Some thoughts:
1. Lewis could run longer on the stints then you conclude
a) he wasn’t on full speed and
b) tyre degradation seems to be solved now bearing in mind this race was the toughest in this regard
2. We’ll see their max. speed only if one of the Merc drivers has a bad pit stop, an off the track, an race incident or a puncture and so on coz he’ll be forced to make up the lost ground …
3. After the qualy results some said that there were some race tactics orders which says that Rosberg’s car must be under fueled and the reason to do that was
a) to get a faster car and maybe get some Lewis undercut with a little help from a SC period
b) in case of a wet race at some point to the race
c) to test how much they could get under fueled for further races references
4. Dr. Marko said on RTL and C.Horner at Sky that RB are lacking almost 80HP and that’s the reason they are so slow on the straights. Which percent is down on ICE and which on ERS? Or maybe they are running with a 50% ERS due to their software gliches?
5. In this regard here there are some top speed analysis between Qualy and Race:
Qualy ; Race ; Delta
Massa 305 - 325 +25km/h
Bottas 304 - 321 +17
Hulk 303 - 313 +10
Rosberg 302 - 313 +10
Magns 301 - 306 +5
Butt 301 - 308 +7
Lewis 300 - 306 +6
Kvyat 300 - 310 +10
Alo 297 - 307 +10
Kimi 296 - 310 +14
…
Ricci 290 - 295 +5
Vettel 289 - 308!!! +19!!!
a) From this above table we could see that both Williams and RB’s DRS are the most effective from all?
b) 14km/h delta between Vettel and Ricci could be down on what? Coz they have the same RW AoA according their Qualy speeds …
c) Lewis didn’t pass the backmarkers on the straights
6. It’s kinda strange silence from Merc engines teams regarding PPM saga forcing someone to speculate that their power advantage is so big that it allows all the teams to play safe and reach 98-99kg/h according to their injectors times & stuff backup calculations coming from FIA’s ECU software?
7. Knowing how torqy these turbo engines are why can’t they setup the KERS/MGU-K like RB9 did in the 2nd part of the last season, with KERS mapping acting like a TC?
8. Maybe it’s a little hasty but almost every top driver did his fastest lap at the end of the race and the facts are as follows: 1. Lewis 2. Rosb +0.9 sec; 3. Alo +1,1 sec; 4. Vett +1,2 sec; 5. Ricci +1.6 sec …
9. I’ve noticed that both in Australia and here in Malaysia seems to be harder now to pass someone even if you have the same DRS zones, a more powerful DRS this year or effective one ( see Massa vs. Button’s case).
One reason could be that the chased driver is switching to the most powerful mapping coz the gearing is no more important knowing how spread in the power band this year … Then is the same with the driver who’s chasing, he could do the same with power mapping isn’t it? So what could be the reason?
10. I think that sooner or later we could face the real status like RB has a little bit more on aero and Merc a little bit on PU side and in conclusion it’ll be an Even-Steven situation which will end down to the drivers abilities (hope it’s Lewis case
)
11. Has someone a HI-RE picture with the Merc and RB cars sitting on the parking slot just after the race? Coz you could see crystal clear which car has the bigger rake …a
12. Why it’s so hard from FOM to display a scroll bar up or down the display, like NASCAR, INDY etc. with all the relevant info such as sector times, tyres and so on?