2015 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir

[evered7]

giantfan10, I am not trying to press my point home or anything. Just trying to understand the Merc fans reasoning while trying to clear mine. It's a good debate as long as we keep it civil.

Also I am at loss to answer your questions regarding the PU changes. Mod turbof1 explained it in the SF15-T thread. But I am not sure if this topic was touched in that update.

Updates can't be applied on PU component that were used or are current in use, so to make things atleast a bit more managable for the teams they can choose to keep using an old spec of the PU component until they feel the time is ripe. They are even allowed to inject a PU allocation with the token updates, and later on reusing the older allocation with the older specification.

This indicates that the components have to go as a set and cannot have one old and one new piece. They may reuse the old slower PU but as a whole lot. No mix and match possible I guess.

Andres125sx, I believe Mercedes would have pushed as much as they possibly could. It would have been stupid of them not to. Rosberg was caught by Kimi and Hamilton was possibly one more lap away from being demoted to 2nd. If they didn't push in the second stint, they would have done in the third at least after seeing how fast and consistent Kimi was.

[dans79]

The brake handicap was caused by their own setup issues and nothing else. If Ferrari were down on fuel and couldn't attack, it would be attributed to their engines being thirsty and not an efficient one. I don't see why this should be any different.

I'm not saying it's any different, I'm saying why they did it. In my opinion, why is as important if not more so than the result.


for the power unit allocations its broken down like this as I understand it. Each part is considered a compete system, and only one spec of each component can be in use at any one time. I also believe that's per engine manufacture, not race team.


ICE : Internal Combustion Engine
TC : Turbo Charger
MGU-H : Motor Generator Unit - Heat
MGU-K : Motor Generator Unit - Kinetic
ES : Energy store
CE : Control Electonics

[Andres125sx]

Andres125sx, I believe Mercedes would have pushed as much as they possibly could. It would have been stupid of them not to. Rosberg was caught by Kimi and Hamilton was possibly one more lap away from being demoted to 2nd. If they didn't push in the second stint, they would have done in the third at least after seeing how fast and consistent Kimi was.

I´m not that sure. If you´re faster than your rivals it makes sense to be only as fast as needed to avoid pushing your mechanics more than needed as it will increase your chances to suffer some failure, and IMO that´s what they did. But then they suffered a brake issue and Rosberg lost his second place, one of those things you can´t control

Actuallly I´m not that sure about Rosberg, but IMO Hamilton was controlling the race from first lap to last. Yes they had brake issues on both cars and that can ruin their strategy, but pushing harder for the whole race would not solve the problem that´s sure.

Maybe they would have suffered same problem but some laps earlier and then they´d have gifted not only second place but the victory too. They managed a 1-3 with brake problems on both cars, not a bad strategy I think. They pushed exactly the minimum to win the race, a bit less and Kimi could have threaten Lewis, a bit more and maybe those issues would have force them to retire

[ferkan]

So they were actually pushing? They had to save fuel, had to save tires and had breaking failures at the end of the race. Its pretty evident they pushed as much as they could and quite frankly in parts where they didnt need to do those "savings" they were plainly faster. But thats racing, and if it was the case of how much faster on one lap they are then look no further then from qualis.

[n04h f1]

Does anyone have a chart of the number of PU components used so far?

[dans79]

Does anyone have a chart of the number of PU components used so far?

Official ones only come out before the race weekend, but I found this one for post Bahrain and it seems correct based on what I have pieced together.

https://twitter.com/AlbertFabrega/statu ... 72/photo/1

[n04h f1]

Does anyone have a chart of the number of PU components used so far?

Official ones only come out before the race weekend, but I found this one for post Bahrain and it seems correct based on what I have pieced together.

https://twitter.com/AlbertFabrega/statu ... 72/photo/1

Thank you!

[dans79]

Thank you!

You're welcome!

[MarkedOne8]

The chances for beating Lewis this year are little to none, but why not next year? Alonso is not the person who should regret the decison. In my opinion, Ferrari as a family/franchise should be regreting why they didn't get rid of old office earlier. Anything between Todt and Arrivabene eras is black spot in history of Ferrari. Alonso is good and fast driver but political cancer.

Political cancer?

I wonder how many top drivers driving such a slow car as he did last season, and the previous one, and previous, and previous... would have been as politically correct as he´s been the five seasons he was driving for them. He never blamed the team for being unable to fight on equal conditions with fastest car, RBR or Mercedes, he was always positive about every car and season

If you disagree, please provide some quote from Alonso to support your statement



And yes maybe next season they will fight for the championship.... or maybe they´ll continue the same. After 5 seasons buying Ferrari´s promises it was enough

McLaren-Honda looked like a more promising project, right now it doesn´t look like a correct choice, but we will see at the end of the season what team has more chances for next season, I can´t rely on Ferrari too much, they´ve been winning some races most seasons, but never enough to fight for the championship. This season looks like more of the same

Is there any special topic on this forum for FA? I would likely fill it with dozens of links. I can't argue in this topic. But I'm giving you props for calling for arguments, especially from windvaves douche guy.

that was my whole point, sorry you feel offended by my hideous language - but I feel that when someone calls any body "political cancer", that is an insult and I do not argue with those who insult. Indeed.

Political cancer was the nicest therm that I could come up with when it comes to FA. I didn't attack you, but your feelings are hurt no matter what. lol Nice arguments.

As for the Bahrain 2015, Nico was racing flat out with no doubts. Lewis maybe had reasons to cool down and save tyres, engine, etc. but Nico wanted to beat Lewis. I see no reason why would Nico save more than he had to do...? The team had 40 laps to think about and look after Raikkonen's race because he was on different strategy. I know they were focusing on Vettel, but at least one person was monitoring RAI and they were well on time aware of his pace. RAI was better in this race than Vettel. Imagine him starting from second on the grid. If you are saving the tyres, that means you are keeping them for the later part of the race. We are now getting into IFs discussion, but my point is that SF-15T is good car with lots of potential which could have won this GP on pure pace. I'm still stating that Merc is about 0.4 faster in Q and about 0.2 in Race.

There is no point of sandbagging during the season. Even the slowest cars are sometimes forced to preserve their tyres.

[djos]

I just watched the finish again and my god how lucky was Daniel having his engine blow with just enough time to cross the finish line!

That plume of smoke was so dense the commentators thought it was from the fireworks at first!

There haven some harsh critics around Honda but Renault´s work with the engine is just terrible. And its the second season and they have two teams.

Yep, Renault are performing worse on every metric this year compared to last year.

[PlatinumZealot]

Andres125sx, I believe Mercedes would have pushed as much as they possibly could. It would have been stupid of them not to. Rosberg was caught by Kimi and Hamilton was possibly one more lap away from being demoted to 2nd. If they didn't push in the second stint, they would have done in the third at least after seeing how fast and consistent Kimi was.

I´m not that sure. If you´re faster than your rivals it makes sense to be only as fast as needed to avoid pushing your mechanics more than needed as it will increase your chances to suffer some failure, and IMO that´s what they did. But then they suffered a brake issue and Rosberg lost his second place, one of those things you can´t control

Actuallly I´m not that sure about Rosberg, but IMO Hamilton was controlling the race from first lap to last. Yes they had brake issues on both cars and that can ruin their strategy, but pushing harder for the whole race would not solve the problem that´s sure.

Maybe they would have suffered same problem but some laps earlier and then they´d have gifted not only second place but the victory too. They managed a 1-3 with brake problems on both cars, not a bad strategy I think. They pushed exactly the minimum to win the race, a bit less and Kimi could have threaten Lewis, a bit more and maybe those issues would have force them to retire

From qualifying, I estimated an advantage8 tenths over a flying lap for Hamilton in particular, and I think I was pretty close after what I saw in the race. The pace was not shown because the car was tuned to preserve the tyres over the race and for whatever reason it required reducing the brake cooling. It was so bad that Rosberg's brakes were hot from lap 2 so he couldn't push in the braking zones. You just have to look at the relative ease at which Rosberg overtook Vettel and Kimi. You just don't do away with a Ferrari in 2 corners if your car is not at least half a second faster.

[giantfan10]

Andres125sx, I believe Mercedes would have pushed as much as they possibly could. It would have been stupid of them not to. Rosberg was caught by Kimi and Hamilton was possibly one more lap away from being demoted to 2nd. If they didn't push in the second stint, they would have done in the third at least after seeing how fast and consistent Kimi was.

I´m not that sure. If you´re faster than your rivals it makes sense to be only as fast as needed to avoid pushing your mechanics more than needed as it will increase your chances to suffer some failure, and IMO that´s what they did. But then they suffered a brake issue and Rosberg lost his second place, one of those things you can´t control

Actuallly I´m not that sure about Rosberg, but IMO Hamilton was controlling the race from first lap to last. Yes they had brake issues on both cars and that can ruin their strategy, but pushing harder for the whole race would not solve the problem that´s sure.

Maybe they would have suffered same problem but some laps earlier and then they´d have gifted not only second place but the victory too. They managed a 1-3 with brake problems on both cars, not a bad strategy I think. They pushed exactly the minimum to win the race, a bit less and Kimi could have threaten Lewis, a bit more and maybe those issues would have force them to retire

From qualifying, I estimated an advantage8 tenths over a flying lap for Hamilton in particular, and I think I was pretty close after what I saw in the race. The pace was not shown because the car was tuned to preserve the tyres over the race and for whatever reason it required reducing the brake cooling. It was so bad that Rosberg's brakes were hot from lap 2 so he couldn't push in the braking zones. You just have to look at the relative ease at which Rosberg overtook Vettel and Kimi. You just don't do away with a Ferrari in 2 corners if your car is not at least half a second faster.

DRS... some love it and some hate it....Rosberg i'm thinking loves it because every single pass he made in the bahrain GP save one on a ferrari (vettel went too deep into turn 1)was at the end of the main straight after using DRS to get past...yes his car was probably half a second faster with his DRS open and the ferraris shut.....
hamilton was .411 of a second faster than the ferrari in qualifying.... PERIOD. where you get these imaginary numbers from is a mystery to me... please elaborate
the pace of the car is the pace of the car is the pace of the car....whatever compromises mercedes used to set their car up is the way it is .. you dont get to discount that then create some imaginary numbers to suite your position.
on another note .. the compromises that mercedes made setting the car up after FP3 created pace it didnt reduce their pace

[Earnard Beccelstone]

Interesting race, more so for its implications for the rest of the season.

Mercedes has outright single lap pace and I think they’ll retain that advantage, to a greater or lesser degree, through the season.

Ferrari seems to have an advantage with how it handles the tyres. So, depending on the track it could make certain strategies work better for it than Mercedes, meaning better race pace.

I was surprised though that Ferrari couldn’t get past the Williams, even with only a moderate tyre advantage. This doesn’t bode particularly well for Ferrari for the rest of the season; even if the red cars are faster than the Mercedes due to better tyre management and/or strategy, they may not have enough to get past.

RedBull appears to be going backwards. Ricciardo is doing well to keep that car in the top eight. It looks worse in the corners than it did last year and way down on power.

The top two teams appear to be closer together on race pace now. Mercedes well ahead in qualifying and I’d say a shade ahead in races. Then there’s a considerable gap to Williams and then another, albeit smaller, gap to RedBull.

The rest of the teams – bar Manor - are all slugging it out for the final few point paying positions. Interesting to be sure, and there’s some great racing in the mid-pack, but I cant but wish that there were more teams fighting for podiums rather than 8, 9 and 10.

Once the improvement packages are all introduced in Spain, it will be interesting to see where everyone shakes out.

I don’t know what Mercedes is bringing, but Ferrari are rumoured to have a fairly significant aero package coming on-stream for Spain and a small engine upgrade, and then another more serious engine improvement around Canada.

The big one to watch for me will be McLaren Honda. If the team bring the rumoured 40-50 hp improvement in Spain, along with some rear bodywork and wing improvements, I think they could be running with the Torro Rosso, Force India and Sauber and aiming for first points for the season.

[evered7]

The brake handicap was caused by their own setup issues and nothing else. If Ferrari were down on fuel and couldn't attack, it would be attributed to their engines being thirsty and not an efficient one. I don't see why this should be any different.

I'm not saying it's any different, I'm saying why they did it. In my opinion, why is as important if not more so than the result.

http://adamcooperf1.com/2015/04/20/merc ... ays-wolff/

They made those changes to give them an advantage. Whether it was for pace or was it for extended tire wear is known only to Mercedes maybe. But it looks like all was not hunky dory with the Mercs on Friday.

You were saying Kimi passed Nico because of the brake issue and I acknowledge it. I am just adding that this was an expected problem that Mercedes predicted because of the setup changes and tried controlling but ultimately failed. Lucky for them that the race ended where it did.

[giantfan10]

Interesting race, more so for its implications for the rest of the season.

Mercedes has outright single lap pace and I think they’ll retain that advantage, to a greater or lesser degree, through the season.no way to know this,it all depends on how much ferrari improves over the season along with how much mercedes improves

Ferrari seems to have an advantage with how it handles the tyres. So, depending on the track it could make certain strategies work better for it than Mercedes, meaning better race pace.fair enough

I was surprised though that Ferrari couldn’t get past the Williams, even with only a moderate tyre advantage. This doesn’t bode particularly well for Ferrari for the rest of the season; even if the red cars are faster than the Mercedes due to better tyre management and/or strategy, they may not have enough to get past

suspect logic...this is the same ferrari that has blown the williams away in every race this year...the ferrari has already passed the mercs on track more than once... dont take one instance in one race with specific circumstances and use it to make a decision about the rest of the season
vettel got out of the pits after he changed his front wing and set quite a few blistering laps second fastest lap in the race actually then he caught bottas...and got stuck behind him... vettels excuse was that following bottas that close with already worn tires ruined his tires and he didnt have enough to pass ... who knows