2013 Singapore GP - Marina Bay

[myurr]

Relax, dude. Everyone has an off-day. Vettel had some off days as well this season in qualifying, so did Alonso.

Besides, Rosberg is also pretty handy around this track and he's been more comfortable than Lewis in the supersoft tyres this season.

When exactly had vettel had an off day this year to an extent hamilton is having for the last 2 races?

To be fair Vettel has also been in the same lineage of car for 5 years now, with every component designed around his needs, so he is going to be 100% settled and comfortable. Lewis is still settling in to a new car and new team. Yes he's half way through the season and should be mostly on top of things by now, but we're talking about a tenth here or there in a car that they're still learning how to set up perfectly for him. Also Vettel has so much performance in hand in his car that it takes the pressure off to get the perfect lap. When you only need to deliver 99% of your potential you are much less likely to make a mistake than when you have to push to 100%.

Next year the changes should be sufficient to effectively reset every drivers comfort factor. They're all going to have to adjust their driving styles to get the most out of the drive train and changes to the exhausts, and the handling is likely to be very different given the likely changes in aero philosophy. Should be a fascinating year, and I really hope that no one driver has an inherent advantage and can stroll to the title.

[henra]

i cnt remember but someone posted a redbull's pic , depicting airflow over diffuser and it looked pretty clean compare to what i have been seeing in context of ferrari. as someone pointed out its lack of creativity , factory is doing great job in producing parts , if people like fry dnt have balls to drive development in a direction and goes for iterations of same thing again and again this will happen.

The problem is: Life is not that easy. Sometimes fundamental design decisions are made very early that can have an impact on the final potential. Often (if not even in most cases) these things reveal themselves quite late.
I have a gut feeling that the internal arrangement of components limit the potential of the car. In that case changing bits and pieces doesn't seem to produce results. And that is exactly what I see with the Ferrari. No matter which exhaust/sidepod they put on, no matter what they do to the diffuser, no matter what they do to the Front/Rear wings. The basic pace doesn't really seem to change (read neither get better nor worse).
I don't know how often they have now gone back and forth on the long versus short exhausts/sidepods.
This -to me- points towards a fundamental limitation somewhere in the basic design. And looking at the significance of the gap (>(>) 0,5s) I strongly tend to believe in aerodynamic limitations.

[Helios]

[quote="SectorOne"
10 - dog
[/quote]

How was 2010 "dog"? Imo 2010 was one of his best seasons, even better than 2007 given that from Hockenheim on McLaren were third force for most of the remaining weekends.

[iotar__]

Brawn: "...but strategy will play a big part in the race and it’s quite likely we could see the front-running cars making different tyre choices after their opening stints on the option tyres."

I'm surprised by this, I thought it's going to be routine SS - M - M on two stops at least for top cars. Is he talking about three stops or two stints on super-softs and one on mediums?

Edit: I'll answer myself, two stops:

Pirelli:
"Singapore is one of the hardest races to predict a strategy for, because of the statistically high chance of safety cars. Theoretically, the quickest strategy is a three-stopper but in reality, because of the traffic and likely race conditions, most teams will adopt a two-stopper. So one likely strategy is: start on the supersoft, then change to medium on lap 16 and supersoft again on lap 39. An alternative is exactly the same strategy, but using the medium instead of the supersoft during the final stint.

[Ceki]

Does anyone has any good sky sports f1 stream ?
Also maybe in HD
Thanks, you can send me on PM

[rssh]

Looks like RB has split the gear-ratio between the 2 cars; Seb is 18th(288.7) and Webbo(292.2) is 6th at the speed traps though the delta is not much but it can be tough to pass other cars on similar tyre-wear. I am sure RB is thinking about the gearbox reliability but Lewis last year had a problem when he hit the wall in practice(maybe qualy) which damaged the GB but Macca still elected to run it in the race. Anyways my odds favor Rosberg because he has been great at this track in past (and mistakes drive-thru's in 08/09) ,also last time ROS won was when Seb's GB failed

[Traction]

Relax, dude. Everyone has an off-day. Vettel had some off days as well this season in qualifying, so did Alonso.

Besides, Rosberg is also pretty handy around this track and he's been more comfortable than Lewis in the supersoft tyres this season.

When exactly had vettel had an off day this year to an extent hamilton is having for the last 2 races?

To be fair Vettel has also been in the same lineage of car for 5 years now, with every component designed around his needs, so he is going to be 100% settled and comfortable. Lewis is still settling in to a new car and new team. Yes he's half way through the season and should be mostly on top of things by now, but we're talking about a tenth here or there in a car that they're still learning how to set up perfectly for him. Also Vettel has so much performance in hand in his car that it takes the pressure off to get the perfect lap. When you only need to deliver 99% of your potential you are much less likely to make a mistake than when you have to push to 100%.



Next year the changes should be sufficient to effectively reset every drivers comfort factor. They're all going to have to adjust their driving styles to get the most out of the drive train and changes to the exhausts, and the handling is likely to be very different given the likely changes in aero philosophy. Should be a fascinating year, and I really hope that no one driver has an inherent advantage and can stroll to the title.

Are you implying that Vettel doesn't give 100% just because he has a fantastic car.?

[Juzh]

Looks like RB has split the gear-ratio between the 2 cars; Seb is 18th(288.7) and Webbo(292.2) is 6th at the speed traps though the delta is not much but it can be tough to pass other cars on similar tyre-wear. I am sure RB is thinking about the gearbox reliability but Lewis last year had a problem when he hit the wall in practice(maybe qualy) which damaged the GB but Macca still elected to run it in the race. Anyways my odds favor Rosberg because he has been great at this track in past (and mistakes drive-thru's in 08/09) ,also last time ROS won was when Seb's GB failed

They both have the same gearing. 293kmh top speed. You can see it on Vettel's steering wheel. Maybe webber got a better exit onto drs "straight" or maybe used a bit more kers at that section.

[Helios]

When exactly had vettel had an off day this year to an extent hamilton is having for the last 2 races?

To be fair Vettel has also been in the same lineage of car for 5 years now, with every component designed around his needs, so he is going to be 100% settled and comfortable. Lewis is still settling in to a new car and new team. Yes he's half way through the season and should be mostly on top of things by now, but we're talking about a tenth here or there in a car that they're still learning how to set up perfectly for him. Also Vettel has so much performance in hand in his car that it takes the pressure off to get the perfect lap. When you only need to deliver 99% of your potential you are much less likely to make a mistake than when you have to push to 100%.



Next year the changes should be sufficient to effectively reset every drivers comfort factor. They're all going to have to adjust their driving styles to get the most out of the drive train and changes to the exhausts, and the handling is likely to be very different given the likely changes in aero philosophy. Should be a fascinating year, and I really hope that no one driver has an inherent advantage and can stroll to the title.[/quote]

Are you implying that Vettel doesn't give 100% just because he has a fantastic car.?[/quote]

I think he means that Vettel doesn't need to push 100% as often as others because even then his car is good enough to get pole or win a race.

[SectorOne]

What about Vettel not getting pole in Germany, Hungary and Spa?

He was edged by a faster car in quali. That is not dropping the ball...

Not really. Vettel lost pole in Hungary by himself for example.

Germany, Hungary, SPA have been thefts more then having the quickest car. The poles were stolen under his nose.
Since Germany it´s safe to say the Red Bull and Merc are equal in low fuel running.
Perhaps now we are starting to see Red Bull even edging away.

[atanatizante]

The dark horse of this race is obviously Grosjean who could go beyond 20 laps on SS and I think he don't make the same mistake like in Germany, so I'll keep an eye on him even though Rosberg said that Merc. has a better race pace ...
Another thing interesting will be when the safety car will be deployed and who goes at the last stint on SS bearing in mind the gap between the tyres is somewhere between 1,5 to 2 sec per lap ...

[iotar__]

Relax, dude. Everyone has an off-day. Vettel had some off days as well this season in qualifying, so did Alonso.

Besides, Rosberg is also pretty handy around this track and he's been more comfortable than Lewis in the supersoft tyres this season.

When exactly had vettel had an off day this year to an extent hamilton is having for the last 2 races?

To be fair Vettel has also been in the same lineage of car for 5 years now, with every component designed around his needs, so he is going to be 100% settled and comfortable. Lewis is still settling in to a new car and new team. Yes he's half way through the season and should be mostly on top of things by now, but we're talking about a tenth here or there in a car that they're still learning how to set up perfectly for him. Also Vettel has so much performance in hand in his car that it takes the pressure off to get the perfect lap. When you only need to deliver 99% of your potential you are much less likely to make a mistake than when you have to push to 100%.

Next year the changes should be sufficient to effectively reset every drivers comfort factor. They're all going to have to adjust their driving styles to get the most out of the drive train and changes to the exhausts, and the handling is likely to be very different given the likely changes in aero philosophy. Should be a fascinating year, and I really hope that no one driver has an inherent advantage and can stroll to the title.

I don't know where this discussion is going or why but this part is IMO v. questionable (if it's about comparing drivers abilities to adjust):
- there can be numerous different approaches in different teams/cars - how do you asses which part is the team/the car adjusting to a driver and which part driver adjusting to car, you can't really, lots of apples and oranges
- differences between teams can be big, who do you blame, car or a driver for not adjusting, without point of reference?
- if it's all about fiddling with torque, electrical engines, maps (whatever, I don't know) performance might be even more related to team going with approaches that fit their chosen driver, I mean small differences that in F1 environment get bigger

Speaking overall about 2014, I wonder if we can expect lots of B-spec cars and reshuffling during a season. Winter tests should be even more misleading and interesting with team being careful with engines, reliability and balancing it against performance.

[Juzh]

What about Vettel not getting pole in Germany, Hungary and Spa?

He was edged by a faster car in quali. That is not dropping the ball...

Not really. Vettel lost pole in Hungary by himself for example.

Germany, Hungary, SPA have been thefts more then having the quickest car. The poles were stolen under his nose.
Since Germany it´s safe to say the Red Bull and Merc are equal in low fuel running.
Perhaps now we are starting to see Red Bull even edging away.

So when ham edges vet its all about the driver, but when vet does it, its all about the car. That's what you're saying basically.

[Steven]

And again, follow the session and chat at http://www.f1technical.net/live/

[Hail22]

1. Vet
2. Ros
3. Alo / Webber for the podium

Let the procession continue...