2022 Miami Grand Prix - Miami Gardens, May 06 - 08

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It's a nice joke to hype Russell so much... He's doing a super job but he had good fortune. Lewis did the best race he could, and would've probably finished 5th without the SC...

he never came any close to Bottas before the SC, even with him in dirty air, so I'd actually don't say the safety car made any difference for Hamilton. He would most likely have finished 6th anyway, Bottas and Russell just swapped 5th and 7th

[chrisc90]

They are, but as I said: Max and Charles are in a league of their own

Definitely. 2 very very skilled racers. I dont think Perez is 'far' behind them, he just drives the car a little different being a little conservative on the tyres being a bit more 'gentle' overall.

Max is clearly the best driver on the grid this year, leclerc a close second.

What about Sainz ?

Sainz and Perez 3rd? I think this years car has come to Sergio a lot more, meaning he is a lot more in the action and front running. I didnt really follow Ferrari last year but Sainz is doing a good job so far

But you just have to look at Max and Charles to see they can very quickly put 7-10seconds between P3.

[GrizzleBoy]

It's a nice joke to hype Russell so much... He's doing a super job but he had good fortune. Lewis did the best race he could, and would've probably finished 5th without the SC...

he never came any close to Bottas before the SC, even with him in dirty air, so I'd actually don't say the safety car made any difference for Hamilton. He would most likely have finished 6th anyway, Bottas and Russell just swapped 5th and 7th

After the first stops Lewis had taken Bottas' lead down slowly from around four seconds to just over one and had things panned out normally, would soon have been in DRS range.

The only thing that put a stop to his race with Bottas was the safety car and then Bottas sliding off track after the safety car.

[Spoutnik]

It's a nice joke to hype Russell so much... He's doing a super job but he had good fortune. Lewis did the best race he could, and would've probably finished 5th without the SC...

he never came any close to Bottas before the SC, even with him in dirty air, so I'd actually don't say the safety car made any difference for Hamilton. He would most likely have finished 6th anyway, Bottas and Russell just swapped 5th and 7th

He was closing down on him he was 0.2 from the DRS zone, furthermore, Bottas was a bit held in the dirty air of Russell.

[woocasz]

I hope ferrari brings something good. They are on slight decline already... 2,3 tenths behind RB in the race.

Probably missed chance with not running new wing

They will. Next race in Barcelona. Major upgrades, including new floor (they are still on the same since race 1 in Bahrain)
If they (Ferrari) manage to clear the gap to RB it will be very very interesting year of racing.

[JPBD1990]

Danica is an incredible addition to the Sky team. I’ve enjoyed everything she’s had to say. And I’m gay for the record so it’s not because she’s hot (which objectively she is) - but she is just fantastic.

[PlatinumZealot]

How is this race thread about Lewis and George? No one cares

The race threads always are about Lewis! Why are you questioning tradition!

[GrizzleBoy]

Roses are red.

Violets are blue.

Ferrari looks fast.

Verstappen WDC x2



You Heard it here first lol.

[Spoutnik]

Danica is an incredible addition to the Sky team. I’ve enjoyed everything she’s had to say. And I’m gay for the record so it’s not because she’s hot (which objectively she is) - but she is just fantastic.

[dialtone]

Fun race, great drive by Max and great car. Yeah the Safety Car gave a chance to Ferrari to win it, but without better behavior out of the technical section it wasn't going to happen.

Race Gap analysis


So this graph represents the race gap to the winner over the race, It's very easy to see that with Medium tyre there was no story, RedBull was simply better, Ferrari was graining and damaging tyres like in Imola. On the Hard tyre instead the race was fairly even, both when the 2 of them were further apart, and when they were closer, until Leclerc fell off DRS and then realized it wasn't going to happen.

But how exactly did RBR pull this off? A few of the laps post SC restart are insightful:

Lap 47:


There's no DRS here, you can see the top speed isn't a big differentiator, Leclerc is really close to Max in S1 and he struggles with grip there. S2 however starts to give us some hints, that would be the technical section T11-16. Max is really strong there, and despite the speed deficit, his S2 time is slightly better than LEC. S3 is unremarkable.

Lap 49:


There is DRS here, you can see Charles way faster than Max in any significant straight, by up to 15kph. Same as before, Leclerc struggles for grip in S1, massive speed advantage into T11 and then the technical section happens and you can see that Verstappen is on average 1kmh faster through it all, despite the lower speed from the braking point which raises Leclerc's average.

And then Lap 55:


Out of DRS range again. Here it's pretty evident now, Leclerc manages to get a slightly better S1, despite some sliding out of T8 that he maybe took too fast. However the speed advantage is gone again now, and from the start of S2 time the speed is almost the same, but Verstappen manages to gain 0.27s over Leclerc in basically just the technical section, equally Verstappen managed a better exit out of T17.

So what happened? It's pretty impressive of course that the car with less wing manages to handle the technical section so much better. While looking at the video I was noticing that redbull jumped around a bit more (nothing out of ordinary) into T17, and I think Ferrari had to run harder suspension to avoid porpoising, which of course reduced their mechanical grip, and here, unlike in quali, Leclerc can't afford the same impressive braking performance he had Saturday.

Top speed without DRS wasn't very different so I think overall the aero load on the cars wasn't actually all that different, a bit less for RedBull for sure, however that RedBull is very slippery with DRS open unlike the Ferrari. But even with a large top speed difference as with DRS open, or for the matter was the case with PER against SAI in the closing laps with DRS, it simply wasn't easy to pass, unless you had bad traction out of T8 or T16 or T17, which Leclerc had during the bad tyre degradation he had on the Mediums compared to Verstappen.

I think porpoising is punishing the balance of the car more than Ferrari has been talking about and RBR is certainly a strong machine.

Cheers, hope you liked reading this longer telemetry post.

[Spoutnik]

Scenes when the Ferrari upgrade make them slower in Barcelona...

[grubschumi13]

Not really, they didnt need George in the team when Lewis and Valteri won WCC comfortably and Lewis easily beat Bottas

Unacceptable. NOT putting George's interests first. Totally unacceptable.

A subpar Bottas was demonstrably inferior to Rosberg, Button or Alonso. A totally subpar second driver when Russell could have mounted a superb WDC bid.

Why would they have wanted george challanging Lewis? They wouldnt. so i guess George can thank Rosberg and his questionable tactics for his wait

I think had they had George in the car in 2021, He would have won the WDC.

[dialtone]

Good job!

It would be if it were true, but it isn't... Sergio just lost power for a few laps starting with Lap 19th I think:


But here is Perez lapping under 1.32 on lap 54 with basically the same speed and profile as Verstappen on the same lap.


He had a bit of power loss mid race but it was just a sensor.

[Spoutnik]

[Juzh]

Red bull was definitely much softer sprung compared to previous races, they had the most bouncing I've seen from them so far. This is what allowed leclerc to be so much better on the brakes into T11 and T17 (or rather red bull was bad when braking from high speeds due to bouncing). On the opposite side ferrari had had quite poor traction out of T16 and T17 with their stiff setup, so never got close for a proper attack, as verstappen was just too far down the road exiting those corners.

Good job!

It would be if it were true, but it isn't... Sergio just lost power for a few laps starting with Lap 19th I think:


But here is Perez lapping under 1.32 on lap 54 with basically the same speed and profile as Verstappen on the same lap.


He had a bit of power loss mid race but it was just a sensor.

"just a sensor" resulted in perez having almost no chance against ferrari even with DRS, when we know for a fact ferrari is a sitting duck in normal circumstances, or do you really think horner was just making it up? You can't just dismiss it simply because perez had a similar trace on one of the laps. Perez was in slipstream on most of those laps and that helps a lot, even in 2022.
If you look the first laps after SC restart perez could barely reach 315 kmh at 0.6s gap (and sainz was pulling away from him, completely opposite to what we've seen for entire season so far) just before T11, while on lap 7-8 for example he could reach 316 kmh at 1.5s gap at was always gaining time on that straight, same with verstappen.