senja wrote: ↑10 Jul 2022, 01:44
That's just excuse. Some of the drivers run whole sprint race on softs, and he saved mediums? He was not faster than Max on the end of the race. Max just didn't need to push anymore...
Nope it isn't an excuse, it's what happened, both because of comments from Verstappen, and because of comments from Horner, and because that's what the data shows.
Lap 5 (VER best lap) vs Lap 15 (far enough into the race, but losing ground to LEC).
Engine RPM is the same, he actually brakes later in most corners, there's no lift and coast, throttle on/off times are the same except... in the fast corners, right where you expect to pay when your front tires are falling off. Lap 15 he actually gets to higher max speed than lap 5.
So once again... No, he's not cruising, he's suffering a little bit from tires deg.
EDIT: also lap 15 isn't a bad lap from VER at all, lap 17, 18 and 19 are worse or much worse laps.
The 2 cars are so well matched that the 2 of them had the exact same time on lap 11, both cars did 1:9.057.
At the end of the race LEC was able to still hit 1:8.996 at lap 18 and generally lapping in low 1:9s while VER was more in the mid 1:9s.
But you know... never let facts get in the way of a good story.