2015 Monaco Grand Prix - 21-24 May

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Should they have called Lewis into the pits? In hindsight no. But it was a yes/no split second decision. They just miscalculated the time needed for Rosberg and Vettel to overtake Lewis under the safety car speeds.

And some rants from me - I generaly like them, but lately they just pi** me off. These idi*** at Sky keep going on how could Merc have made such an error in how much time they need for a pit stop, since they have done it already a thousand times this weekend, without even considering, that under the safety car, you don't loose that much time, especially here, with such a short pitlane. If the safety car hadn't been waiting for Lewis at Rascasse, it would have been enough and Ted, Martin, Johnny, Damon and Crofty would all be jumping in the air, claiming how brilliant Merc strategy was in eliminating any concerns about tyre longevity/damage...

First of all, was there even a need to pit him. Sky people were pointing out that, there was no action in Ferrari garage in terms of bringing any of their driver, to which Merc should have responded. Ferrari was the only threat and when they were not responding, what was the need for Merc to act. Split second? The guy who made that decision was clearly out of his mind. They pitted on lap 66 and by any conservative standards, a safety car goes on for atleast 4 laps (with all the stupidity of letting the lapped cars). The safety car was in on 72 lap, leaving just 6 laps to go, which was such easy thing to do on this track, even with those worn tyres. If there is one track where you can go with completely dead tyres, this is the one. I would be surprised if Merc doesn't change anything in terms of their strategy team, which is just as bad in its performance as a Marussia.

[Shrieker]

Christmas comes early for Rosberg this year, but Hamilton should share the fault. I wouldn’t have come in and he shouldn’t have either.

He should've taken a leaf out of Ayrton's book even if his tires were ruined. Which they weren't.

Part of being a racing driver is trusting the team. Plus he's an employee for the team. So he does what they tell him

Great drivers take the initiative. Simple. You can't overtake in Monaco. Hamilton knew straight away that he had lost when he came out behind. So he knows track position is everything here and paid the price for not taking the initiative.

[SectorOne]

Toto saying math was wrong, by 3,5 seconds.
It´s amazing when you think about it. All those millions and basic math cripples them.

[Jordan44]

Christmas comes early for Rosberg this year, but Hamilton should share the fault. I wouldn’t have come in and he shouldn’t have either.

He should've taken a leaf out of Ayrton's book even if his tires were ruined. Which they weren't.

Part of being a racing driver is trusting the team. Plus he's an employee for the team. So he does what they tell him

Great drivers take the initiative. Simple. You can't overtake in Monaco. Hamilton new straight away that he had lost when he came out behind. So he knows track position is everything here and paid the price for not taking the initiative.

Complete bollocks. The team, the ones with computers that do simulations and a maths genius as the strategist, told him it was necessary and he trusted them.

[Italiano]

I for one haven't laughed this much in a long time. Goddamn comedy gold.

[Steven]

Another warning to keep things constructive.
Post will get removed, and people will get a cooldown ban if they can't behave!

[henra]

And about catching the safety car: he was driving to a delta. If he had driven slower, the gap to those behind would simply have decreased earlier as they were all driving to the (virtual) safety car delta.

Indeed. That discussion is absolutely moot. It wouldn't have made the slightest difference in which way he ended up behind the SC, if quicker or slower. At the end the SC decided at what Point in time he could enter into the pits. Without the interference of the SC it would have worked and everyone would have applauded how cleverly they secured the win for him. It went differently but they didn't revise their plan once they found out that Lewis got stuck and lost too much time. That was their mistake. Since the SC continued in the same pace once Lewis went into the pits the second car could move up into Lewis Position behind the SC gaining him almost another second. That second could have been the final nail in their calculation.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

How idiotic Nico was looking there, celebrating a win that he fully know he didn't earned. I remember when Barrichello left the race win to Michael, Michael was far more gracious. May be that's the difference between great drivers and cheap ones.

1. This was completely different situation, comparable one is in case you forgot Canada 2014 and Rosberg losing the lead through pitstops, did Hamilton give it back? These things happen. Do you think anyone was fired then? Was anyone fired for Hungary '14 strategy? 2. Schumacher = meaningless dishonest graciousness, did he give the points and win back? As for Hamilton and your selective driver standards: was he celebrating Silverstone win last season, did he look idiotic and cheap to you then? Perhaps you should use more restrain in calling drivers you don't like names?

I think luck more or less equalised itself, Rosberg lost the second place in Bahrain through brake failure, strategy and Ferrari pace, Hamilton was a bit lucky in Barcelona that Ferrari were at their weakest. He deserved this win as Rosberg deserved one in Silverstone. If it's about Monaco don't forget 2008. If it's about bad strategy: Barcelona '14 (edit) and Hungary.

Ricciardo on Raikkonen wasn't an overtake - it was a foul and it should be penalised.

You are such a double standard guy. You were the one who was barking about how it was not bad luck whatever was happening with various drivers a few races back. Now you are using it to justify your happiness towards your FAVORITE driver getting a win.

[ChrisM40]

The guys on Sky are right, track position is everything in Monaco. Maybe if he has 30 seconds it was worth it, but when it was only ever going to be extremely marginal, even if the stop was perfectly timed and executed, it just wasn't. It should never have been considered frankly.

With regard to the Verstappen/Grosjean incident, has anyone got speed data for that lap, because I still think Grosjean was unusually slow and braked early. Not saying it wasn't Verstappens fault, but its more like 75/25 than 100/0.

[Mui]

Kvyat let Ricciardo pass (on team order) and got his position back before the end of the race, because Ricciardo couldn't pass anyone ahead.[/quote]
And Raikkonen had a massive oversteer moment enabling Ricciardo to dive on the inside (and luckily kept the car in one piece)

The weird thing is the safety car. They had virtual safety car for about 10 seconds then changed to a safety car.
I haven´t seen any explanation why they would switch to a safety car.[/quote]

Possibly to guide the cars through turn 1. They were cutting the corner to let the marshalls do their work. You'd think they'd be able to that by themselves but safety is the priorty.

[Bomber_Pilot]

Should they have called Lewis into the pits? In hindsight no. But it was a yes/no split second decision. They just miscalculated the time needed for Rosberg and Vettel to overtake Lewis under the safety car speeds.

Ehm. A 20 second gap is a 20 second gap, irregardless if they are driving 10kmh, 100kmh or 200kmh.

And about catching the safety car: he was driving to a delta. If he had driven slower, the gap to those behind would simply have decreased earlier as they were all driving to the (virtual) safety car delta. It was mindbogling stupidity, pure and simple.

A 20 sec gap comes down very fast, when you go from a virtual SC to the real thing and you catch the SC and the guys behind you can still go at relatively higher speeds - not much higher, but it was what - 2,3 seconds that Lewis needed?

But hey, this is a sport where there is a very thin line between being a strategy genius or an idiot. Although as i wrote in my original post, they didn't need to pit Lewis today.

[sjns]

Didn't Lewis say in the press conference he called the stop as well? Looks like a Team mistake even more...
Everyone calling for people getting fired are off of their mind. Mistakes happen, welcome to the real world... Indeed a very stupid mistake but whe are talking about Championship points. Not a life of a human being... Get zur priorities straight... If your scared about Lewis not winning the championship because of this then he must not be such a great driver after all...

[Jolle]

In hindsight it's always easy to judge the situation. As I see it, AMG had no a lot of options.
Option one: pit both: Vettel would have stayed out and possible won the race
Option two: pit none: Vettel would have pitted and could of overtaken both Mercs and won the race
Option three: pit Ros and not Ham: Vettel would pit and challenged Ham for the win.

So, this was a safe team call

[Jordan44]

In hindsight it's always easy to judge the situation. As I see it, AMG had no a lot of options.
Option one: pit both: Vettel would have stayed out and possible won the race
Option two: pit none: Vettel would have pitted and could of overtaken both Mercs and won the race
Option three: pit Ros and not Ham: Vettel would pit and challenged Ham for the win.

So, this was a safe team call

This is the Monaco Grand Prix where track position is key. The safe call was to leave them out, as the last few laps showed they still had plenty left in the tyres and it's near impossible to overtake. Ferrari were never planning to pit and never showed their faces in the pitlane.

[ChrisM40]

In hindsight it's always easy to judge the situation. As I see it, AMG had no a lot of options.
Option one: pit both: Vettel would have stayed out and possible won the race
Option two: pit none: Vettel would have pitted and could of overtaken both Mercs and won the race
Option three: pit Ros and not Ham: Vettel would pit and challenged Ham for the win.

So, this was a safe team call

But as Lewis proved (as has history many many times), new tyres DOESNT mean you get past at Monaco. Lewis couldn't do it and neither could Ricciardo. It was not the safest call.