Grand Prix thread LENOVO BRITISH GRAND PRIX 2022

Hhmmmmm. 1992 .

Still racking my brains out , to try and figure out why that race was so enjoyable for you …………

 

I see the speculation that Hamilton would have won has started.

A) the duel with le clerc and perez showed thst straight line speed was not there. The hards were 13, 8 and 0 laps old or something close? There's no way imo the differential in tyres would enable this pass on both ferraris.

B) if Hamilton had kept going til 10 laps to go. Would he have been 18 seconds clear and putting under safety car?? Maybe. Maybe not. He was coming up to lap cars and could have lost a lot of time.

Overall ocon parked the car in the worst place imaginable and we will never know now. I thought the main gainer was perez and main loser was le clerc not really Hamilton as it was 2nd v 3rd debate for me.

Great race I think we can see that with a smooth track the merc can race but it's not got the ultimate speed at this point. The others look better at the top end and in the traction zones so merc still have huge work to do to catch up.

 

Thank goodness for that wire catch fence too.It certainly did it`s job today after the car simply cleared the tyres and went straight on towards those in the crowd.

 

I think Ham was on for a second place finish without the safety car. Sainz, ironically, just didn't look like he had enough pace yesterday and I think Ham would have got him with the tyre offset.

CLC had started setting purple sectors once he was past Sainz and I think he would have walked it without the SC, maintaining a gap to Lewis with relative ease.

The only way Ham had a chance was staying out the extra 6 laps and going in for softs when the safety car came out. But hindsight is 2020 and even then he'd have still had some very fast cars behind him. Not sure he'd have been able to hold off either CLC or Perez on fresh softs.

 

sainz had 18 laps on hards, leclerc 8, hamilton 4.

It would have been tough 100% for Hamilton to get anywhere near le clerc who could build gap while the other two fought.

The timings of things just scuppers Hamilton's charge.

1.Hamitlon had traffic to lap coming up
2. Hamilton had a rank pit stop
3.Hamilton had the warm up phase to go through.

It would have required hamilton to come out in p2 to make a race of it and then to survive any attempts by sainz to pass while he got the tyres conditioned before trying to get after le clerc. If anything getting a drs tow might have helped.

Once the safety car as called even then leclerc did better than expected v hamilton on softs. Hamitlon looked quicker on mediums than sainz 100% but i have a feeling he needed to get out of pits ahead to get 2nd.

The issue is that merc just didn't look as quick where passing mattered but must have been quicker round the bends than ferrari.

 

and the wheel tethers.

I think the rears actually stayed on but the fronts ere hanging on and could have gone straight up and into crowd but for that.

The actual impact wasn't half as hard as grosjean's last season but it was more dangerous to spectators.

Wheel tethers
Halo
Hans device.

all played a part.

The issue now is what to do where this occurred for silverstone as they have had two extremely dangerous incidents related to track conditions in some way.

Kerbs launching cars into the track (no clear run round and rejoin path)
Gravel flipping spinning car.. what do they do about this? would the abrasive asphalt do the job here or not?

We have to recall that schumacher in 1999 when straight on at copse and the gravel didn't stop him and he broke his leg.

This was at abbey as the cars carried on and the gravel really just didn't do much bar cause the car to dig in and bounce along. Its skidding with sparks flying along the track but it doesn't slow massively as its bouncing and it actually digs in and flips prior to the tyres, it just touches the top of the tyres and then hits the fence.

If there was grippy tarmac of whatever it might have kept on going as it was sliding and spinning and hit the tyres in a bigger impact to drive rbut less to the spectatators?

https://news.sky.com/video/f1-crash-at-silverstone-on-first-lap-of-british-grand-prix-12645031

33 seconds in shows what i mean by bouncing and flipping through gravel its digging into.


Also just spare a thought for the medical car watching this stuff unfolding in front and a cloud of tyre smoke and carbon fiber erupting. They had a ring side seat to the carnage and quick calls to make.

 

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.

 

Max’s car was shagged and Ferrari ruined Charles’s race as well as having a damaged car. I’ve seen enough of F1 over the last 40+ years to know Sainz is very good, but that’s all. When all 3 have been racing without issues, Sainz is the one that couldn’t keep up.

 

being pedantic that's not what you said first time.

I'm forever being called on making sweeping statements so i know the pedants when i see them

 

I’ll just go back and edit my original message

 

I don`t want to start getting too morbid over this crash,but do you think that the fuel cell could be added to the list of safety systems working their best on Sunday? Start of the race,so full tank, sparks, inverted car, impact against fence & trapped driver.Don`t know if I should have written this as it scares me to even think about it.

 

well in that particular accident it must have helped as he was upside down and completely trapped. there was a lot of sparks going on 100%. in this case it seems the impact didn't break the fuel lines or tank unlike gorsjeans so there has to be something to that fuel cell

 

While Zhou was sliding upside down into the fence did anyone get a good look at their floor to see how it worked?

 

It looked to me like the plank covers the tunnel!!! So it was all hidden!

 

That didn't age well lol

 

You can argue that Charlie and Max both had damaged cars, but they damaged them on their own... So...

 

Charles was he's own fault, Max was unlucky to run over debrie from another car

 

Thought it was too much curb, but if not then I stand corrected.

 

It was reported that it was the front wing end face from Gasly's car that got stuck under Max's car. Sounds like it blocked part of the airflow on the right hand side of the floor, could have been partial obstruction of the tunnel but I think that would have effected the whole downforce.

 

It's amazing how fragile the ground effects are on there things. Really easy to compromise your car.

I'm hoping the Merc improvements aren't just track related, because there is still the opportunity to make this season really spicy. It could be closer if not for Ferrari, being... just Ferrari..