From P10 to P1 is no small feat, and Hamilton alse capped it with a great drive. Not feeling particularly rewarded lately with waking up early in the morning...
Top 10 Gap chart
Pretty clearly there were 6 cars ahead, and everywhere else pretty far behind. Looks like pace wise here it was the top 6, then Lando Norris, then everyone else.
So let's zoom in the top 6 only.
Top 6 gap chart
And Top 6 lap times:
Alright so let's look into it:
- Perez and Max had basically the same pace through the race, uncanny how similar they were through it. I would probably use this to show that at the end Max was managing, but that's no surprise.
- Sainz today had no pace on any tire, critically he was not fast enough to challenge Russell in the first stint and then was pitted early by Ferrari, presumably to leave charles in front as Ferrari probably through that a switch of places was too punishing, although I think this squandered the supposed advantage of starting on the medium tire and going long on the first stint and create a tire differential.
- Sainz also wasn't fast on the soft tire at the end of the race where he lost further positions to Hamilton. He also wasn't helped by 2 slow pit stops from Ferrari, although that's not the reason why he finished 4th, he was simply slower today.
- Leclerc on Mediums was the fastest car on track, he always gained time on everyone (you can see his red line is always inclined downwards, meaning faster than Verstappen, and further than the others meaning faster than the rest. Even in the first stint, after 8 laps he was already faster than Sainz and equally fast as Russell. Leclerc was also about as fast as Hamilton on the Soft tire, Ham was a bit faster at the start of his stint, but slower after passing Sainz. The hard stint in the middle was a nightmare where Leclerc lost 10s and an additional pit stop.
- Russell had great defense from LEC, was reasonably fast in the 1st stint, at least fast enough to not be bothered by Sainz that much, but overall in the race he just wasn't that fast, struggled quite a bit on the mediums. His gap line is just losing time through the race.
- Hamilton struggled quite a bit in the first stint, was on slightly faster pace than VER in the second stint and then went long on the mediums with Sainz where he was slightly faster than Sainz again, but both were losing heaps of time to Max, and then had a great last stint on the soft putting in the fastest lap of the race and finishing 2nd. Great race.
- Max quickly cleared the slower cars in front of him in a couple of laps, and was 4th before lap 10 even started. At this point the crucial moment in his race was Sainz not passing Russell, this happened just at the right time because it allowed him to start his last stint on the mediums where his pace was again in line with Perez but he could pass Leclerc with ease and then march on to win this. Great job with the aggressive strategy.
I don't know what 1-lap situation to look into, the race was pretty full of overtakes and pretty clean overall.
I can't explain why Ferrari chose to go with the Hard tire on Leclerc, I think their proper mistake was not switching to the softs in the 2nd stint and freeing them up with tire choice later on with LEC. They also weren't helped by Sainz being slow, the car probably wasn't as good, like it struggled yesterday in quali, it struggled today in the race. I still don't why they went with the hards though, I think the strategy team in Ferrari has trouble understanding and updating the tire performance over the race.
Not a rewarding way to wake up at 5.40am, but congrats to Max and RBR.