2021 São Paulo Grand Prix - Interlagos, Nov 12-14

[Wouter]

A previous post said that Lewis' engine must be 65kW more powerful than Bottas' one.

That is not correct. Perez his engine is 65KW more powerful than Max his. That is normal for more races used.

[Juzh]

So does that Merc mill last for another 3 races? If it does, this title shifts to Ham.

Yep, Lewis has 2 as good as fresh engines for the coming 3 races.
engine output to full beans will have an exponential effect on everything.
more power to use in the corners, more power to use in the top speed.
with the suspension squatting that'll bring another benefit, AND let's not forget that
it will also cause less time lost during harvesting for the battery.

they should put up a big FU and reduce their DRS opening by 0.2 mm from the max allowed space,
and still beat the living daylights out of the opponent.

Anyway, as for the race

NOT what i expected but very very happy with the end result.
Amazing how much effort the FIA is doing to prevent that 8th title from Lewis and just give it to Max.

RB's gaining under the VSC, no action.
Max pushing off Lewis and a clear breach and it's not even 'investigated' - as it would demand a penalty.
Then weaving like a madman and then handing an useless black-white flag after Lewis passed.
DSQ from Q instead of a grid penalty and/or the chance to fix the wing like the chance RBR did get.

Amazing absolutely amazing driving of Lewis, this is why he's the GOAT.
That was utterly amazing. To be able to get from p20 to p5 in the short sprint race was nothing short of amazing,
then to start from p10 and WIN, despite all that was thrown, is absolutely legendary.

Lewis is smelling blood and he's going full on now. This is fantastic.

RB's gaining under VSC? Verstappen held back in the beginning of the sector and used all of his delta to gain at the end. Hamilton didn't do that, that's why Verstappen jumped him at the start after the VSC ended.

This is correct. Hamilton didn't judge allowed delta time as good as verstappen and as such got jumped both times. He basically left some tenths on the table by being cautious. The system is black and white and doesn't allow any interpretation, either you're inside delta or you're not. Any if you're too fast even by a 0.001s then it's a 100% penalty, same as with 0.2mm wing DSQ for hamilton. What the penalty would be in this case i don't know.

[Stu]

Go on then, which of the usual culprits is going to suggest Lewis should have the win taken away from him due to undoing his seatbelts on the inlap after the race?!

Haha everyone knows better on that one.

Maybe a fine, at most.

You just KNOW it was RBR who referred that to the stewards out of pure bitterness. Well played to them I guess?

Realistically, the punishment needs to exactly the same as that received by Leclerc when he got pulled for doing the very same thing, surely?

[search]

Question. Dunno if it was posted here, but why didn't they do standing start after SC?

standing restarts are only an option when a race was red flagged, or when conditions meant a GP began with safety car laps.

[ringo]

Are there any fans who have access to Max's onboard?

[Stu]

That was probably one of the all-time great races, right up there with Japan 1994. A dominant performance by LH in a car that was unquestionably superior to any other on the circuit (Friday, Saturday & Sunday). A big set-up change for more front-end seems to have cured the Mercedes is crap in traffic handicap!!

[mstar]

Bottas tested his engines and maps before to give Mercedes information about how hard can they push. Were there anomalies between him and another cars?

I believe this was the case with william drivers. They was given new PUs unexpectedly and no official reason other than "reliability concerns" and then Bottas afterwards. I think they been secretly testing the "fixes" to solve as much as they can the degradation/reliability issue. So they ran their engines hard as they can to see if the fixes worked to minimise the issues. Once they was happy they quickly gave it to Lewis in turkey. It must be noted RBR and HONDA already know this they have their own tools and they know Merc engines degrade faster than any other engine on the grid.

[AeroDynamic]

That was probably one of the all-time great races, right up there with Japan 1994. A dominant performance by LH in a car that was unquestionably superior to any other on the circuit (Friday, Saturday & Sunday). A big set-up change for more front-end seems to have cured the Mercedes is crap in traffic handicap!!

Bottas was way off though, he looked better than he did thanks to that safety car. I don’t really believe drivers out perform the car, but I do believe they work the car and themselves as one to the best level. And we definitely saw that this weekend. It’s a drivers job to make the car sing and it was singing louder than anyone else’s car this weekend.

What a sensational recovery drive though. I literally had the music in my head when Senna won his GP’s “Ayrton, Ayrton! Ayrton Senna Du Brazil!!”

[PlatinumZealot]

A previous post said that Lewis' engine must be 65kW more powerful than Bottas' one.

That is not correct. Perez his engine is 65KW more powerful than Max his. That is normal for more races used.

Wouter, It appears that you are not appreciating the scales of horsepower we are working with here. I get a sense that juggling engineering numbers is not something you do daily. No biggie. I will explain:

So 65kW is 90hp.

MGUK at full output is 160hp. Let us assume a linear and proportional loss of MGUK power over the entire application range.

When the MGUK stops working totally you lose at least 4 seconds a lap in race pace. (See Abu dhabi 2014 Nico Vs Lewis) Or Daniel in Monaco.

So about 4% of lap time (1:47 at the time) on a 55% throttle track. (abu dhabi)

Interlagos is 65% throttle. Laptime (1:13).
So without MGUK you would lose about 3.5 seconds a lap at Interlagos.

With 90 horsepower available out of the 160hp. You you lose about 2 seconds a lap If you had 90 horsepower less in Interlagos.

See how crazy that 65kW is now?

No one at the race had 65kW more than their teammate.

The Mercedes did not have 65kW over Honda Either.

Bottas and Max ran much higher downforce than their teammates the data is telling me. Lewis may have had lower downforce and maybe 10kW to 15kW at most.

[Big Tea]

Some seem to be missing that what made Lewis 'faster' to overtake is that he took a different line through the previous corner in order to get on the power more efficiently and sooner on that exit.
It does not make the car more powerful, just that you start the attack sooner. It is not something for nothing because it would have lost time on the corner and approaches so could not be used in qualli for instance.

It is not being 'magicked into exitance', just redistributed to have the benefit of a run at the car in front.

[jumpingfish]

Bottas tested his engines and maps before to give Mercedes information about how hard can they push. Were there anomalies between him and another cars?

I believe this was the case with william drivers. They was given new PUs unexpectedly and no official reason other than "reliability concerns" and then Bottas afterwards. I think they been secretly testing the "fixes" to solve as much as they can the degradation/reliability issue. So they ran their engines hard as they can to see if the fixes worked to minimise the issues. Once they was happy they quickly gave it to Lewis in turkey. It must be noted RBR and HONDA already know this they have their own tools and they know Merc engines degrade faster than any other engine on the grid.

I didn't follow the Williams too much Was their good form in several grand prix After engine change or Before? For example, in Spa, although there Russell had settings for rain, but still. In Brazil Williams was way worse.. Engine down already?

[JamesS]

That was probably one of the all-time great races, right up there with Japan 1994. A dominant performance by LH in a car that was unquestionably superior to any other on the circuit (Friday, Saturday & Sunday). A big set-up change for more front-end seems to have cured the Mercedes is crap in traffic handicap!!

This is my thought, car was a lot more stable following, we didn't hear any messages about tyres overheating either while following.

He was able to easily follow through the twisty bits, for an easy overtake with DRS on the straight.

[Just_a_fan]

He was able to easily follow through the twisty bits, for an easy overtake with DRS on the straight.

The "easy" overtake was set up half a lap before (at least) and required getting close enough to Max half a lap before so that in to T1 it made him go defensive. That put Max slightly off line through T2 and T3 allowing Lewis to take the faster entry through T1 and thus get a better run through T2-T3.

It was proper race craft, not a simple DRS pass like is do often the case.

[holeindalip]

He was able to easily follow through the twisty bits, for an easy overtake with DRS on the straight.

The "easy" overtake was set up half a lap before (at least) and required getting close enough to Max half a lap before so that in to T1 it made him go defensive. That put Max slightly off line through T2 and T3 allowing Lewis to take the faster entry through T1 and thus get a better run through T2-T3.

It was proper race craft, not a simple DRS pass like is do often the case.

This x1000. They were all setup with Hamilton’s different line through turn 12

[cliffgamerz]

Are there any fans who have access to Max's onboard?

FIA is still downloading with MSDOS PC and 56k modem connection, it will be a while when the footage arrives probably end of season or next year.