2015 Chinese Grand Prix - Shanghai, April 10-12

[godlameroso]

Well it could make the race interesting for Ferrari if they can carry 3-4 more laps per stint than the Mercedes, because if by the second stint you've gone 6-7 extra laps, that means the tires for the final stint will have that much more life in them and you'll be able to lean on them harder than tires that have to do 20 laps instead of 14.

[Moose]

Well it could make the race interesting for Ferrari if they can carry 3-4 more laps per stint than the Mercedes, because if by the second stint you've gone 6-7 extra laps, that means the tires for the final stint will have that much more life in them and you'll be able to lean on them harder than tires that have to do 20 laps instead of 14.

Except no one's going to end up doing 20 laps in their final stint.

A reasonable strategy is going to look something like this:
Option - 13 laps
Prime - 30 laps
Option - 14 laps

Admittedly still, doing 8 laps in your final stint rather than 14 is going to mean you have a lot of spare pace, but I don't think that'll be an issue - Mercedes look to have too much of a pace advantage for it to matter. By the time we get to that point in the race I expect Hamilton to be 15 seconds down the road.

[gray41]

This all depends on the start, Vettel needs to get ahead of Rosberg to stand any chance.

[Jano11]

the speed trap has no bearing on power, because it doesn't take the amount of downforce on the car into account.

Bingo!

[ferkan]

Well it could make the race interesting for Ferrari if they can carry 3-4 more laps per stint than the Mercedes, because if by the second stint you've gone 6-7 extra laps, that means the tires for the final stint will have that much more life in them and you'll be able to lean on them harder than tires that have to do 20 laps instead of 14.

Except no one's going to end up doing 20 laps in their final stint.

A reasonable strategy is going to look something like this:
Option - 13 laps
Prime - 30 laps
Option - 14 laps

Admittedly still, doing 8 laps in your final stint rather than 14 is going to mean you have a lot of spare pace, but I don't think that'll be an issue - Mercedes look to have too much of a pace advantage for it to matter. By the time we get to that point in the race I expect Hamilton to be 15 seconds down the road.

That strategy might (miiight) work for Ferrari, but no one else is running 30 laps on medium tires without huge drop of.

I think Merc might go with something like this :12 laps options, 26 laps prime, 18 laps prime.

I doubt they can do longer stint on primes when the fuel is full judging by their FP but you never know, I think 26 is pushing it.

[evered7]

A reasonable strategy is going to look something like this:
Option - 13 laps
Prime - 30 laps
Option - 14 laps

Admittedly still, doing 8 laps in your final stint rather than 14 is going to mean you have a lot of spare pace, but I don't think that'll be an issue - Mercedes look to have too much of a pace advantage for it to matter. By the time we get to that point in the race I expect Hamilton to be 15 seconds down the road.

30 laps on the medium for Mercedes will help Ferrari. Rosberg and Kimi ran the tires during FP2 and Kimi was able to hold his pace longer than Rosberg (19 vs 13 laps I think) and was faster at the end. Of course, as dans79 mentioned there were a lot of variables unknown.

But allowing for a reasonable assumption, it still gives Ferrari a big advantage and a possibility of doing a 1- stopper maybe?

[dans79]

But allowing for a reasonable assumption, it still gives Ferrari a big advantage and a possibility of doing a 1- stopper maybe?

No way any team can one stop, unless they manage to sneak some old Bridgestone's onto the car.

[evered7]

But allowing for a reasonable assumption, it still gives Ferrari a big advantage and a possibility of doing a 1- stopper maybe?

No way any team can one stop, unless they manage to sneak some old Bridgestone's onto the car.

Ferrari can't win on outright pace especially when the fuel is low. They have to take some risks. if Mercedes can do 30 on medium, I suppose Ferrari can do more. As already shown by Vettel, running in clear air has its advantages. I think Ferrari will take that over chasing Mercedes in dirty air any day.

I think Kimi might do that strategy if at all they attempt it (if he has all parts of the car intact after the first 3 laps )

[GPR-A duplicate2]

But allowing for a reasonable assumption, it still gives Ferrari a big advantage and a possibility of doing a 1- stopper maybe?

No way any team can one stop, unless they manage to sneak some old Bridgestone's onto the car.

Ferrari can't win on outright pace especially when the fuel is low. They have to take some risks. if Mercedes can do 30 on medium, I suppose Ferrari can do more. As already shown by Vettel, running in clear air has its advantages. I think Ferrari will take that over chasing Mercedes in dirty air any day.

I think Kimi might do that strategy if at all they attempt it (if he has all parts of the car intact after the first 3 laps )

Trying to do one stopper means, you have to be conservative from the lap 1 to ensure you have greater tyre life. That would obviously mean losing a lot of time per lap to the guy you are fighting with, who is on two stopper. The practice times, where you see great tyre life, isn't exactly the same as that in race situation as you are fighting with other cars, chasing through dirty air, all of which affect the tyre life. If in some situation, a driver tries to be slightly aggressive and breaks hard and flat spots, gone is the strategy and for that not to happen, a driver has to be always conservative in breaking zones. If Ferrari can do this magic and wins, which no car has ever done at Shanghai, that would make the SF15S-T, the greatest car in the PIRELLI era to manage tyres. Pirelli tyres have a cliff and after that, its a steep fall. Ask Kimi for that, who went with a bad strategy few years back in Lotus and was a sitting duck after tyres fell off the cliff. If Ferrari does Soft-Soft-Med or Soft-Med-Soft and Merc had to rely on Soft-Med-Med, which seems to be the case, then anyway Ferrari stands a chance even with a two stopper.

[Moose]

The track's warmer than expected. Could well play into the hands of Ferrari.

[SilverArrow10]

Bernie insulting his audience there..........

[Moose]

Bernie insulting his audience there..........

Yeh, I was loving that - you guys need to dumb it down, the audience are all idiots.

No wonder we don't have any real data available.

[Traction]

Bernie insulting his audience there..........

What did he say / do?

[atanatizante]

Last year they had the same soft and medium tyres and top teams were doing OPP strategy.
First pitstop was between 11 and 18 lap, with Alonso on 14 lap and Lewis on 18th.
Then the second round of pitstops was between 32 and 38 lap (Lewis).
On the race day track temp was 28C but now we have 46C.
Delta time between the option and medium will be somewhere between 1-1,2 sec. on the race with more rubbered track so you don't need to stay too long on the prime tyre if you were on a 2 stop strategy.
So taking into account that soft tyre has a higher operation window than medium one and the fact that they saved a fresh set of options and the left front tyre issue, my prediction is:
Ferrari is on a OOP strategy and Merc on OOOP one and that is despite Nico telling us the soft tyre is not the race tyre, coz Lewis said the time delta between a 2 stops and 3 stops is almost 2 sec.(and gived us a biiig smile)
So my question is why they saved one set of options if medium tyre is the race tyre?
Maybe Merc could do a OOPO, with a last stint on the fresh option tyres in order to capitalise the situation when others are on used tyres?
Another factor is the presence of the SC, which could alter their strategy towards a OPO one, depending when could this occur ..

[SectorOne]

Bernie just slapped a guy in the face lol.