2013 Italian GP - Monza

[SectorOne]

Brilliant, completely missing the point.
It´s not a "oh look how fast Hamilton was" it´s a "oh look, Mediums were in a different league compared to the Hard compound"

[gandharva]

There is no way he could do ~40 laps on a set of mediums with proper laptimes at the end of the stint. Last 8-10 laps would have been horrible for him.

[Juzh]

So is there any possibility they will have to change their gearboxes before Singapore which would mean a 5 place grid penalty?

Yes.

[SectorOne]

As soon has he was past Rosberg he could have cut down on the pace considerably. Instead he flogged it around and even caught Massa almost.

He would have had clean air and everything, instead he pitted and was in traffic and a complete mess with Raikkonen (not their racecraft just the traffic)

If Hamilton wins the championship with 2 points i´ll retract my statement, if not, i´ll stand by the fact that he should have cut down on the pace, managed the tires and just held on. We know he can save tires when he really needs to.
We know the Mercedes has been great on tire wear, sometimes even having trouble getting temp into them.

If the team radio worked we might actually have seen it.

[beelsebob]

As soon has he was past Rosberg he could have cut down on the pace considerably. Instead he flogged it around and even caught Massa almost.

He would have had clean air and everything, instead he pitted and was in traffic and a complete mess with Raikkonen (not their racecraft just the traffic)

If Hamilton wins the championship with 2 points i´ll retract my statement, if not, i´ll stand by the fact that he should have cut down on the pace, managed the tires and just held on. We know he can save tires when he really needs to.
We know the Mercedes has been great on tire wear, sometimes even having trouble getting temp into them.

If the team radio worked we might actually have seen it.

I've still yet to see you present any evidence that the tyres were capable of 40 laps, when all the teams considered they were only good for 20-25.

Notably, most of the teams, and pirelli were muttering about not even being sure they'd make that before the race.

[SectorOne]

And i´ve yet to see you post up any evidence that refutes it. What teams ran and what people think before the race does not count as evidence.

He did 25 laps and was still banking in faster and faster laptimes. If you cut down the pace you increase the length of the tire.
that was 25 full on balls to the walls laps.
Doing 15 more with considerably less energy through them seems like a tough job but could probably be done.

Add to that 25 seconds you have in the bag that you did not waste through a pit stop which only put you out in a load of traffic.
He could have cut down 1 second per lap and still be 10 seconds ahead of Grosjean and Ricciardo.

I don´t really care what Pirelli says, they have proven to not really have any real idea of how well their own compounds will work in a race.

Just 15 more laps, nice and easy, free air. Definitely doable. If not, hey you lost 2 points...
If you make it, boom you just finished the race ahead or just behind your teammate.

[beelsebob]

And i´ve yet to see you post up any evidence that refutes it. What teams ran and what people think before the race does not count as evidence.

He did 25 laps and was still banking in faster and faster laptimes. If you cut down the pace you increase the length of the tire.
that was 25 full on balls to the walls laps.
Doing 15 more with considerably less energy through them seems like a tough job but could probably be done.

Add to that 25 seconds you have in the bag that you did not waste through a pit stop which only put you out in a load of traffic.
He could have cut down 1 second per lap and still be 10 seconds ahead of Grosjean and Ricciardo.

I don´t really care what Pirelli says, they have proven to not really have any real idea of how well their own compounds will work in a race.

Just 15 more laps, nice and easy, free air. Definitely doable. If not, hey you lost 2 points...
If you make it, boom you just finished the race ahead or just behind your teammate.

Hamilton came out with 13 laps to go, and immediately started lapping 1 second a lap faster than he had been doing. Conservatively, if he'd calmed it, and tried to make the tyres last, he would have had to drive a second slower. That means you're talking about a 26 second difference between the strategies, while a pit stop costs 25 seconds. So you're a second worse off immediately, without considering the chance of suddenly falling off the cliff. Yes, you'd have track position, but ultimately, that means that with both strategies put you between 7th and 9th.

One of them doesn't risk falling off the cliff.

It's obvious what strategy is better here.

[SiLo]

And he clearly had enough in himself to make the overtakes, that was the best strategy for them I feel, and his radio was broken as well which didn't help.

[langwadt]

a last 2 laps smokescreen call to take it easy cause they were "nursing" some mystery issues.

Watching Adrian Newey's body language on the podium, I believe that the RB was very, very close to a mechanical failure and just barely made it to the end of the race. There was no "mystery issue", there was genuine concern that the transmission would not last the full race distance. I also think that may be why Webber parked his car as soon as he crossed the finish line. And keep in mind that RB changed some of the gears in the transmissions of both cars before the start of the race, which according to the NBC commentators was unusual enough to be worth mentioning.

That's my opinion, any way. Your mileage may vary. See dealer for details.

Vettel was also running with the (I assume "gentler") wet/intermediate trottle map, Alonso complained about the flashing
red light, but I haven't heard that Charlie said anything about it

though I could easily see:
..
5.5.4 The accelerator pedal shaping map in the ECU may only be linked to the type of the tyres fitted to the car : one map for use with dry‐weather tyres and one map for use with intermediate or wet‐weather tyres.
..
interpreted as it being illegal to run the wet-weather map when on dry tyres

[henra]

Vettel was also running with the (I assume "gentler") wet/intermediate trottle map, Alonso complained about the flashing
red light, but I haven't heard that Charlie said anything about it

Is it confirmed that he drove in that map?
Because the light was flashing right from the start.
The stated concerns re the gear box and visible reduction of pace on the other hand was only apparent in the last few laps.
Moreover, it would mean that he was capable of comfortably running away in the wet weather map
For the sake of a tiny chance of an intersting remaining WDC/WCC let's hope that this was not the case.

[SectorOne]

Hamilton came out with 13 laps to go, and immediately started lapping 1 second a lap faster than he had been doing. Conservatively, if he'd calmed it, and tried to make the tyres last, he would have had to drive a second slower. That means you're talking about a 26 second difference between the strategies, while a pit stop costs 25 seconds. So you're a second worse off immediately, without considering the chance of suddenly falling off the cliff. Yes, you'd have track position, but ultimately, that means that with both strategies put you between 7th and 9th.

One of them doesn't risk falling off the cliff.

It's obvious what strategy is better here.

here are the times,

Last 5 laps prior to pit stop,

27.6
27.3
27.3
27.6
27.1 (fastest lap of the whole stint)

Then the 5 laps after stop excluding outlap

26.6
26.8
28.0
27.6
27.2
---------------136,9 seconds vs 136,2 seconds - not much difference in those 5 laps. And after that you have only 10 to go..
26.9
26.8
27.1
27.5
27.4
27.7
Then fastest lap of the race, out of traffic, 25.8
so as you can see it was hardly much faster, traffic held him up to the point that he was running the same times he did before the stop.

Then let´s compare it with let´s say Rosberg´s same laps.

5 laps prior to Hamilton´s pit stop,

27.7
27.4
28.0
28.6
28.0

Then after Hamilton got out, 5 laps

27.9
27.0
26.9
26.9

Before Hamilton went in he had a 5 second buffer on Rosberg.
No you won´t lose 26 seconds, you cut down on the pace from the point you have a 5 second buffer on Rosberg.

So you have 5 seconds down to him, 15 laps to go. It´s clearly possible.
Worst case scenario Rosberg finds his way past in the closing laps but you have still cleared Grosjean and Ricciardo who was even further down the road.

Tag along behind Rosberg using his DRS helps massively in clawing back some time lost with worn tires.
If Rosberg pulls away you still have a nice buffer down to Ricciardo and Grosjean.

Also, what cliff? So far i have yet to see a car fall of the cliff with the new compounds.

[radosav]

I've read somewhere that Domenicalli said that that Ferrari had ''more wet'' setup for Monza, whatever that means!

[komninosm]

You can't start to cut down on the pace from the point you have a 5 second buffer on Rosberg. To make that gap Hamilton had already used up his tires. To make the tires last for 40 laps (from lap 13 to 53) he would have to drive so slow that he never would have even caught up Rosberg in the first place (on lap 27).
I'm sorry but your theory is full of holes.

Hmm looking at your time tables it seems to me that Rosberg kinda harmed Hamilton's race a bit. It seems on lap 27 he came out of the pits right in front of him and caused him to lose time for the entire lap and lap 28 too. Not very good teammate behavior. This came to pass because Hamilton did a really poor lap 25 (any idea who held him up for that?).
I think these two incidences caused him to be again behind Raikonnen after their second pitstop. All in all Hamilton would have been 7th just behind Rosberg.

But my question was if his hard tire first strategy would have worked. I think everybody ahead of him had soft tires and nobody went really long, so his hard tire first would have earned him clean air after lap 20 or so and a faster last stint than competitors too.

[iotar__]

a last 2 laps smokescreen call to take it easy cause they were "nursing" some mystery issues.

Watching Adrian Newey's body language on the podium, I believe that the RB was very, very close to a mechanical failure and just barely made it to the end of the race. There was no "mystery issue", there was genuine concern that the transmission would not last the full race distance. I also think that may be why Webber parked his car as soon as he crossed the finish line. And keep in mind that RB changed some of the gears in the transmissions of both cars before the start of the race, which according to the NBC commentators was unusual enough to be worth mentioning.

That's my opinion, any way. Your mileage may vary. See dealer for details.

They both had problems with gearboxes before the race but only Webber during, that was the difference. Just to be clear, not that it mattered when he was letting Alonso pass . Vettel (Webber too) was told to short shift as a precaution, the other problem - flat spot after lock up in the first corner and vibrations: http://adamcooperf1.com/2013/09/09/chri ... -any-more/ Possibility of failure was real but it felt like they were overselling it with this dramatic: bring the car home. Just like they were pretending what a tough race and qualifying that was.

[beelsebob]

Hamilton came out with 13 laps to go, and immediately started lapping 1 second a lap faster than he had been doing. Conservatively, if he'd calmed it, and tried to make the tyres last, he would have had to drive a second slower. That means you're talking about a 26 second difference between the strategies, while a pit stop costs 25 seconds. So you're a second worse off immediately, without considering the chance of suddenly falling off the cliff. Yes, you'd have track position, but ultimately, that means that with both strategies put you between 7th and 9th.

One of them doesn't risk falling off the cliff.

It's obvious what strategy is better here.

Before Hamilton went in he had a 5 second buffer on Rosberg.
No you won´t lose 26 seconds, you cut down on the pace from the point you have a 5 second buffer on Rosberg.

If your version of cooling the pace to preserve tyres involves only running 0.3 seconds a lap slower, then you're not talking about cooling the pace at all. When drivers run a strategy that involves one fewer stops, they need to run significantly slower, not just a tiny bit. You don't get to simply preserve a 5 second buffer to someone who's on a one-stop-fewer strategy (which is effectively what we're talking about here – hamilton effectively doing a "no" stop, because his first stop was forced to be so early).

Worst case scenario Rosberg finds his way past in the closing laps but you have still cleared Grosjean and Ricciardo who was even further down the road.

Nope, you're living in fantasy land. You're assuming that a 40 lap old Medium tyre is going to have held onto its pace just as well as a 30 lap old Hard. It's not going to happen.

Tag along behind Rosberg using his DRS helps massively in clawing back some time lost with worn tires.

No, Rosberg would simply pull away from you before the first DRS zone, because 35-40 lap old medium tyres will be that much slower per lap than 10 lap younger hards by that point.

Also, what cliff? So far i have yet to see a car fall of the cliff with the new compounds.

That would be... because teams have got really good at predicting when it'll happen, and pitting their drivers before hand