstappen would have done low 1m16 based on his sector times and that is why they called Kimi in? Confused?
Well, it was plain like day light if you are a racing team having handle of every damn thing on happening on the race track with the help of all those equipments. How was it so difficult to understand while on your monitor it was clear that Bottas is pitting and started to come out while Verstappen at second last corner?
At Monaco, even if you are side by side at the exit of pit, to the guy coming around, you still stand a chance to be ahead as the other guy need to take turn 1 at far lesser speed than you do. Are you saying, Ferrari was inefficient to calculate this?

Live timing recording

[ferkan]

Ferrari took safest 1-2, who can fault them? There was no need to not pit their drivers (in this case Kimi, like it was agreed before race). They wanted to defend from RB and Merc and knew if they pitted and got 1-2 race would be over there and then. They left their drivers to race and didnt impose TO. Everything else is (mostly English and Finnish) gibberish because

a) Sebastian maximized pts against Hamilton
b) Kimis cult followers literally cannot comprehend that Kimi couldnt pull even a tenth on Vettel in 34 laps and the fact that Vettel destroyed anything Kimi has done with US once he got into free air.

[basti313]

Sector times? Difficult word?

Well, stick to a proper argument. You said, Verstappen's lap was a low 1m16 based on sector times and that is what I questioned.

While Verstappen was doing a good out lap, Bottas was brought in and even before Ferrari knew exact complete sector times (S2 and S3), Bottas came back ahead of Verstappen and held him up. How was Verstappen a threat at that point?

When they called Rai for the stop, no one knew S3 of Ver and if he or Bot will be in front. The only thing they had was a very fast S2. This sector was so fast, that it looked like they have exactely two laps to pit Vettel if they do not want to rely on traffic.
For me this was a no-brainer to pit Rai or Vet at that point.

Now you saying, no one knew S3 then how did you claim in your earlier post that, Verstappen would have done low 1m16 based on his sector times and that is why they called Kimi in? Confused?

I guess you just try to play...but nevertheless I try to say it again in a more easy sentence:
The S2 time of Ver outlap matched a S2 time of a full 1:16 low lap.
Understandable?

In numbers: Ver S2 35.7 lap 33, Ric S3 lap 37 also 35.7...result 1:16.1

Are you saying, Ferrari was inefficient to calculate this?

Yes. No one knew if Ver will get faster with tires warming and, thus, no one knew how fast his S3 will be.

The same for the own cars: I do not think that any one knew how fast Rai will be on his inlap. And even more: Who would expect Vet to be 1.8sec faster on the same tires on which Rai could not push a good inlap?

[Phil]

When they called Rai for the stop, no one knew S3 of Ver and if he or Bot will be in front. The only thing they had was a very fast S2. This sector was so fast, that it looked like they have exactely two laps to pit Vettel if they do not want to rely on traffic.
For me this was a no-brainer to pit Rai or Vet at that point.

On Lap 31, just before VER pitted, Vettel had a margin over 4.95 seconds over VER and a margin over BOT of 3.521seconds. Kimi had an additional margin of 1.3 seconds (the gap between him and VET). IMO the right call would have been to either bring in VET (due to him having less margin). Either way, the engineers should have radioed Kimi to tell him to push and the noble thing would have been to ask if he preferred pitting first or second. I don't think either Ferrari driver was ever in imminent danger of losing their positions.

[ferkan]

Phil, Im sure WDC asking "are we pitting yet" needs to be reminded he needs to push and create a gap between him in teammate. Quite likely he wrecked his tires and couldnt do it. Maybe he was informed that but we didnt get radio message.

As for Vettel pitting before, no. Vettel said everyone agreed that first car will pit first.

You people are making scenarios trying to explain how kimi could MAYBE come on top after pits but are completely ignoring the fact that his pace was too slow for normal pit to work. Having 1s advantagr over your teammate is best way to get behind after pitstops.

Btw just his inlap and pit stop where .9s slower then Vettel. So difference pretty much whipped out just from there...

[TwanV]

Serious discussion! In my humble opinion RAI and VER are absolutely right being upset. His pitstop was lousy, but the moment VER pitted I knew he was more or less sacrificed to get a RB on the podium. The entire weekend is was clear that a) the US was quicker vs. the SS and b) the US in principle could last at least half distance without much degradation. In principle, this is the reason why the overcut is always the faster way in Monaco for the last couple of years, and RB just gave the advantage to RIC by pitting VER earlier. Smart move strategy-wise by leaving the choice to Bottas and they snapped the bait; true. Nevertheless, the same thing could've happened if RIC would go first (give or take, Merc would have the luxury of a lap of RIC on SS to determine for sure it would be slower).
For RAI, it's even worse.. that was just robbery . RAI and VER were quicker then their respective team-mates all weekend, but the teams made their minds up and handed the win to the other guy.

[Phil]

@ferkan,

Surely you must be aware that this Formula requires a fine trade-off between tire preservation and out right pushing. E.g. if you push like mad, you might find yourself with overheating tires or worse, tires beyond their optimum range when you need them. Especially in Monaco, this can be costly, as building a too large gap can put you at a disadvantage if for example a safety car later bunches up the field again and you are left with tires in a worse state than the next best guy behind you.

Hence, why we see various teams explicitly tell their driver to push when they are nearing a pit stop. It's so ensure that you extract everything from the tires and try to build a possible gap. This to the best of my knowledge didn't happen for Kimi.

And no, I am not making scenarios. I am questioning why the guy who put the car on pole and has been asked by his team in a public fashion to improve his performance wasn't given the best strategy to also win the race. I'm happy to admit that Vettel looked like the quickest guy out there by some margin, but then so was Hamilton in 2014 and in various other races like Brazil 2015, but he still didn't get the "better strategy" because of it. The leading car did. So to a point, I am questioning why Kimi didn't receive the preferred treatment either, which would have been to pit 2nd.

I think questing the motives behind Ferrari's pitstop strategy is a legitimate question, one that surely Kimi must be asking himself too.

[basti313]

..........
Mercedes on the other hand, based on the past history, can always claim that they give equal priority to both drivers. ..........

Merc in the last years would have done exactly the same like Ferrari. Pit the lead driver first and give the other driver the option to stay out longer.

Kimi had an additional margin of 1.3 seconds (the gap between him and VET). IMO the right call would have been to either bring in VET (due to him having less margin).

Which would bring Vet out ahead of Rai. The gap at the end of the lap when Rai pitted was nothing, Vet had his nose right behind the rear wheels of Rai when he entered the pits. Rai had a very bad S3 on his inlap.

Either way, the engineers should have radioed Kimi to tell him to push and the noble thing would have been to ask if he preferred pitting first or second.

Looking at the timing, he pushed. S1 was well faster then the laps before, maybe even the fastest S1 during this stint for him. But it looks like his tires were done, S2 was mediocre and S3 a disaster.

I don't think either Ferrari driver was ever in imminent danger of losing their positions.

"a margin over BOT of 3.521seconds"
Lapping with 1:17 mid and having cars behind on new tires that might do 1:16 low...I would call this an imminent danger...especially as you can loose easily a second with a not perfect stop...but ok...