2021 Turkish Grand Prix - Istanbul Park, Oct 08 - 10

[Shrieker]

I can't be the only one but today's race was quite disappointing....

On a dry track would it have been a better race?

Yeah probably you're right. But the suspense is always higher in the rain, due to unpredictability. So I wouldn't call it disappointing really. Like you, I believe it would've been a better race in the dry tho.

[F1NAC]

I can't be the only one but today's race was quite disappointing....

On a dry track would it have been a better race?

Believe it or not you are not the only one. I really wanted a dry race to see how is Ferrari stacked relative to Top 2 teams. But judging by Leclerc's performance in wet with lower DF setup, it looks encouraging.

[214270]

It's not all bad, but it's really not all good either.

Hindsight is always easy but taking that engine penalty for Lewis now has proved half-useless, if they would have not taken that penalty Hamilton would have easily won this GP, with Bottas easy 2nd, and Lewis would have had a guaranteed 12 point lead on Max, with Bottas making the fastest lap, surely Hamilton also would have and thus would have been a 13-point lead.

Though it made sense to a certain degree to take that engine penalty, it does come at the cost of having to pass RB teams at a race where they'll all try to finish in front due to both the Honda 'tribute' and to help Max get a title being a RBR driver in front.

Tsunoda held up pretty decent, and afterwards Lewis flew straight through the field, passed Gasly well, and then was controlling the pace. The fight with Perez was great.

Then it looked obvious at certain point that they could stay out - like Leclerc initially - and that would have been obviously better - as Hamilton himself noted too.
Why the team did not sufficiently concider that is beyond me. They either needed to bring him in before far more demanding, but then when waiting too long to concider staying out - it looks like they never thought off that, and the window was resulting in that pitting Lewis later on would result in him being behind even Gasly.

But the problem that persists is that Mercedes never concidered the scenario of keeping Lewis out. They mentioned he would lose a position anyway - which is obvious as Perez was too close to cover in a pitstop or overtake afterwards.

But that wasn't the point, the point is why pit him anyway? Pace was still good enough and he most certainly would have finished P3.
Pitting, especially with such few laps left was just bonkers.

Keeping him out would have made sense and worthwile taking the grid penalty. It would have been perfect damage control as it would only be 1 point that Max would lead the WDC.
Now they've thrown 5 points away for no reason.

If conditions would have been dryer I think Hamilton would have passed cars at the start and first laps quite easily and then tactics would have gotten him past Max and then Bottas would have gotten the call to move aside.

I think Lewis is going to have to make a firm hard statement as his team is letting him down the moment he needs them the most ever.

Not taking the engine would have had Hamilton win and be 13 points ahead.
Not taking the pitstop would have had Hamilton P3 and be 1 points behind.

Taking the penalty AND unneccesarily taking him in for a pitstop just mere laps before the finish despite his tires still being in no reason to replace, left him finish p5 and now with 6 points behind Max, which means he MUST finish P1 in the next GP to grab back the lead as there's no normal way Verstappen won't make the podium in COTA.

this is really really dumb of Mercedes.

I don’t know. Looking at his rears I have a hard time seeing them take another 10 laps. In some places you could see the bonding layer coming trough. Yes Ocon made it, but he spend most of the time nursing his tires and not trashing them out in front. I think the team might have saved hamilton another China.

The bigger mistake was perhaps not taking him in earlier, so he could work through the graining to make real use of the tires.

Rears? Front-R was the only tyre in real danger. OCO made it the entire race distance and I believe that included a front lockup along the way. HAMs rears weren’t the issue; yes a groove had developed on the Front-R and obviously all 4 were well worn, but for 8 laps the pace might not’ve been great but it was manageable. There’s a bit too much arse-covering going on - Pirelli & Merc which makes me doubt the ‘apparent danger’ narrative being told.

[Mchamilton]

Ah, I see we are back to the same old people trotting out the tired ‘dominant car’ cliche whenever the Mercedes is faster during a race weekend.

By that definition both cars have been ‘dominant’ at various points in the season, it’s just that conveniently it’s never applied the other way round by those so eager to try and push this narrative in a single direction.

I don’t think either car has been dominant all season. I think RBR were quicker- markedly in some races- until Silverstone (and actually had the closest thing to a ‘dominant’ car in Austria.) Since Silverstone Mercedes has been quicker but somewhat hampered/nullified by the weather and some poor strategy calls so not able to take advantage of it.

I used dominant to describe Mercedes today because Zippy said this win reminded them of Mercedes dominance and saying that, how were they not dominant in this win? Bottas 12 seconds up the road from Max and Hamilton passing cars like he had DRS on. Max was at the bottom of the speed trap today. Leclerc at the top followed by Lewis. I can understand this was a bad setup, the surface affecting the RB car, but this is the 6/7th race where Mercedes have been better and only rain and bad strategy or mistakes have cost them valuable points

It is a fact Mercedes is the faster car this season. Has always been. Last 3 races they have been so dominant and won 2 of 3 and it really should have been 3/3. COTA is also tipped to be a circuit they are expected to dominate once again.

Has always been? Are you real?

[Big Tea]

I can't be the only one but today's race was quite disappointing....

On a dry track would it have been a better race?

Yeah probably you're right. But the suspense is always higher in the rain, due to unpredictability. So I wouldn't call it disappointing really. Like you, I believe it would've been a better race in the dry tho.

Yeh, the novelty of a wet race soon wares off. It is nice to have the occasional one, but I really hope that is it for the year now. Lets get back to racing instead of dice.

[El Scorchio]

I can't be the only one but today's race was quite disappointing....

On a dry track would it have been a better race?

Believe it or not you are not the only one. I really wanted a dry race to see how is Ferrari stacked relative to Top 2 teams. But judging by Leclerc's performance in wet with lower DF setup, it looks encouraging.

I thought both Ferrari drivers drove fantastic races. Leclerc obviously, albeit let down by strategy, but Sainz cutting through the field was most impressive. I know it's 'lesser' cars, but how many times do we see the 'better' cars getting stuck around 12-15th?

[basti313]

I used dominant to describe Mercedes today because Zippy said this win reminded them of Mercedes dominance and saying that, how were they not dominant in this win? Bottas 12 seconds up the road from Max and Hamilton passing cars like he had DRS on. Max was at the bottom of the speed trap today. Leclerc at the top followed by Lewis. I can understand this was a bad setup, the surface affecting the RB car, but this is the 6/7th race where Mercedes have been better and only rain and bad strategy or mistakes have cost them valuable points

It is a fact Mercedes is the faster car this season. Has always been. Last 3 races they have been so dominant and won 2 of 3 and it really should have been 3/3. COTA is also tipped to be a circuit they are expected to dominate once again.

Has always been? Are you real?

Why not?
No one would doubt that 2020 the Merc was the dominant car. Still RedBull had its glimpses at certain tracks. You can even go back to 2019 and will see it similarly, RedBull was the better car in Austria and won Germany.

The difference this year is, that Merc bottles too much on strategy and Bottas was not present at all at the start of the season. The RedBull was strong in Austria like always (home track, more emphasis), was strong at non permanent tracks (also not surprising) and prepared very well for Netherlands (similar afford like Austria I guess). This is nothing special.
Now take away the obvious errors and uncontrollable things like rain, killing the front wing in Tuscany, bottled starts and now penalties....Lewis would have just cruised to the win in any other race then the ones above if he would have been leading after turn 1.

The Merc is clearly the fastest car in the race, the big difference to other seasons is what happens before and in turn 1.

[Artur Craft]

2009/2010 cars are not going faster than 2021, you are 10 kmh off on the scale on that silly speedo that they used back then. As you can see in final clip from 2011 (pole lap), Vettel enters T8 with DRS and KERS help at 275 kmh, then bleeds off 10 kmh mid corner, hovers at 265 and then starts to regain speed again.
Compare to that to Leclerc's Q3 lap this year. Entry speed 278 kmh, minimum speed 271. Obviously he could go faster if he had more power, but I suspect they dont use battery trough T8 to preserve it for back straight.

Early RB6 before F-duct was aerodynamic brick and I doubt they had more than 270 kmh entry speed, and probably no more than 265 mid corner. Same with sauber probably.

I reckon the speedometers are displaying correct speeds, just not digital numbers as nowadays. But, if the 275km/h is flashing on, then I do believe the car achieved 275km/h. No reason for the speedometer, in 2009/10 to be inacurate.

In 2011, Vettel is probably reaching with lower speed because he must have exited T7 with much lower speed than the 2009/10 cars. IIRC, they no longer had KERS in 2011 and that was a huge acceleration boost for Massa, on 2009, to speed up faster out of the lower speed corners. And the RB6 had so much downforce(DDD and EBD), for it´s weight, that it could exit T7 with much higher speeds than the RB7, which was also very draggy(not only the RB6).

I read Newey saying the RB6 was the fastest car F1 ever had because, according to him, they could reach sustained 5.5G(not instant peaks when a drivers rides a little bump along the cornering) through T8. I saw many onboard this past weekend with cars going flatout on T8 but reaching only a peak of 5G(even that was rather rare) and sustained Gs only around 4.something

So, in the end, I´ll believe the speedometers and Newey.

PS: Your arguments are reasonable and might portray the true picture but I have to give some credit to these other factors because I remember how the early Mercedeses, Ferraris and Red Bulls, of this current generation, struggled against the RB6 on Campsa and Copse, before the new much "grippier tarmacs" and I don´t buy the possible claims that the 2020/21 cars got so much more downforce than on 2017/2018, given the same regulations, or even worse, for this year(Hamilton was already going almost flat on Pouhoun on 2017.... but aero setups make a huge difference, particularly on Monza and Spa)

[ispano6]

So what was it that Bottas had changed in his brakes before the race that Mercedes frantically worked on? If they hadn't, would he still have won the race?

[Artur Craft]

You can't read any specific speed numbers via that ancient 2009 speed bar.

There's absolutely no way cars in that 2009 clips did better than 2011.

Those bars gave pretty accurate speed reading back then and I say this because I analysed a few "darker" onboards, in which the speeds could be seen on the steering wheel, and the speeds displayed on the steering wheels were in total accordance with the flashing of those bars, ie, when the 220km/h was reached on the steering wheel, a couple of frames later(like 2 or 3), the 220km/h bar, on FOM´s graphics speedometer, would flash on.

Believe me, I did this with several onboards(mostly with Vettel´s because he had speeds on his steering wheel while Webber did not, but also with DiGrassi and others....IIRC, On Singapore and Abu Dhabi it was pretty good to do so because of the night time but there were "dark", cloudy sessions on Hockenheim and other places where it was possible to read the speeds too ), especially from 2010.

About the 2009/2011 comparison, I don´t know if you followed F1 back then but, on 2009, they had the DDD(which got banned after 2010) and, especially, the Bridgestone tyres which had far more grip than the Pirellis. Also, the 2009 cars were a some 30kg, or more, lighter.

That said, the current generation cars do have more high speed cornering capabilities than any other car, even the RB6, on some tracks(I assume the Pirelli compounds work better on some specific tarmacs, giving relatively more grip than on other places). For instance, the cornering speeds of the current cars on the fastest corners of Hockenheim are significantly higher than even those of the RB6. But,that´s not always the case. On some places it´s not quite like that. Despite Barcelona and Silverstone, prior to their repavements, I think, if my memory is right, that, on 2019, they could not reach the 260km/h minimum speed that Massa said they were reaching, on Degner, on 2006. And that seems believable to me because Vettel´s record is not even 2s faster than Schumacher previous record, from 2006, on Suzuka, and right now they have lot´s of advantages like much higher Power/Weight ratios, absurdly more torque, DRS to drain their huge drags down the main straights, wider slick tyres, far more downforce......

That off topic aside, from the highlights clip that I saw, Perez seems to have made a great race given how poor RB was this weekend(the way Bottas dominated Max seems very alarming to the RB fans).

I´m afraid Max/RB will need some high doses of luck to win this championship, unless RB suits the other tracks far better which I´m not so confident in that being the case, sorry.

[RZS10]

So what was it that Bottas had changed in his brakes before the race that Mercedes frantically worked on? If they hadn't, would he still have won the race?

No change of parts, apparently ... at least according to the official doc
Maybe closed/opened up the cooling a bit?

[Artur Craft]

My modest impression from the weekend:
_Very strong weekend from Hamilton, Bottas and Mercedes
_very cautious and modest weekend from Verstappen and Perez did a very good job given the relative lack of pace from the RB car
_Ferrari, randomly, seem to have suited the circuit far more the other ones( on average terms) and their drivers are fantastic
_Mclaren did not suit the track
_Alonso had a very strong qualifying but then I think he lost his head(and damaged his car after the contact with Gasly). Also, his crash into Mazepin seemed like a revenge

Finally, I guess F1 organizers will not want the Turkish GP back at this date because it seems very rainy on Istanbul, this time of the year.

[dans79]

So what was it that Bottas had changed in his brakes before the race that Mercedes frantically worked on? If they hadn't, would he still have won the race?

No change of parts, apparently ... at least not to the official doc
Maybe closed/opened up the cooling a bit?

Yep, that's is the mostly likely the case.

https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files ... -07-12.pdf

34.2 m

If the Technical Delegate is satisfied that changes in climatic conditions necessitate
alterations to the specification of a car, changes may be made to the air ducts around the
front and rear brakes and radiator ducts. These changes may be made at any time after
all Competitors have been sent the message “CHANGE IN CLIMATIC CONDITIONS” via the
official messaging system. From this point onwards the choice of air ducts around the
front and rear brakes and radiator ducts is free and pitot tubes may be covered or
uncovered, subject always to compliance with the relevant Technical Regulations.

[PlatinumZealot]

I felt the race could have been better if they had street sweeper trucks cleaning the track. It wasn't really raining and the water was just standing there.

[Edax]

I don’t know. Looking at his rears I have a hard time seeing them take another 10 laps. In some places you could see the bonding layer coming trough. Yes Ocon made it, but he spend most of the time nursing his tires and not trashing them out in front. I think the team might have saved hamilton another China.

The bigger mistake was perhaps not taking him in earlier, so he could work through the graining to make real use of the tires.

Rears? Front-R was the only tyre in real danger. OCO made it the entire race distance and I believe that included a front lockup along the way. HAMs rears weren’t the issue; yes a groove had developed on the Front-R and obviously all 4 were well worn, but for 8 laps the pace might not’ve been great but it was manageable. There’s a bit too much arse-covering going on - Pirelli & Merc which makes me doubt the ‘apparent danger’ narrative being told.

I only got a good view on the rears during Hamilton’s pitstop, but these where bad enough. Would love to see the fronts though.

Anyway looking by these pictures from Ocon it doesn’t seem to me that Pirelli was overreacting. Even if you discount the lockup there is nothing left.

Www.f1i.com/news/421067-ocon-well-hang- ... y.html/amp