bananapeel23 wrote: ↑13 Apr 2025, 19:09
f1316 wrote: ↑13 Apr 2025, 19:05
IMO they wasted the strategic advantage - yes the safety car didn’t help but I think they made two errors (1) not going with the one stop (2) not using the soft at the SC - Russell showed it was doable and the hard was always going to be useless.
Charles maximised what he was given and Lewis pretty much too tbh, but it could have been better. Pace generally was decent so let’s see in Jeddah as it seems like they’re optimistic for the high speed corners.
Given how horrific the hard was, Ferrari was right not to go for the one stopper. They pitted him at the perfect time to avoid the DRS train. He then drove a perfect stint on the second set of mediums that was sadly cut short by the safety car. If he gets 5-7 more laps and no safety car he can go on the softs until the end and get a comfortable P2.
Ferrari was clearly winning the strategy game here.
I don’t agree - there’s a reason why Leclerc was pleading for this option and it’s because he had more life left in the medium. He had about 13 seconds advantage on Piastri at that point and was losing about a second per lap. He could have stretched another 10 laps or so and then been in a position where his new hards -even not optimal - were at least faster than very old mediums by that point. That would have given him track position and a buffer of maybe 6 or 7 seconds at the end - albeit it’s probable the SC would have screwed us even then.
I think it was worth trying and, if they chose not to because they didn’t fancy the hards, then you have to go soft at the SC. You can’t do neither one thing nor the other, which is what they ended up with. I’m kinda one of the most glass half full for Ferrari in this thread so surprised people thought they did well in strategy.