Ratatouille wrote:Hmm, could it be that Ferrari's tyre degradation has something to do with the new exhaust configuration?
Before, Ferrari seemed to have better degradation than Red Bull and much much better than Mclaren, and somewhere in the middle between Sauber. Today it seemed they had just 2-3 laps better tyre management than their direct competitors and much worse compared to the Sauber.
Could it be the exhaust plume acting on the tyres?
I'm not sure... it's possible; but I think it has more to do with McLaren having figured out the tyres more – they seemed to manage to make them work over a full 10°C range this weekend. Bear in mind too, the Ferrari's tyres didn't go off until about 10 laps after Hamilton's pit stop, so they're still doing better than McLaren. Also, they went two laps longer in the first stint than Vettel while still putting in the fast laps, and kept it up better in their "second" stint.
So really, combination of two things 1) McLaren sorted out their tyres better than in the past 2) Ferrari still had the properties you're talking about, it just was rather masked by a disastrous strategy call.