2012 Canadian GP - Gilles Villeneuve

[FakeAlonso]

"raymondu999"

The cliff refers to the rate of change of the laptime loss - not the actual laptime loss itself. If you lose .1s of speed for 100 laps and end up 10s off the pace, that's not a cliff. If you lost 1s of a second over a single lap, THAT'S a cliff.

Don't want to sound like Brian but do you have a source for that definition? :p

Yes - it's very surprising really. I think Ferrari maybe overestimated Alonso's prowess and assumed that Alonso on worn tyres could hold off the other runners, given track position. Given that it's Canada... I don't know what possessed them to think that way.

Probably they got greedy and distorted their view on interpretation of the events and data.

[raymondu999]

"raymondu999"

The cliff refers to the rate of change of the laptime loss - not the actual laptime loss itself. If you lose .1s of speed for 100 laps and end up 10s off the pace, that's not a cliff. If you lost 1s of a second over a single lap, THAT'S a cliff.

Don't want to sound like Brian but do you have a source for that definition? :p

Other than the entire media throughout 2011? Not really. Also, don't forget it's a deliberate thing - there are 2 layers of compounds in the Pirellis. One is the real supersoft/soft/medium/hard compound, and when you wear through that, there is an ultrahard compound underneath which given it is so hard, hardly gives any grip. That's why the sudden dropoff is there. The "cliff."

Probably they got greedy and distorted their view on interpretation of the events and data.

Your choice of word - "events" - got me thinking. Could Ferrari maybe have been gambling that with people one-stopping, some would spring off into a wall somewhere and cause an SC period or a redflag, which would give Alonso breathing room and maybe take it across the line under the safety car? Or maybe a tyre change? I wouldn't put it past possibility at this stage.

[FakeAlonso]

Your choice of word - "events" - got me thinking. Could Ferrari maybe have been gambling that with people one-stopping, some would spring off into a wall somewhere and cause an SC period or a redflag, which would give Alonso breathing room and maybe take it across the line under the safety car? Or maybe a tyre change? I wouldn't put it past possibility at this stage.

I think one of them mentions in the interviews that somehow looking at the percentage of SC that is over 70% in Canada GP they were expecting a SC maybe to pit Alonso or give him time to breath to the end.

[bhall]

I think a safety car toward the end would've been the very last thing Ferrari wanted. Had the field been any tighter, which a SC would guarantee, Alonso could have easily dropped back a lot further than 5th.

[myurr]

I think a safety car toward the end would've been the very last thing Ferrari wanted. Had the field been any tighter, which a SC would guarantee, Alonso could have easily dropped back a lot further than 5th.

Don't forget that because of the field moving a lot slower, i.e. closer to the pit lane speed limit, the penalty for stopping drops to only a few seconds rather than the usual 15 in Canada. So as long as he had maybe 6 or 7 seconds in hand at the time of the safety car then it would have been safe to stop for fresh tyres and retain track position. Even if he came out just behind Hamilton if he had the super softs on then after a restart he'd have better pace at the end of the first lap and could maybe have slip streamed past (DRS would be disabled).

So depending on the timing a safety car could have been extremely beneficial and could have given Alonso the race win.

[bhall]

Don't forget that I said toward the end; Alonso was also racing Vettel; and Perez and Grosjean were on one-stop strategies no matter what.

[Gridlock]

"The Cliff" is seen on a notional graph of grip/traction, not lap times.

[raymondu999]

"The Cliff" is seen on a notional graph of grip/traction, not lap times.

Doesn't matter much... The laptime you produce is a function of:
a) your straightline speed
b) your grip - be it traction, braking or lateral related.

[Gridlock]

"The Cliff" is seen on a notional graph of grip/traction, not lap times.

Doesn't matter much... The laptime you produce is a function of:
a) your straightline speed
b) your grip - be it traction, braking or lateral related.

Matters totally! You forget variables such as umm, the driver? The gear ratios, diff settings, KERs usage and harvesting choices, all sorts!

Identical grip graph, different results.

[myurr]

Matters totally! You forget variables such as umm, the driver? The gear ratios, diff settings, KERs usage and harvesting choices, all sorts!

Identical grip graph, different results.

Either way it doesn't matter. In Canada there was no sudden drop off in performance from Alonso's car. I certainly spotted it with Hamilton just before he pitted, he was starting to struggle to maintain pace both visibly and from looking at the sector times. About five or six laps after Hamilton pitted you could again see in the sector times that Alonso was starting to struggle. You see small fluctuations in pace, as they struggle for grip and start compensating, having good and bad laps (you have to allow for traffic as well). But then you could VERY clearly see a steady decline in pace.

The cliff was used throughout last year to describe the way in which the drop off in performance from the tyres was both sudden and unpredictable by the teams. There was no question of Ferrari being unable to predict it in Canada and nor was the onset sudden. He was slowing by a cumulative 0.2 seconds a lap, which over many laps adds up to a lot of time, but in and of itself is not sudden.

Perhaps Ferrari were surprised by Grosjean and Perez's pace and the fact they were able to maintain it even as their tyres aged. That I could believe, but there was no surprise at all about the way Alonso's own pace tailed off. They even had the data from Massa's run to show that this drop off would happen and how cumulatively severe it would be.

[bhall]

This graph depicts the gap between Hamilton and Alonso throughout the race. In terms of performance relative to Hamilton (blue), Alonso (red) definitely fell off a cliff that was both steep and steady.

[myurr]

[img]http://38.imagebam.com/download/sUEJA8H ... d2.JPG[img]
This graph depicts the gap between Hamilton and Alonso throughout the race. In terms of performance relative to Hamilton (blue), Alonso (red) definitely fell off a cliff that was both steep and steady.

I think you're misreading that graph. The cliff isn't the fact that Hamilton was catching Alonso - i.e. the fact that the line is very steep in the final stint. That merely shows the difference between having new tyres or not.

The cliff is depicted by the increase in the gradient of that line, i.e. the vertical gap between the data points for each lap. There is no MASSIVE increase in that gap. You can very clearly see a steady increase from around lap 56 / 57 onwards, demonstrating that it was not a cliff. Certainly by lap 58 / 59 you can see that the performance is dropping at an ever faster rate. At that point Alonso could still have pitted and finished ahead of where he eventually managed.

[bhall]

The graph depicts relative performance, and I know for a fact you're misreading it. From lap 51 until the end, Alonso's pace relative to Hamilton took a dramatic and lengthy nosedive. It's as plain as day, and, of course, it's because Hamilton had fresh tires while Alonso did not. But, relative performance is all that really matters, because one doesn't race against the circuit; one races against other drivers.

[FakeAlonso]

"The Cliff" is seen on a notional graph of grip/traction, not lap times.

Not necessarily. I don't agree on that. All of the above are translated in lap time performance and the race is won by good lap times and pace+ good strategy. So for me if the lap times go badly that's a cliff, but as RAY say that's not important.

[FakeAlonso]

The graph depicts relative performance, and I know for a fact you're misreading it. From lap 51 until the end, Alonso's pace relative to Hamilton took a dramatic and lengthy nosedive. It's as plain as day, and, of course, it's because Hamilton had fresh tires while Alonso did not. But, relative performance is all that really matters, because one doesn't race against the circuit; one races against other drivers.

Agree.