2014 Bahrain Grand Prix

[zeph]

Symbolic?!?

[WhiteBlue]

Well, the inconsistency of the stewards in terms of not leaving enough space on the track is an issue that came up with the Bahrain race. I'm not concerned about a particular driver. I'm more concerned that the rules are not clear and that drivers will collide because one of them might not expect to be squeezed off the track. But perhaps that is a separate issue. If flyboy wants it so he can always cut it off and make it one.

[Emerson.F]

Well, the inconsistency of the stewards in terms of not leaving enough space on the track is an issue that came up with the Bahrain race. I'm not concerned about a particular driver. I'm more concerned that the rules are not clear and that drivers will collide because one of them might not expect to be squeezed off the track. But perhaps that is a separate issue. If flyboy wants it so he can always cut it off and make it one.

yeah right. I just saw your post history and you have a very negativ bias towards Lewis Hamilton. Thats a fact.
Its clear to see that if in your case it was somebody else you wouldn't even speak about it let alone claim he was driving dirty. I know better now that to react to people like you with an agenda.

A good example is Ted Kravitz on Sky. Its so clear the guy hates Lewis that it's funny. He will try everything he can to put Lewis in a bad light. Last race same story. When he claimed Paddy Lowe stating "to bring the cars home" was a teamorder.

Can't believe some folk, we've had one of the best battles for years and people moan about the hard racing. What makes it funny is that their favourite driver will have pulled the same moves plenty of times over their racing careers.

Would you rather drivers just do qualifying laps single file?? If they clamp down on hard but fair racing they've lost a viewer in me that's for sure!!

+100

[Stradivarius]

I am not sure if the rules about leaving room apply at the exit of corners. I am quoting the sporting regulations:

20) DRIVING
20.1 The driver must drive the car alone and unaided.
20.2 Drivers must use the track at all times. For the avoidance of doubt the white lines defining the track edges are considered to be part of the track but the kerbs are not.
A driver will be judged to have left the track if no part of the car remains in contact with the track.
Should a car leave the track the driver may re-join, however, this may only be done when it is safe to do so and without gaining any lasting advantage. At the absolute discretion of the race director a driver may be given the opportunity to give back the whole of any advantage he gained by leaving the track.
20.3 More than one change of direction to defend a position is not permitted. Any driver moving back towards the racing line, having earlier defended his position off-line, should leave at least one car width between his own car and the edge of the track on the approach to the corner.
20.4 Any driver defending his position on a straight, and before any braking area, may use the full width of the track during his first move, provided no significant portion of the car attempting to pass is alongside his. Whilst defending in this way the driver may not leave the track without justifiable reason.
For the avoidance of doubt, if any part of the front wing of the car attempting to pass is alongside the rear wheel of the car in front this will be deemed to be a 'significant portion'.
20.5 Manoeuvres liable to hinder other drivers, such as deliberate crowding of a car beyond the edge of the track or any other abnormal change of direction, are not permitted.

What Hamilton did to Rosberg is aparently not covered here. The rules cover defending a position by leaving and moving back to the racing line on the approach to the corner (20.3) and defending a position on a straight, before any braking area (20.4). Hamilton was following the racing line when he forced Rosberg off the track at the exit of a corner and that is not covered. 20.5 says something about manoeuvres liable to hinder other drivers, but I don't think it applies in this case, as Hamilton was following the racing line, even though that meant Rosberg was hindered.

When I saw the race, I didn't like what I saw, but I realize that Hamilton probably right in doing what he did, as the rules simply. I remember Montoya complaining loudly after Schumacher did the same to him at Imola in 2004. On the first lap, he left Montoya no room on the outside at the exit of Tosa and stayed ahead.

I think this is acceptable based on my general opinion that you can't expect your opponents to leave the racing line just because you want to overtake them. Overtaking is hard simply because in order to do it, you need to find a way past without requiring the opponent to move over and let you by. There is an exception to this at the intry to a corner if you come up the inside, but there is no exception at the exit. When Rosberg came up on the inside into turn 1, Hamilton yielded and left him room on the inside as the rules requires him to do.

What really made me disappointed on Sunday was alternative strategy for Rosberg. Whoever says that Mercedes made it a fair fight has no idea what he is talking about. Only the safety car made it a fight after Mercedes had basically killed all excitement. It was very close in the first stint and I actually thought Rosberg would overtake Hamilton when Hamilton pited for the first time. But then, instead of following Hamilton's strategy and pit on the next lap and change to softs, Rosberg was kept out for another lap and given mediums for his longest stint. When Rosberg came out he had already lost 5 seconds to Hamilton on those to laps. He then lost another 4-5 seconds during the second stint. Only because of the safety car did we get some racing in the end, but Mercedes was clearly trying to avoid this. This is unfortunate in a season where it looks like for some time, only Mercedes is able to win. The dominance of McLaren in 1988-1989 was easy to accept because there was a real fight between Senna and Prost. The Ferrari dominance was not as interesting because their drivers were not close enough in terms of performance. Now it seems Mercedes has two evenly matched drivers, but they are trying to prevent them from racing each other. That is really unfortunate indeed.

I was also disappointed to see the performance of the medium tires. They were clearly slower than the softs at the beginning of the stint, as expected. But they were also clearly slower after 20 laps and that basically means we don't have two different tires with different strengths, we have one good tire and one bad tire. When Hamilton ran his 20th lap on the softs in his second stint, his lap time was identical to that of Rosberg who was running his 18th lap on the medium tires. All the time up until then, Hamilton had been pulling away despite not being as quick as Rosberg on equal tires. And despite this, Rosberg was told on the radio during the second stint that the mediums were performing better than expected. Hamilton was told to get the most out of his soft tires in order to minimize his time on mediums. At the same time Rosberg's strategy was to maximize the time on mediums. This makes it very clear to me that Mercedes didn't want a battle and that their strategy was aiming for less excitement than we got in the end.

[basti313]

Well, the inconsistency of the stewards in terms of not leaving enough space on the track is an issue that came up with the Bahrain race. I'm not concerned about a particular driver. I'm more concerned that the rules are not clear and that drivers will collide because one of them might not expect to be squeezed off the track. But perhaps that is a separate issue. If flyboy wants it so he can always cut it off and make it one.

yeah right. I just saw your post history and you have a very negativ bias towards Lewis Hamilton. Thats a fact.
Its clear to see that if in your case it was somebody else you wouldn't even speak about it let alone claim he was driving dirty. I know better now that to react to people like you with an agenda.

By seeing an agenda in every one, who has not your opinion?
Rosbergs move on Alonso is accepted to be dirty driving. So is Schumacher on Barrichello or the moves last year from Perez and Button. Alonso was even waved through last year with an overtake off the track because the other one did not leave room...
Now when it comes to Hamilton it is only because people dislike him when they say running off you opponent in a fight is dirty driving???

Can't believe some folk, we've had one of the best battles for years and people moan about the hard racing. What makes it funny is that their favourite driver will have pulled the same moves plenty of times over their racing careers.

Would you rather drivers just do qualifying laps single file?? If they clamp down on hard but fair racing they've lost a viewer in me that's for sure!!

+100

For me it is very sad, that you define hard driving in a manner, that it is only possible on a parking lot with lines on it. For me racing should always look like and should be done like it would be on a real track, with real grass or gravel and sometimes even walls next to the track. No dirty driving just because there is luckily no wall...

[Emerson.F]

[iotar__]

It's annoying how Mercedes is overselling this race, I bet they were pissing their pants every time they got within a second and thought about team orders 20 times throughout. Afterwards they pretend: Lowe "To be honest I didn’t get overly stressed about it" - I think he's not telling the truth, especially after they nearly crashed. http://adamcooperf1.com/2014/04/07/lowe ... s-to-race/
"We split the strategy in order to give a chance for an overtake on Lewis. That strategy was quite evenly matched relative to the option option prime." and later "The difference in the tyres appeared lower than we predicted and we’d seen in the practice sessions it was somewhere between three to five tenths, as it turned out."

I don't understand it - it was claimed here and there that Rosberg was faster, did better job, Hamilton had less pace etc. surely leaving them on the same strategies close to each other would have given him at least the same chance? One of the options can't be true. The closest real fight was on the same stint right before pitstop for Hamilton (tyres the factor?). Considering Rosberg was saving fuel earlier (or whatever it was) and ran couple of laps longer it would have been an even better opportunity without it. Makes sense?

Different strategy was 'evenly matched' to option-option-prime, only in theory I guess, LH had 9 seconds in hand, how can it be evenly matched to close that gap and overtake near the end of the race? Even if SC erased any fuel advantage (was it the case or just talk? I don't understand fuel info on-screen graphics, useless) Big tyres advantage turned out to be 0,3-0,5 s. and defending from it is now the greatest achievement in motorsport's history.

[Phil]

What really made me disappointed on Sunday was alternative strategy for Rosberg. Whoever says that Mercedes made it a fair fight has no idea what he is talking about. Only the safety car made it a fight after Mercedes had basically killed all excitement. It was very close in the first stint and I actually thought Rosberg would overtake Hamilton when Hamilton pited for the first time. But then, instead of following Hamilton's strategy and pit on the next lap and change to softs, Rosberg was kept out for another lap and given mediums for his longest stint. When Rosberg came out he had already lost 5 seconds to Hamilton on those to laps. He then lost another 4-5 seconds during the second stint. Only because of the safety car did we get some racing in the end, but Mercedes was clearly trying to avoid this.

http://adamcooperf1.com/2014/04/07/lowe ... s-to-race/
"We split the strategy in order to give a chance for an overtake on Lewis. That strategy was quite evenly matched relative to the option option prime." and later "The difference in the tyres appeared lower than we predicted and we’d seen in the practice sessions it was somewhere between three to five tenths, as it turned out."

I don't understand it - it was claimed here and there that Rosberg was faster, did better job, Hamilton had less pace etc. surely leaving them on the same strategies close to each other would have given him at least the same chance? One of the options can't be true. The closest real fight was on the same stint right before pitstop for Hamilton (tyres the factor?). Considering Rosberg was saving fuel earlier (or whatever it was) and ran couple of laps longer it would have been an even better opportunity without it. Makes sense?

If you read the team-radio (http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/04/08/m ... n-rosberg/), you can see that already on Lap 7, they were talking to Nico about some 'alternative strategy'. We can only assume what kind of strategy they were talking about, but it's pretty clear this scenario was talked about pre-race, as there is no context of that strategy before that radio call. It's pretty clear though that the strategy reminder to Nico was talking about staying out longer, so it could very well be that a 2nd stint on medium was something they looked at before the race.

One strategy might be better than the other, but judging in that moment with the data they had available, I don't see any reason to put it down to Mercedes not making it a fair fight. Every interview and every article I've read so far with Paddy, Wolff seems to suggest that each side of the garage (Nico / Lewis) were battling against each other and looking for the best strategy to one-up the other. One of them might have gotten them wrong, but I really don't see any foul play or Mercedes GP as a high level entity splitting the two on purpose.

Different strategy was 'evenly matched' to option-option-prime, only in theory I guess, LH had 9 seconds in hand, how can it be evenly matched to close that gap and overtake near the end of the race? Even if SC erased any fuel advantage (was it the case or just talk? I don't understand fuel info on-screen graphics, useless) Big tyres advantage turned out to be 0,3-0,5 s. and defending from it is now the greatest achievement in motorsport's history.

That's because in hindsight, it's always easier to analyze, because there's more data available. It wasn't that clear cut during the race. Lewis gained some time and headroom by the 'undercut' alone, so even if Rosberg had pitted for softs, he would have had to make up that time, in equal cars, eqal machinery. Not an easy feat, even if you have slightly better pace than your team-mate. Then there's also the passing, which Lewis already proved right at the start in the first stint that it wouldn't be easy, all else being equal. So the alternative strategy gave the potential to narrow that gap in the last stint, with a potential tyre performance. It might have worked out brilliantly, it might not have - we'll never know. Toto explained after the race though that both strategies in theory were very close - and during the race, Nico's pace on the medium (relative to Hamilton conserving his softs and making them last) were very good. It could well be that going down to the wire, being on the softs at the end might have yielded a significant advantage if could have closed that gap. With 15 laps to go and a gap of 9.5 seconds, it would require a tyre that's 0.64 quicker to narrow that gap to the flag. If you count in a few spare laps to pass, it would need to be around 0.8secs (with 3 laps to pass). I believe the soft tyres had that pace, given how light the cars were.

Seeing how Lewis defended hard, it might still not have worked out - but on the other hand, if he couldn't make it stick with 10 laps to the wire on new softs vs new mediums, how would he have fared on equal softs vs equal softs and equal mediums vs equal mediums? I doubt any better. And lets not forget one thing: Nico might have had slightly stronger pace on the softs, but there's no guarantee it would have been the same on the medium tyres.

[lebesset]

so now taking the normal racing line is deliberately crowding your opponent off the track , is it ? or do you think it is an abnormal change of direction ?
if that were the case there would be no motor racing !
if you try and overtake around the outside and cause a collision then you are culpable if the other driver keeps to the normal line

Imagine there is a concrete wall instead of the white line. I know there isn't, but in my opinion that's how they should be driving for the sake of fairness. Hamilton would've put both Rosberg and himself out of the race multiple times if there was a wall all along the white line.

Even then if you guys say "it's OK" i'd love to see someone do the same moves (crowding) in say - monaco or singapore You have to be consistent, rules are rules, you can't just turn a blind eye just because some tracks have run offs, it's a deceiving thought.

concrete wall instead of a white line ? even less chance of a collision , the overtaking driver would know that it was impossible unless he got his nose in front and therefore give way , it doesn't matter which two drivers are involved

[Stradivarius]

What really made me disappointed on Sunday was alternative strategy for Rosberg. Whoever says that Mercedes made it a fair fight has no idea what he is talking about. Only the safety car made it a fight after Mercedes had basically killed all excitement. It was very close in the first stint and I actually thought Rosberg would overtake Hamilton when Hamilton pited for the first time. But then, instead of following Hamilton's strategy and pit on the next lap and change to softs, Rosberg was kept out for another lap and given mediums for his longest stint. When Rosberg came out he had already lost 5 seconds to Hamilton on those to laps. He then lost another 4-5 seconds during the second stint. Only because of the safety car did we get some racing in the end, but Mercedes was clearly trying to avoid this.

http://adamcooperf1.com/2014/04/07/lowe ... s-to-race/
"We split the strategy in order to give a chance for an overtake on Lewis. That strategy was quite evenly matched relative to the option option prime." and later "The difference in the tyres appeared lower than we predicted and we’d seen in the practice sessions it was somewhere between three to five tenths, as it turned out."

I don't understand it - it was claimed here and there that Rosberg was faster, did better job, Hamilton had less pace etc. surely leaving them on the same strategies close to each other would have given him at least the same chance? One of the options can't be true. The closest real fight was on the same stint right before pitstop for Hamilton (tyres the factor?). Considering Rosberg was saving fuel earlier (or whatever it was) and ran couple of laps longer it would have been an even better opportunity without it. Makes sense?

If you read the team-radio (http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/04/08/m ... n-rosberg/), you can see that already on Lap 7, they were talking to Nico about some 'alternative strategy'. We can only assume what kind of strategy they were talking about, but it's pretty clear this scenario was talked about pre-race, as there is no context of that strategy before that radio call. It's pretty clear though that the strategy reminder to Nico was talking about staying out longer, so it could very well be that a 2nd stint on medium was something they looked at before the race.

One strategy might be better than the other, but judging in that moment with the data they had available, I don't see any reason to put it down to Mercedes not making it a fair fight. Every interview and every article I've read so far with Paddy, Wolff seems to suggest that each side of the garage (Nico / Lewis) were battling against each other and looking for the best strategy to one-up the other. One of them might have gotten them wrong, but I really don't see any foul play or Mercedes GP as a high level entity splitting the two on purpose.

I am not talking about any foul play. I am sure they had prepared for this and maybe even agreed that the driver behind would switched to the different strategy. In that case you could still say that Rosberg had a fair chance, as he started in pole and would have gotten the prefered strategy if he had stayed in front. Each driver's team were probably competing against each other under certain rules, decided by the team leaders.

What we know is that the tires degrade over time and it is a huge advantage to pit first. In this case it appeared to be worth around 2.5 seconds per lap. This is also very predictable and Mercedes stoped after many others, so they knew the consequences, but still chose to keep Rosberg out for 2 more laps. Of course, they were so close that it wouldn't have made sense to take them both in on the same lap, so Rosberg was given one unnecessary lap, which in effect gave Hamilton roughly 2.5 seconds extra gap. When Hamilton pitted, Rosberg was only a couple of tenths behind him. When Rosberg completed his outlap 3 laps later, he was 6 seconds behind Hamilton. He may have lost some on the outlap, so let's say 5 seconds in two laps because of a later stop.

Another thing to consider is that Rosberg was told during his second stint on mediums that the mediums were actually faster than they had expected. We know that Rosberg was about 9.5 seconds behind Hamilton when they pitted for the second time. This must be less than what Mercedes had planned, as they said that they expected the mediums to be slower. I don't know what they had planned, so I will just stick to the 9.5 seconds. They pitted after 41 laps, after the safety car was brought out, so it is fair to assume they actually planned to go even longer. But I can still make my point by assuming that they were planning to pit at that time. There was only 16 more laps of the race and the gap was 9.5 seconds, only as a result of Rosberg's different strategy. Is it feasible to say that this strategy would allow Rosberg to win back those 9.5 seconds and still have time to challenge Hamilton? To be able to overtake into turn 1, Rosberg would have needed to catch up with Hamilton with at least 2 laps to go, so he could spend one lap getting close enough and then make his move in turn 1 on the final lap. To do this, he would have needed to catch Hamilton by almost 0.7 s per lap. The tires would only give him around 0.3 s per lap. So Rosberg would have had to make up an extra 0.4 seconds per lap himself. The difference between them was never that big and to me it is obvious that his strategy was bad for Rosberg.

If you only use one set of tires, the quickest strategy is normally to run 3 equally long stints, which in Bahrain is 19 laps. The reason for this is purely mathematical and is based on minimizing the average age of your tires. When you have to use both types, the quickest strategy is normally to run 2 equally long stints on the better tires and 1 shorter stint on the worse tires. Since degradation didn't give the mediums an advantage even after 20 laps, it is obvious to me that the best strategy is to minimize the time spent on mediums. And this is exactly what Hamilton was told during the race. They wanted to minimize the time on mediums. So why did Rosberg run 20 laps on mediums, when he proved on the first stint that he could perfectly well go 21 laps on softs? Why did they plan to do 16 or less laps on softs in the end when they knew that they could have ran at least 20 laps? The simplest and in my opinion most reasonable explaination I can find is that the team wanted to avoid wheel-to-wheel battles, which is perfectly understandable. This time it even gave us some great racing, but my point is that it was not a result of the team made it a fair fight, it was a result of the safety car removing the 10 second gap that the team had practically handed to Hamilton by running Rosberg on a pretty strange strategy.

[komninosm]

Wow, Mercedes were gaining almost 3 seconds a lap on the other teams in the end.
Is that a bit too much?

[Phil]

Stradivarius,

Where do you conclude that, and I quote - "To do this, he would have needed to catch Hamilton by almost 0.7 s per lap. The tires would only give him around 0.3 s per lap. So Rosberg would have had to make up an extra 0.4 seconds per lap himself." - that the tires would only give him around 0.3 sec per lap? Everything I've seen points to the fact that they were significantly quicker. If you are concluding 0.3.sec per lap by comparing their 2nd stint (Ham on softs, Ros on meds), I think this not quite correct, as both were on different strategies - one driver (Ros) getting most out of the mediums and the other (Ham) trying to prolong the life of his tyres to keep his last stint short. The 0.3sec you see that made Hamilton go from ~6sec to ~9.5sec was due to that compromise at the fuel load / weight of the car. I think it's safe to say that on a lighter car with less than 15 laps to go and no fuel saving, that the pace difference between tyres would be quite significantly larger than what we witnessed in the middle stint.

I also disagree with the notion that the 'quickest strategy using 1 tire' is to do 3 equally long stints. The car is the heaviest at the start and the lightest at the end. Because of this, the latteral force and strain on the tyres is proportionally higher at the beginning of the race than it is at the end. The quickest strategy therefore would be varying lengths of stint - perhaps 15, 19, 23 (just making an educated guess here). Fuel level would change these numbers slightly if the driver is 'fuel saving / coasting and lifting' at the beginning but 'on it' at the end of it. This also doesn't cover the 'rubbering in' of the track, but that would only support the thesis that the stints can potentially become longer towards the end (less strain on the tires).

Coming back to strategy - yes, Rosberg did lose 5-6 seconds by pitting 2 laps later. The question is however, was that entirely due to his tires reaching the "cliff" or did he perhaps make a driver error as well? And when exactly were those 5-6 seconds messured? After Rosberg completed his outlap or before? I'm asking because the mediums were likely the harder tyre to get up to temperature - so an outlap would be slower than Hamilton's one. If there was no safety car and Hamilton would need to do an outlap on mediums as well (not under safety-car), he would have had the same disadvantage of having to switch on his tyres. This was effectively nullfied given the safety-car situation and he had a few laps to put heat into them. I would think the 5-6 seconds you are seeing here are slightly exaggerated for this reason.

Given the radio call on lap 7 where Tony Ross told Nico to remember he was on an alternative strategy makes me assume he was always going to pit those 2 laps later - and go for a middle stint on medium tyres. This was also before Rosberg battled with Hamilton for pit-stop-priority and position, so at that point, the team didn't know how close the fight might end up. So I really don't think the strategy was 'split' to avoid battling.

I do think that had Rosberg opted to go for softs in his second stint, perhaps a lap later (as you are suggesting) that the gap would still be at 2-3 seconds. Rosberg would then need to make up that time on equal tires and attempt a pass. Not being able to successfully pull this off, would effectively mean that Hamilton - again - would get priority on last stint pitstop, pulling ahead again. Rosberg might have been quicker in the opening stint on used softs (remember; tyres from Q2), so it's not absolute certainty that he would be as much quicker on new softs (hypothetical 2nd stint) and quicker on mediums on the last stint (hypothetical 3rd stint) on a much lighter car with no fuel-saving-modes.

I really do think the 'alternative' strategy (which IMO was clearly dicussed before the race) gave him the best chance on beating Lewis - or at the very least, not a distinct disadvantage.

[lebesset]

seems that kimi was driving a damaged car almost througout the weekend after hitting the kerb [ that was later removed ?] in FP1 and ferrari didn't detect all the damage ; must have been quite bad for them to stop their tests today

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/formula1/26961345

looks like it will take a miracle for kimi to get a bit of luck

[lebesset]

Stradivarius,

Where do you conclude that, and I quote - "To do this, he would have needed to catch Hamilton by almost 0.7 s per lap. The tires would only give him around 0.3 s per lap. So Rosberg would have had to make up an extra 0.4 seconds per lap himself." - that the tires would only give him around 0.3 sec per lap? Everything I've seen points to the fact that they were significantly quicker. If you are concluding 0.3.sec per lap by comparing their 2nd stint (Ham on softs, Ros on meds), I think this not quite correct, as both were on different strategies - one driver (Ros) getting most out of the mediums and the other (Ham) trying to prolong the life of his tyres to keep his last stint short. The 0.3sec you see that made Hamilton go from ~6sec to ~9.5sec was due to that compromise at the fuel load / weight of the car. I think it's safe to say that on a lighter car with less than 15 laps to go and no fuel saving, that the pace difference between tyres would be quite significantly larger than what we witnessed in the middle stint.

I also disagree with the notion that the 'quickest strategy using 1 tire' is to do 3 equally long stints. The car is the heaviest at the start and the lightest at the end. Because of this, the latteral force and strain on the tyres is proportionally higher at the beginning of the race than it is at the end. The quickest strategy therefore would be varying lengths of stint - perhaps 15, 19, 23 (just making an educated guess here). Fuel level would change these numbers slightly if the driver is 'fuel saving / coasting and lifting' at the beginning but 'on it' at the end of it. This also doesn't cover the 'rubbering in' of the track, but that would only support the thesis that the stints can potentially become longer towards the end (less strain on the tires).

Coming back to strategy - yes, Rosberg did lose 5-6 seconds by pitting 2 laps later. The question is however, was that entirely due to his tires reaching the "cliff" or did he perhaps make a driver error as well? And when exactly were those 5-6 seconds messured? After Rosberg completed his outlap or before? I'm asking because the mediums were likely the harder tyre to get up to temperature - so an outlap would be slower than Hamilton's one. If there was no safety car and Hamilton would need to do an outlap on mediums as well (not under safety-car), he would have had the same disadvantage of having to switch on his tyres. This was effectively nullfied given the safety-car situation and he had a few laps to put heat into them. I would think the 5-6 seconds you are seeing here are slightly exaggerated for this reason.

Given the radio call on lap 7 where Tony Ross told Nico to remember he was on an alternative strategy makes me assume he was always going to pit those 2 laps later - and go for a middle stint on medium tyres. This was also before Rosberg battled with Hamilton for pit-stop-priority and position, so at that point, the team didn't know how close the fight might end up. So I really don't think the strategy was 'split' to avoid battling.

I do think that had Rosberg opted to go for softs in his second stint, perhaps a lap later (as you are suggesting) that the gap would still be at 2-3 seconds. Rosberg would then need to make up that time on equal tires and attempt a pass. Not being able to successfully pull this off, would effectively mean that Hamilton - again - would get priority on last stint pitstop, pulling ahead again. Rosberg might have been quicker in the opening stint on used softs (remember; tyres from Q2), so it's not absolute certainty that he would be as much quicker on new softs (hypothetical 2nd stint) and quicker on mediums on the last stint (hypothetical 3rd stint) on a much lighter car with no fuel-saving-modes.

I really do think the 'alternative' strategy (which IMO was clearly dicussed before the race) gave him the best chance on beating Lewis - or at the very least, not a distinct disadvantage.

+1 on that ; it seems clear to me that rosberg's agreed strategy was that he would go option option if he was ahead of hamilton and option prime if hamilton had got past him as his best chance ; I think once hamilton was past early the die was cast and , because hamilton stretched his options in the middle phase [ when told he had ample fuel he said ...I'm saving the tyres man ! ] rosberg wouldn't have had enough laps ; however , the safety car intervened and we will never know

incidentally in the red bull competition , I just noticed that danny used 3 used sets of tyres , vettel 3 new sets

[Emerson.F]

seems that kimi was driving a damaged car almost througout the weekend after hitting the kerb [ that was later removed ?] in FP1 and ferrari didn't detect all the damage ; must have been quite bad for them to stop their tests today

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/formula1/26961345

looks like it will take a miracle for kimi to get a bit of luck

He did have quite a bump on T4. I feel bad for Kimi and Fred with that Ferrari.

Ps: for all the bickering going on upstairs