Motorsports Thread

[classic33]

It cost him three places if I recall correctly and got him stuck for the rest of the race.

Not all the fault of one other driver then.
If he'd been quicker into the pits, if half the field didn't come in on the same lap, if the pit stop had been quicker...

 

[icowden]

Not all the fault of one other driver then.
If he'd been quicker into the pits, if half the field didn't come in on the same lap, if the pit stop had been quicker...

No, it was directly the fault of Ocon.

Ocon was released into Hamilton and ended up in front of him allowing Gasly to undercut.
Hamilton should have been out a couple of seconds earlier behind Stroll - the position he was in when he went into the pits.

Fair play to Albon - he came in a lap before and made the best of his warmed up tyres to zoom past both Hamilton and Gasly, but there is no doubt that Ocon's unsafe release cost Hamilton more then Ocon.

 

[classic33]

No, it was directly the fault of Ocon.

Ocon was released into Hamilton and ended up in front of him allowing Gasly to undercut.
Hamilton should have been out a couple of seconds earlier behind Stroll - the position he was in when he went into the pits.

Fair play to Albon - he came in a lap before and made the best of his warmed up tyres to zoom past both Hamilton and Gasly, but there is no doubt that Ocon's unsafe release cost Hamilton more then Ocon.

Hamilton's stationary time was longer.

 

[Rusty Nails]

It's hearbreaking and very unusual that an F1 driver in a slower car does not finish in the points.

One could be forgiven for thinking drivers of faster cars have an unfair advantage

 

[icowden]

Hamilton's stationary time was longer.

And? If Ocon had not been released unsafely, Hamilton would have been in front of Ocon not behind him. Gasly would have got the undercut on Ocon and Albon would have taken Ocon and Gasly leaving Hamilton chasing Stroll as he had been, and probably able to get past as Stroll was not in a DRS train.

 

[icowden]

It's hearbreaking and very unusual that an F1 driver in a slower car does not finish in the points.
One could be forgiven for thinking drivers of faster cars have an unfair advantage

They do. The Mercedes for all its faults is still somewhere around the third / fourth fastest car though.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

And? If Ocon had not been released unsafely, Hamilton would have been in front of Ocon not behind him. Gasly would have got the undercut on Ocon and Albon would have taken Ocon and Gasly leaving Hamilton chasing Stroll as he had been, and probably able to get past as Stroll was not in a DRS train.

Summed it up nicely.

 

[classic33]

And? If Ocon had not been released unsafely, Hamilton would have been in front of Ocon not behind him. Gasly would have got the undercut on Ocon and Albon would have taken Ocon and Gasly leaving Hamilton chasing Stroll as he had been, and probably able to get past as Stroll was not in a DRS train.

And if he'd pitted the lap before, the entry time to his pit box was quicker, the pit stop had been under 4 seconds, there'd have been no penalty. issued. DRS was enabled on lap 38, 22 laps after the pit stop.

And once again the race director has come under attack, for not knowing what he was doing.

 

[icowden]

And if he'd pitted the lap before, the entry time to his pit box was quicker, the pit stop had been under 4 seconds, there'd have been no penalty. issued. DRS was enabled on lap 38, 22 laps after the pit stop.

But those are what ifs. Factually, Ocon's unsafe release ruined Hamilton's race. Almost everyone pitted in lap 19, and yes Merc were a bit slow with the stop. That doesn't excuse the unsafe release (which was penalised) or change the effect that it had on the midfield race.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

And once again the race director has come under attack, for not knowing what he was doing.

I feel he left it 5-6 laps later than it could have been, BUT if he had of switched it on 5-6 laps earlier, somebody had sent one up hte inside on the damp track & taken 2 cars out he/she/they would have been dammed for that as well.

 

[FishFright]

But what can they do? Impose a minimum ride height, but probably each car will be different, they will also have to admit their rule changes haven't worked, will they want to change them so quickly?

Ted Kravitz pointed out the difference between the Ferrari & the Mercedes floor section, is the amount that is causing the problem as it's too effective, is it the flex, or is the problem actually understanding the problem. Presumably they could control it with some technical wizardry opening & closing vents but that would probably not be allowed, maybe they just need to bleed off some of it's effectiveness.

The FIA could , in theory , call it a safety issue find a way of defining 'excess' porpoising via vertical G forces .

 

[Illaveago]

I think Mercedes aren't very good when it comes to strategy . They have let down Lewis several times in the past . I think Hungary is a good example where Lewis was the only car on the grid when every other team went into the pits for tyre changes .
Mercedes have the reliability. The fact that they are unable to get their drivers further up the grid in qualifying is putting them in a precarious situation having to battle past other cars especially when it comes to corners at the end of a straight where they bunch up .
I find it odd that they have designed a car which is behaving so badly in comparison to other cars which are using their engines .

 

[Beebo]

I find it odd that they have designed a car which is behaving so badly in comparison to other cars which are using their engines .

All the experts seem to think that the car they designed looked great in the computer simulations and wind tunnel, but is behaving badly in the real world situation.
It is almost certainly something to do with the flared skirt instead of side pods.

They clearly found what they thought was a wizard wheeze in the rule book, but have miscalculated.

 

[Reynard]

As someone who helped develop full-chassis modelling for racing cars in the mid / late 90s and someone who has done a lot of lab-based testing as well, I'm more aware than most of the gulf that can exist between theory and practice.

Computer modelling (both for structural applications and aero) is brilliant, but it does have its limitations, usually based around the number of iterations the software is capable of, as well as the compromises that have to be made in inputting and choosing the variables. Plus the fact that a computer simulation is very much idealised, which is not the case in the real world.

It's a useful tool, but it's NOT a silver bullet. Unfortunately, with the cap on in-season testing, it has rather become that in recent years. With the inevitable consequences. And that's very much highlighted this season, with such a massive change in the rules.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

Is the issue that in fact it works too well & it's the knife edge that is causing the issue. If they can learn to bleed some of it off then they maybe onto a winner