2024 Belgian Grand Prix - Spa-Francorchamps, July 26 - 28

[AR3-GP]

Fastest laps of the race:

[PlatinumZealot]

I read that about the fuel draining for weighting . I am a bit confussed about this rule, because after the ban of refulling, it is now a fact that the car from RUS was actually never under the weight-limit in the race!?

At all times, all cars must be at a weight that when fuel tanks are drained, the car will be above the minimum weight limit.

Regardless of fuel use, if when the tanks are drained the car is no longer above the weight limit, it is deemed to be illegal.

Dont get suckered into the discussion about fuel.

I had to delte my post because I fell into the same trap. I was suckered into the fuel burning suspuscion but then I google the rules. The minimum wieght is as you say it, when the car is drained of ALL fuel.

This means that Russell was running a lighter chassis than the other drivers during the race. Perhaps not a lighter car though this is unlikely. However, if he had left 2.8liters of more fuel in the car he could have gotten away with it....

Did he have 2.8 liters more to spare? Likely not. So he was definitely lighter.

It seems when Mercedes assembled the car they did not weigh it properly or they forgot to add the correct amount of ballast. The way F1 cars work it's a compound benefit with lighter weight: less stress on the tyres, cooler engine, cooler brakes... Explains why Russel has so much life left.

[PlatinumZealot]

That was the race plan for LH, so they must have had an idea about wear. i dont buy the tyre wear theory personally.

The tire wear theorem absolutely makes sense.

1.6 kilograms is only 400 grams per tire.

400 grams isn't a lot. It's about the weight of a smartphone. Rubber does weigh a bit, and considering how much rubber F1 cars can shred, how huge and wide their tires are, and thats they drive high-downforce cars at massive speeds in corners, it's absolutely conceivable that cars can hose a few kilograms of rubber over the duration of an entire race. And even if Russell didn't shred that much by extending his last stint, he could potentially have made up that weight if they had allowed pebble pickup at Spa.

You really don't think that the pickup demonstrated in this picture (for the entire circumference of the tire) can make up 400 grams? Because I certainly think it can.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Z9ys1-tKN0c/maxresdefault.jpg

This is a car with shedded rubber trapped in the body work and on the wheels. The F1 pick-up weight is anyones guess at this point. But the lack of it would have been accounted for at Spa.

[Chuckjr]

Hammy fans claiming the couple kilo underweight King George was the reason Hammy couldn’t get by is pathetic. Come on guys. You have more racing integrity than that. This is F1 Tech, not Planet F1. Smh.

[LHamilton]

Hammy fans claiming the couple kilo underweight King George was the reason Hammy couldn’t get by is pathetic. Come on guys. You have more racing integrity than that. This is F1 Tech, not Planet F1. Smh.

Its not really to far of a stretch since being a few kilos underweight does give you an advantage. But in the end, thats by the by. Because Mercedes as a team played a bigger role in this.

Mercedes screwed up this weekend in a similar manner to that of McLaren in Hungary. However, people seemingly has not given this much thought. As I said previously, they shouldve orchestrated a 1-2 with Hamilton winning, given that Piastri was not to far away from catching up. And its only because Hamilton wasnt able to fully challenge Russell that Piastri didnt catch up. Because if they (Mercedes pair) wouldve fought harder, more time wouldve been lost. They got pretty lucky that the race ended up the way it did. Because they couldve easily left without a win had circumstances been slightly different. And looking at what happend after the race, with Russells DSQ, Im even more dumbfunded about Mercedes decisions. For me, it looked like they favoured Russell somewhat. In a world where Hamilton stays at Mercedes, I cant see them NOT making the procentage play of swapping them around, given all the facts.

[Sergej]

It's funny that no one of the top teams will go on holiday fully happy:
- Mercedes: binned 25 points with amateur mistake, maybe even tried to cheat
- McLaren: keeps underachieving with driver and strategy errors, should trail Max in the wdc instead they're losing ground
- Red Bull: lost all their advantage, face a difficult second part of season, probably losing the wcc, maybe they have to sack Perez
- Ferrari: another year of failed upgrades, another year of "we win next year"

what an eventful season this is.

[mwillems]

Hammy fans claiming the couple kilo underweight King George was the reason Hammy couldn’t get by is pathetic. Come on guys. You have more racing integrity than that. This is F1 Tech, not Planet F1. Smh.

Not-a-Lewis fan here. George just wouldn't have been in that position in the first place, to be fair. Lewis clearly drove a better race.

[Quantum]

Hammy fans claiming the couple kilo underweight King George was the reason Hammy couldn’t get by is pathetic. Come on guys. You have more racing integrity than that. This is F1 Tech, not Planet F1. Smh.

Its not really to far of a stretch since being a few kilos underweight does give you an advantage. But in the end, thats by the by. Because Mercedes as a team played a bigger role in this.

Mercedes screwed up this weekend in a similar manner to that of McLaren in Hungary. However, people seemingly has not given this much thought. As I said previously, they shouldve orchestrated a 1-2 with Hamilton winning, given that Piastri was not to far away from catching up. And its only because Hamilton wasnt able to fully challenge Russell that Piastri didnt catch up. Because if they (Mercedes pair) wouldve fought harder, more time wouldve been lost. They got pretty lucky that the race ended up the way it did. Because they couldve easily left without a win had circumstances been slightly different. And looking at what happend after the race, with Russells DSQ, Im even more dumbfunded about Mercedes decisions. For me, it looked like they favoured Russell somewhat. In a world where Hamilton stays at Mercedes, I cant see them NOT making the procentage play of swapping them around, given all the facts.

Roles reversed and Hamilton fans will go apoplectic with rage if he's asked to move over for Russell.
Russell clearly said to the team he wanted to stay out. That's a gamble. It paid off and it didn't because the team had literally no data on this set up to measure tyre wear.

[mwillems]

That was the race plan for LH, so they must have had an idea about wear. i dont buy the tyre wear theory personally.

They planned to one-stop LH? Do you have links to support?

Can 15 extra laps wear 1.5kg of rubber. I have no idea. Seems a bit of a push but that's not enough to damn them. I feel fine saying that it was just a cover up at the end, most teams would try to get away with it if they could.

Lewis interview after the race, was linked earlier in the Merc thread "

They decided one stop strategy for lewis before the race and inverted without telling him

"

Ahh yeah. Still, if they put fresh tyres and assumed he'd get past George then it's not sabotage, they may have thought it the right strategy. But you can understand why the question is out there.

[Mogster]

That was the race plan for LH, so they must have had an idea about wear. i dont buy the tyre wear theory personally.

The tire wear theorem absolutely makes sense.

1.6 kilograms is only 400 grams per tire.

400 grams isn't a lot. It's about the weight of a smartphone. Rubber does weigh a bit, and considering how much rubber F1 cars can shred, how huge and wide their tires are, and thats they drive high-downforce cars at massive speeds in corners, it's absolutely conceivable that cars can hose a few kilograms of rubber over the duration of an entire race. And even if Russell didn't shred that much by extending his last stint, he could potentially have made up that weight if they had allowed pebble pickup at Spa.

You really don't think that the pickup demonstrated in this picture (for the entire circumference of the tire) can make up 400 grams? Because I certainly think it can.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Z9ys1-tKN0c/maxresdefault.jpg

This is a car with shedded rubber trapped in the body work and on the wheels. The F1 pick-up weight is anyones guess at this point. But the lack of it would have been accounted for at Spa.

https://youtu.be/pFQvnc-YbMo?si=584Hahbvmb7xMvO2

I’ve got a 2kg camera lens sat here and it’s a heavy thing. I really doubt you could stick 1.5-2.0 kg of rubber to the tyres while driving the car.

[Dunlay]

The tire wear theorem absolutely makes sense.

1.6 kilograms is only 400 grams per tire.

400 grams isn't a lot. It's about the weight of a smartphone. Rubber does weigh a bit, and considering how much rubber F1 cars can shred, how huge and wide their tires are, and thats they drive high-downforce cars at massive speeds in corners, it's absolutely conceivable that cars can hose a few kilograms of rubber over the duration of an entire race. And even if Russell didn't shred that much by extending his last stint, he could potentially have made up that weight if they had allowed pebble pickup at Spa.

You really don't think that the pickup demonstrated in this picture (for the entire circumference of the tire) can make up 400 grams? Because I certainly think it can.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Z9ys1-tKN0c/maxresdefault.jpg

This is a car with shedded rubber trapped in the body work and on the wheels. The F1 pick-up weight is anyones guess at this point. But the lack of it would have been accounted for at Spa.

https://youtu.be/pFQvnc-YbMo?si=584Hahbvmb7xMvO2

I’ve got a 2kg camera lens sat here and it’s a heavy thing. I really doubt you could stick 1.5-2.0 kg of rubber to the tyres while driving the car.

If you are an individual with the weight of 780+ kilos, 1.5kg kept on you is nothing.

[LHamilton]

Hammy fans claiming the couple kilo underweight King George was the reason Hammy couldn’t get by is pathetic. Come on guys. You have more racing integrity than that. This is F1 Tech, not Planet F1. Smh.

Its not really to far of a stretch since being a few kilos underweight does give you an advantage. But in the end, thats by the by. Because Mercedes as a team played a bigger role in this.

Mercedes screwed up this weekend in a similar manner to that of McLaren in Hungary. However, people seemingly has not given this much thought. As I said previously, they shouldve orchestrated a 1-2 with Hamilton winning, given that Piastri was not to far away from catching up. And its only because Hamilton wasnt able to fully challenge Russell that Piastri didnt catch up. Because if they (Mercedes pair) wouldve fought harder, more time wouldve been lost. They got pretty lucky that the race ended up the way it did. Because they couldve easily left without a win had circumstances been slightly different. And looking at what happend after the race, with Russells DSQ, Im even more dumbfunded about Mercedes decisions. For me, it looked like they favoured Russell somewhat. In a world where Hamilton stays at Mercedes, I cant see them NOT making the procentage play of swapping them around, given all the facts.

Roles reversed and Hamilton fans will go apoplectic with rage if he's asked to move over for Russell.
Russell clearly said to the team he wanted to stay out. That's a gamble. It paid off and it didn't because the team had literally no data on this set up to measure tyre wear.

Fans' reaction has nothing to do with how Mercedes operate their strategy. And only the most dumb fans would rage about that scenario. Russell was running 5th/6th and was outside the podium. Doing an alternative strategy to get yourself to a podium position would be a success in itself. You cant expect to make such a call to go all the way to win it. Rarely does it work. But it did this time. Just.

The fact that you refer to "no data" also proves my point. They had no idea how far the tyres would go. So you do the safest thing.

Nothing in your comment points to an argument to not do what I suggested them to do. If any, it alludes to the contrary.

The bold highlighted; I have no idea what you mean by it. It seems to contradict itself.

[Quantum]

Fans' reaction has nothing to do with how Mercedes operate their strategy. And only the most dumb fans would rage about that scenario. Russell was running 5th/6th and was outside the podium. Doing an alternative strategy to get yourself to a podium position would be a success in itself. You cant expect to make such a call to go all the way to win it. Rarely does it work. But it did this time. Just.

The fact that you refer to "no data" also proves my point. They had no idea how far the tyres would go. So you do the safest thing.

Nothing in your comment points to an argument to not do what I suggested them to do. If any, it alludes to the contrary.

The bold highlighted; I have no idea what you mean by it. It seems to contradict itself.

It worked because he initially won, and it didn't because he was disqualified.
Your entire argument revolves around hindsight. Without it, you're just guessing too.
F1 is a game of risk, and George was clear with his radio message in wanting to stay out to try gamble for a podium and not 6th or 7th place. Excess tyre wear on a long stint was worth the gamble, you race to win.

And fan reactions do impact the team, especially the fanatical elements. In the last day we have posts suggesting sabotage on Hamilton from engine modes, to overweight relative to Russell to nefarious wing configurations.
We've already seen Merc call in the police to deal with the problem of fanaticism.

[Farnborough]

It's funny that no one of the top teams will go on holiday fully happy:
- Mercedes: binned 25 points with amateur mistake, maybe even tried to cheat
- McLaren: keeps underachieving with driver and strategy errors, should trail Max in the wdc instead they're losing ground
- Red Bull: lost all their advantage, face a difficult second part of season, probably losing the wcc, maybe they have to sack Perez
- Ferrari: another year of failed upgrades, another year of "we win next year"

what an eventful season this is.

Certainly agre with that. 2022 started with all but RB dropping the ball, to give false impression of this rules set.

Now though, we can see how they've matured, and what a significant struggle it is at front of field now. All the teams throwing everything they can find in their cupboards at this, not knowing the competitive order from one track to another, a fair success in rules terms I'd say.

[Dunlay]

Hammy fans claiming the couple kilo underweight King George was the reason Hammy couldn’t get by is pathetic. Come on guys. You have more racing integrity than that. This is F1 Tech, not Planet F1. Smh.

Not-a-Lewis fan here. George just wouldn't have been in that position in the first place, to be fair. Lewis clearly drove a better race.

Why wouldn't George be in that position? He drove well, kept his tyres despite following cars for quite some time and defending from Max and then took the call go one stop! That to me was the driver of the day worthy performance. Lewis simply drove majority of the race in clean air, until the last few laps. How is that a better than George's performance? Lewis did better in Silverstone than this one.