F1 2021: French GP - Le Castellet (June 20)

[e90335e36m3]

Originally Posted by M5Rick

RUS would be a serious threat to hammy also and Wolf doesn't want an in-house 'starwars'.

For sure. He proved it the first time out. Half the field would be a serious threat to Sir 7ewis if put in his car and given enough seat time. However i think the reason they don't experiment is because they don't want to risk falling off even for a few races against an experienced driver. Every race is $$$.

[GuidoK]

Originally Posted by Bubbles

It’s funny, I thought MERC had the ideal pit box spot, basically drive right into it.

They explained it like this (fear my paint skills ):



(I know this is the old pitlane, I couldnt find a nice aerial shot of the new one but the corner before the boxes is roughly the same)

You can see that the car for the first pitbox has to make a tighter turn (red line) to drive into the box than the car that enters the 2nd pitbox (blue line).
Therefore the total distance travelled for the complete pitstop is also longer for the red line

[M5Rick]

Perez on song.
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/h...p-bid/6592951/

[GuidoK]

So this article claims that Mercedes can't figure out how VER passed HAM during stop 1:

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/m...appen/6593031/

They don't say exactly what they included in the analyzing but they come up short 0,5sec. (apparently they can account for 2,5sec but they don't say what includes in that 2,5sec)

I don't know if they included the above difference in distance driving into box 1 and 2, but say if that distancedifference is only 4 meters, and if HAM drives 30km/h on that last patch (the patch just before the pitbox), then there's half a second
(the analysts in the TV commentary (2 ex F1 drivers btw) that came up with this also said it potentially could make a 0,5-0,7sec difference)
Needless to say, gaining 3 sec on an undercut pitstop is insane

I've also been thinking about the relative weak defense to keep position from both BOT as HAM (against VER and PER).
Maybe that's due to that the races are now a triple header and driving serious damage can give short supply on spare parts and repair time.
Maybe everyone was a bit careful; there were 0 retirements in the field. That's quite rare.

[M5Rick]

Originally Posted by GuidoK

So this article claims that Mercedes can't figure out how VER passed HAM during stop 1:

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/m...appen/6593031/

They don't say exactly what they included in the analyzing but they come up short 0,5sec. (apparently they can account for 2,5sec but they don't say what includes in that 2,5sec)

I don't know if they included the above difference in distance driving into box 1 and 2, but say if that distancedifference is only 4 meters, and if HAM drives 30km/h on that last patch (the patch just before the pitbox), then there's half a second
(the analysts in the TV commentary (2 ex F1 drivers btw) that came up with this also said it potentially could make a 0,5-0,7sec difference)
Needless to say, gaining 3 sec on an undercut pitstop is insane

I've also been thinking about the relative weak defense to keep position from both BOT as HAM (against VER and PER).
Maybe that's due to that the races are now a triple header and driving serious damage can give short supply on spare parts and repair time.
Maybe everyone was a bit careful; there were 0 retirements in the field. That's quite rare.

I think you have found the lost half second that Wolff couldn't find.

[M5Rick]

Wolffs Merc were so used to leading and winning for so long since '14 (even admitting that engines were turned down a lot) and becoming complacent enjoying early hybrid and equipment advantage that they don't know how to handle things now. On top of that how Fia allowed them to continue DAS (with such a PU advantage) when banned must hold a lot of fans quizzical.

[Bubbles]

Originally Posted by GuidoK

They explained it like this (fear my paint skills ):



(I know this is the old pitlane, I couldnt find a nice aerial shot of the new one but the corner before the boxes is roughly the same)

You can see that the car for the first pitbox has to make a tighter turn (red line) to drive into the box than the car that enters the 2nd pitbox (blue line).
Therefore the total distance travelled for the complete pitstop is also longer for the red line

This is bottas pit, somewhat sharper angles. The Merc will have priority when released from the pit.



Max pit

[M5Rick]

Tension is mounting.
https://www.planetf1.com/news/jean-t...-bull-tension/

[///M Power-Belgium]

Originally Posted by M5Rick

Tension is mounting.
https://www.planetf1.com/news/jean-t...-bull-tension/

[M5Rick]

Payback time and interesting convo between Christian,Toto and Nico.
https://www.planetf1.com/news/fia-lo...ecommendations

[GuidoK]

Originally Posted by Bubbles

This is bottas pit, somewhat sharper angles. The Merc will have priority when released from the pit.



Max pit

Exactly. you can clearly see that VER can take the apex of the pit lane entry corner where BOT is already ~4-5m to the right.
It's very difficult to judge how much further the merc car has to drive due to the somewhat sharper angles, but if its about 2/3th of a car length in those angles at say roughly 30kph (when they steer into the pitbox they probably slow down a bit), it's 0,5sec.
So if thenth of seconds make a difference it can be an issue.
I never thought of it until those analysts explained it on TV.
Things are so incredibly close in F1 that the smallest difference can have a big impact.

First pitbox indeed has priority, but if no one's there that's not an issue.
So it's mainly a tactical advantage for MERC, if HAM would have gone into the pit at the same time when VER went into the pit.

So this all is only an issue because the entry of the pitlane at Paul Ricard is a fairly tight right corner.
Lots of other tracks have a straight pit entry. For example on silverstone this wouldn't be an issue.
I think the red bull ring also doesn't have this issue, so VER won't have this advantage next 2 races

[fiveohwblow]

Originally Posted by Bubbles

At times during the race it appeared Bottas had the better pace and the dirty air behind hammy wasn’t great for his tires. Up until the last few laps, bottas was fastest in sector 1 and 2 consistently.

I agree with you that the Merc strategy team needs to step up, they underestimated Max’s outlap potential especially sector 3 where he posted fastest overall for the race.

Maybe they got greedy and targeted a 1 & 2 finish and it didn’t pan out for them without a safety car. They Merc appeared to have better grip than the Redbull for most of the race, due to the low downforce setup RBR was running.

It was wild watching Max pulling his right front wheel off the ground every lap in this turn.

I saw this as well during the race, but actually from Alonso in the Alpine first. Wild.

[Bubbles]

Possibly, Joylon Palmer presented analysis that hammy lost out 5tenths to Max by not attacking the pit limit as hard. Braking on the pit-in, pit box and wheel spin on pit release. Hammy seems to coast in comparably to Max.

Historically, Max had to exploited every part of the track to close the power gap to Merc. This foundation seems to be paying dividends.

[Artemis]