I don't think it's personal with Hamilton and Vettel, I think Hamilton just hates how much more successful Vettel has been. If they end up in a championship battle this year I think Hamilton will be very aware that 5-2 in terms of championships is a deficit he's never likely to overturn. That will put so much more pressure on him. If he was going to be fighting with anyone this year, I think Vettel's the last guy he'd want it to be with. What's the gear ratios rule this year? If it looks like Mercedes have gone for a Red Bull style, ultimate lap time setup thinking they'll be out in front, they'll have locked their ratios to a low top speed. Presumably they've got a joker again this season, but if they use it now they may have to sacrifice the low speed tracks, or they could be vulnerable later if they go for a compromise. I'm guessing most teams would plan to take it between Hungary and Spa and go for slightly longer ratios at the end of the season.
I wonder if Merc removed their fuel flow accumulator system (to enable more than 100kg/hr without FIA fuel flow meter seeing it) in Sepang to make sure they are OK for China onwards. i.e. were Merc actually down on their usual power?
Come on Silver, a Ferrari powered team brought out the safety car which turned out to assist Ferrari. Normally you're on this sort of stuff
It was suprising they brought it out, why couldn't the 'virtual' safety car system have been used? Is that not what it is meant for?
I doubt it. If they wanted to do any checks it would've been in practice. What's the word on this fuel flow thing? I expect it to be having a negligible effect, but is there any consensus on who it's likely to affect the most?
I haven't been able to find out much about the fuel flow 'accumulator' at all. We have a water accumulator at home. Basically its a 400lt steel vessel that has a rubber balloon inside. The water sits in the balloon and the space between the balloon and the steel vessel is pressurised at about 50% of system pressure. There is also a 1 way valve at our stop tap. So when demand is low (incoming pressure high) the accumulator is filled with 'excess pressurised water'. Then when demand is high (lots of people having showers) the incoming flow can't keep up and pressure drops. That is when the air inside the accumulator pushes out the water to maintain pressure. So although our water supply can only maintain 3 showers simultaneously with the accumulator we have enough flow for 5 showers simultaneously. OK so F1 cars are not going to be carrying round a 400lt vessel. If they had a vessel with 50g of fuel in it could give effective 20% more fuel for 10 seconds. So in theory they could use the equivalent to 120kg/hr for 10 seconds and the accumulator charged back up probably after a few corners off throttle braking. Looking at the fuel flow vs throttle vs brake would show fuel flow as inconsistent to teams not running an accumulator but as the FIA made so much of a fuss re Red Bull in 2014 and the ONLY fuel flow measurement that they would accept was their Fuel Flow Meter. The FIA couldn't argue that an accumulator system was illegal. So they changed the rules. My guess would be that Red Bull were using it but only because they seem to have been so miffed at the FIA's stance on Fuel flow in 2104. It would have been the perfect device to 'get one over' the FIA knowing that the FIA couldn't disqualify them as the fuel flow meter would not show more than 100kg/hr and that was the ONLY valid fuel flow measurement Sorry for ramble but I would so love to find out all the ins and outs of the tricks the teams used. Even if it was the tricks on older cars.
Not much of a surprise there Yeah, it would've been a far more interesting battle for podium positions if that had happened, or if he'd got through to Q3, the safety car helped him catch up a little but what was happening with the cars at the back? They seemed to be a sector off the rest at the restart, is there a new speed limit which means they can't catch up? As to China, the conditions played a big part I think, they seemed to have the pace but when you look at Rosbergs fastest lap, over 1.5 seconds faster than Vettels, maybe they held something back to save the tyre life, Q was wet, the race was supposed to be a bit wet instead it was very hot.
Oh...I didnt say anything about Rosberg on the radio...even though he tried to get the team to break the rules by trying to find out the dry lines in Q3.
They still had to drive to a lap delta when under safer car conditions, regardless of whether they were right behind the safety car or not. How close they were to that time I don't know (I suspect from Mimi's radio slower), but I don't think you can just cruise up to the back of the pack at race speed.
Button was having a moan about this, he mentioned that cars were still driving to the delta once the safety car was signalled to come in - I'm assuming from that they don't have to because the track is clear to race on?
After it has been declared that the Safety Car will be coming "in this lap", drivers must maintain position but may close up to the back of the car immediately ahead. (This includes the leader, whose 'car ahead' is the Safety Car itself). There were drivers, perhaps because they are new to the game, who appeared unsure of the rules*; I believe some continued driving to the delta when this was no longer required. If several hold back even slightly, the cumulative effect can be significant – but instead, there were some rather big gaps! And of course, anyone caught behind is powerless to do anything, other than to hope to pass immediately across the start/finish line. *Notably, Roberto Mehri
You responded to this... ↑ As much as Rosberg as been mocked for his Radio communications, Lewis is often rattled when under pressure on track. IS that a fair statement? He was under pressure all last year especially after having to win four consecutive races to catch his team mate on a couple occasions, being behind his team mate in the same car right up to the last race of the season. He held his head right through until the end especially when he conned Rosberg into going hot into the first corner of the final race and flat spotting his tyres. Wouldn't it be more fair to say he gets angry when his team gets strategy totally wrong? And who wouldn't? He disobeyed orders last year and it turned out to be the right decision. Also last year when they left him out for an extra lap after telling him to put in a hot lap before his pitstop and cost him a race where he would have certainly come out in front of eventual winner Rosberg. Ok he lets them know in no uncertain terms when he thinks the team is wrong on strategy and you hear it in his voice especially when he ends his sentences with "man". Afterall he is a racer and he is in the race to win. He has a right to get angry when he thinks the team is making mistakes, just like the team has the right to get angry with him when he makes mistakes too. I believe all racers have a right to take their passion to the circuit or you end up being a loser. Another thing I think he enjoys racing Vettel, Alonso and Kimi and he said recently he likes racing against the best..thats the only way you can get good ratings really.
But you have to put it in context... In recent times Lewis has only been rattled when the team is using strategy that seems to be misplaced, if they are not giving him enough feedback or like in last race when his engineer was trying to talk to him while he was taking that corner and almost ran off.. when he said, Please don't talk to me in corners man, I almost ran off there. I don't think he would have responded like that if he was on the straights. Another instance was when he overheard Wolff saying that he had to pit again, when he asked the engineer why is he being giving mixed signals and why does he have to pit again, and the engineer replied that message was not to be broadcast and apologised. Wouldn't you be angry if you had got that message too? You simply shouldn't let messages like that get to your driver if he wast supposed to hear it. You will offset his thinking especially if what you are saying in the background is opposed to the strategy he is on. To be fair he held his head last year that's how he beat Rosberg to the championships. This year Rosberg has been heard making some really frantic radio calls like in Q3 and again in the race where the engineer had to tell him he cant give him that info because it is against the rules. Yes, Rosberg has a right to complain too, there is nothing wrong with that, but there is something wrong with asking them to break the rules.
That's a good response, dhel. (Apologies to Smithers; I am not taking sides. It's more a case of agreeing with the basics of dhel's stated point of view).
On reflection Cosi, I am surprised at your comments - considering you always make points that are neutral and mainly (if not always) based on fact - rather than a personal interpretation or will like certain posters. I simply made a coment that Lewis is often rattled on the radio when a race is not going his way, and so find his responses often petulant and disrespectful to his engineer. There have been cases in the past where his Merc engineer has shot him down very abruptly. I stress that this no different to a lot of other drivers, but appears certain fans seem to view it differently depending on the state of the wind and the colour of the suit. The point I was making in the post (quiet a few pages ago) which Dhel chose to pick up, then pertain to not be commenting on Rosberg or the radio trafic (which was what my post was about) was that it appears to be acceptable if you support a driver, but unacceptable if you don't/or they are a competitor to your said supported driver. By the response I received from Dhel to a post where I was just adding some balance to a lot of the negativity towards Rosberg, I would say it has proved my point. This was never about right or wrong (if there is such a thing in this instance) but about highlighting some of the one sided view points and unneeded negativity towards others. It was merely about balance.....something that is lost, nationally, in the press and on most forums in relation to Lewis.
Is Lewis, rattled or simply in the heat of the moment is questioning what the team is saying because he is unsure that it is the right call? I didn't think he came across as rattled in Malaysia, he was just asking direct questions. Rosberg also was not rattled, but the questions he was asking were a lot different and made him look like he required more instructions on what he should be doing, whereas Lewis was questioning what the team was telling him. What neither did is wrong, or bad etc, it just shows one up as being able to think on his feet whilst driving, and the other who seems to need constant tutoring during a race. From that, work out which one is the better driver......
Why Mercedes' advantage isn't as big as we thought Sky F1's Mark Hughes explains how Ferrari got the better of Mercedes in Malaysia, why the Silver Arrows were in fact flattered in Melbourne and what might happen in the next two races Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari victory in Malaysia was a timely re-invigorating boost for F1 which for over a year has delivered only crushing Mercedes superiority. Although Daniel Ricciardo’s Red Bull won three races last year, each of them came only after one Merc or another had suffered problems. In Sepang Mercedes were beaten in a straight fight – the first time this has happened since their new era of domination began in Australia 2014. But let’s not get too carried away just yet. There were extenuating circumstances. The Ferrari is vastly improved from last year and furthermore in Sepang was benefiting from an engine that was delivering even more performance than in Melbourne. But it is still not yet as outright fast as the Mercedes. All the evidence suggests that a dry qualifying would have seen the red cars at least a couple of tenths behind the silver ones, rather than Vettel splitting them. Through the practices the Merc was consistently 0.6s faster through the aerodynamically-demanding middle sector and the Ferrari would make up around 0.4s in the straight-dominated sectors one and three. please log in to view this image But where Ferrari had the beating of Mercedes in Malaysia was race-day tyre usage. In conditions of extreme heat on a circuit with fast and long sweeping corners, the Ferrari’s tyre advantage bought it more than it lost through lower peak performance by allowing it to do the faster two-stop strategy. Forget timing of safety cars; the Ferrari’s combination of pace and tyre usage would have beaten the Mercedes regardless because there was no way Mercedes could make the option tyre (the medium) last long enough to do the faster two-stop race. That put them around 10s behind Ferrari on strategy. Normally even that strategy disadvantage (an average of around 0.17s per lap) would have been overwhelmed by the Merc’s greater pace. But while its pace advantage early in the stints was around 0.2s, it couldn’t hang onto that for long enough before the rear tyres lost grip while those on the Ferrari hung on just fine for many more laps. On the day, in the specific conditions of that track in those temperatures, the Ferrari was simply a better all-round car than the Mercedes. Put another way, Ferrari was able to unleash all its car’s performance whereas the Mercedes pace was tyre-limited. It won’t always be that way. In Shanghai, for example, it won’t be as hot and the corners are not as demanding of even the soft/medium combination that will be used there. In such circumstances we might expect the Mercedes advantage to be resumed – but it is definitely a smaller advantage than it enjoyed last year, small enough that only the slightest slip from them should see the Ferraris right there. In Melbourne, the massive qualifying superiority of Lewis Hamilton made it appear as if Mercedes had stretched their advantage since last year. But it’s now looking as though that was simply down to the individual driver performances in what was an extremely tricky session. “That lap was more Lewis than car,” said Paddy Lowe of Hamilton’s advantage of 1.4s over the best non-Merc in Melbourne qualifying. “The wind was gusting and the track temperatures were dropping, making it very tricky. Whenever you have to improvise like that, Lewis delivers you lap time over the others.” In Melbourne second-fastest Rosberg had been around 1s faster than the Williams and Ferrari in qualifying but both Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen had made serious errors in the tricky conditions. Although Vettel finished 34s behind Hamilton in Australia, he’d spent much of the race restricted to the pace of Felipe Massa’s Williams. “The numbers suggest that cost us a total of around 15s in Australia,” said Ferrari’s technical director James Allison at the start of the Malaysia weekend. If a gap of 20s between Hamilton and Vettel in Australia would have been the more accurate gauge of actual pace, it suggests the Ferrari’s were in reality only around 0.3s per lap off in Melbourne. In Malaysia further engine progress together with conditions and track layout that leveraged its superior tyre usage saw that peak pace deficit down to 0.2s – enough that the strategy advantage and the ability to run close to its limit for longer gave Ferrari the beating of the Merc on Sunday. “I only know one half of the equation, ie our car,” said Allison when asked if the Malaysia performance would carry through. “The track is quite rough and quite hot. That’s hard for tyres and we are fortunate that the car goes well on its tyres. Quite what problems have been carried on the other side of the equation over in Merc-land I don’t know but I’m fairly sure we will have our work cut out in China to do anything like as impressive a job as we’ve done here.” In Bahrain, however… Reply
I don't need to work out which one is the better driver, and as have stated in a lot of the posts in this thread - it is Lewis. They way I view it is simple, Lewis new the following in the strategy meeting; They would pit under an early safety car The lengths of stints needed to make strategy A & B work His stint lengths were not on target laps due to degradation What tyres were new and used and in what stints they were to be used So why question the strategy in the public domain and why tell the team and the whole world that you are on the wrong tyre for the final stint? Frustrating as it may be, he knew the game plan well in advance and the likely variables and what the options were to likely be. The race can't always and won't always go according to the optimum and based on his advanced knowledge it would appear that "thinking on his feet" was not in the equation. In addition (and it maybe just unfortunate coverage) but Lewis moaning about when he receives information is similar to when had moans about not receiving information. It's a contradiction of when it suites and whilst there maybe mitigating circumstances they are a matter of perception (of which we obviously have a different one), but in-turn other drivers should be afforded the same discretion....rather than the ridicule of being unfit and undeserving of seat next to the Messiah? It's the extremes that irritate, Rosberg overtaking the same trafic as Lewis and there are quotes on this forum about drivers falling off the track and it in fact not being an overtake... I just find it disheartening on such a knowledgable forum that our balance seems to be slipping more and more with each race.
