2015 Monaco Grand Prix - 21-24 May

[GPR-A duplicate2]

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...

How many times should the mistakes happen? Year after year? When you are spending millions to get those wins, what should be the margin for accepting mediocre decisions? It is understandable if someone is forcing you to get into those decisions, but when you make it all on your own, fighting your own ghosts, then it is not of acceptable class. When you discount accountability from high performance job, you are simply making way for mediocrity and Mercedes have done that exactly.

[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.

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.

No, there was no need to pit him and the guys from sky were right about Ferrari having no intention in pitting. About the split second - yes, it was a split second decision. Lewis caught the SC just before Rascasse, and at that time, they still had the time to pit.
And I agree with you on everything else.

[henra]

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.

As I said I think they also underestimated what pace was still possible with the primes. All race long it looked as if they were good for 1:20s. But as it showed in the end they were capable of 1:18,xx when the Drivers pushed flat out. That was indeed to quick to be inihilated on the relatively short straights. Traction was still surprisingly good with the old primes which is usually the critical point regarding the possibility to overtake.

[ringo]

The Prince and Nico are good friends.. maybe a special request was put in to the chief strategist..
If there's a tin foil hat conspiracy that would be it, as even now I see no sense in what has transpired today.
How can you pit a leader in Monaco? everyone else on the same tyres, both tyres having similar performance... no sense at all.
Special request by Nico's pals is the only thing i can see right now.

[ChrisM40]

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.

As I said I think they also underestimated what pace was still possible with the primes. All race long it looked as if they were good for 1:20s. But as it showed in the end they were capable of 1:18,xx when the Drivers pushed flat out. That was indeed to quick to be inihilated on the relatively short straights. Traction was still surprisingly good with the old primes which is usually the critical point regarding the possibility to overtake.

Still made no sense to pit Lewis, even if Ferrari had pitted, and overtaking was possible, Vettel would still have to pass Nico and Lewis to win, that was far far from likely to happen. On no level, and under no circumstances was pitting Lewis even remotely the right thing to so.

[jknights]

Almost off topic except that it is about Monaco.

If according to Mr. F1 (Lord B.Eccelstone) F1 is about entertainment and spectacle then why is Monaco on the GP calendar. If all things are equal it is a procession where only occasional overtakes are possible. So why Monaco when German GP at Nuremburg and in France GP at Magny-Cour have been dropped. Surely people want to see F1 at its peak with high speed circuits with passing. Or is it really that F1 is just about the money! No answers required in a greedy capitalistic world!

Also maybe we should return to the situation of no pitting when SC is out!
I cant see why (free) pitting should be allowed when it is an artificial advantage due to a crash or other safety incident!.

[ChrisM40]

Almost off topic except that it is about Monaco.

If according to Mr. F1 (Lord B.Eccelstone) F1 is about entertainment and spectacle then why is Monaco on the GP calendar. If all things are equal it is a procession where only occasional overtakes are possible. So why Monaco when German GP at Nuremburg and in France GP at Magny-Cour have been dropped. Surely people want to see F1 at its peak with high speed circuits with passing. Or is it really that F1 is just about the money! No answers required in a greedy capitalistic world!

Also maybe we should return to the situation of no pitting when SC is out!
I cant see why (free) pitting should be allowed when it is an artificial advantage due to a crash or other safety incident!.

Monaco is a popular race, its just not popular with the sort of people who comment on sites like this.

[henra]

Also maybe we should return to the situation of no pitting when SC is out!
I cant see why (free) pitting should be allowed when it is an artificial advantage due to a crash or other safety incident!.

That sounds like a good idea from a sporting perspective.
I suspect though that the ensuing chaos and randomness of pitting during SC is not un- welcome to Bernie&Friends. It creates spectacle at the cost of fairness. Now, do you seriously expect we might see going back to that sensible Regulation?

[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...

How many times should the mistakes happen? Year after year? When you are spending millions to get those wins, what should be the margin for accepting mediocre decisions? It is understandable if someone is forcing you to get into those decisions, but when you make it all on your own, fighting your own ghosts, then it is not of acceptable class. When you discount accountability from high performance job, you are simply making way for mediocrity and Mercedes have done that exactly.

I agree that Mercedes can't just regard such a mistake. Learn from it. Analyze and find a way to not repeat this. Though firing people out of those circumstances is way off.

The strategist will probably always be the most ungrateful Job in F1 if your team is winning. All those good calls are never seen unless you do something like a Schumi 4 stopper in '04. Only the bad calls are. Then again you hear that the discussion was going on with many people talking. In addition Lewis called that too. Sounds like a team decision to me. Fire everybody? Have fun finding a new team.

[matt_b]

Any other track bar Spain (possibly Hungary) Lewis would've won and it would've been a great strategy call. However in Monaco track position is key, hopefully they remember this for next year. Lewis still leads the championship by 10 points which is better than last year when he was 4 behind in 2014, 13 races to go, game on.

[Jordan44]

Any other track bar Spain (possibly Hungary) Lewis would've won and it would've been a great strategy call. However in Monaco track position is key, hopefully they remember this for next year. Lewis still leads the championship by 10 points which is better than last year when he was 4 behind in 2014, 13 races to go, game on.

I'm not sure how they didn't realise track position is key. As Ted correctly put it, where the hell did they think they were racing? Staggering.

[tonmeister]

Awful call from Mercedes team....

Just to change subject for a minute; I need to watch a better take of Alonso´s move on Hulkenberg but it seemed to me that the penalty was total ******. He had the interior and was alongside the FI. If you are going to penalize such moves (specially on Monaco´s first lap) then don´t tell drivers that we need more action on track.

I really think that Ricciardo´s move on Raikkonen was far more punishable and he didn´t get a penalty. He wasn´t alongside and hit Kimi´s rear tyre...

Double standards if you ask me.

[henra]

The strategist will probably always be the most ungrateful Job in F1 if your team is winning. All those good calls are never seen unless you do something like a Schumi 4 stopper in '04. Only the bad calls are.

Indeed! it is the same as with Football Trainers. You always have Millions sitting at home and thinking they could do the Job better than you. And that it can't be so difficult. Yet they always judge the decision after the fact. So they always have the benefit of some hindsight.
It is always easy to Monday morning quarterback the strategy, although in this instance indeed the motivation behind the move is a bit mysterious - Lewis wasn't directly threatened by a Driver from a competing Team. Maybe they were overconfident and thought they could set a highlight with a special strategy.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

I agree that Mercedes can't just regard such a mistake. Learn from it. Analyze and find a way to not repeat this. Though firing people out of those circumstances is way off.

In world class organizations, examples are set for higher accountability for other people, by firing people, when responsible for getting job done, fail. By being forgiving in a highly competitive atmosphere, you only invite your own downfall. As this is not the first time the Merc Strategy team has got it wrong, it is time to set right example for the next set.

The strategist will probably always be the most ungrateful Job in F1 if your team is winning. All those good calls are never seen unless you do something like a Schumi 4 stopper in '04. Only the bad calls are. Then again you hear that the discussion was going on with many people talking. In addition Lewis called that too. Sounds like a team decision to me. Fire everybody? Have fun finding a new team.

You know you are talking about a strategy genius who made his name in F1 circles with those masterful decisions, right? And there isn't one blunder that man Mr. Brawn committed in his time and that is why he gets all the respect that he gets? That is the standard you set for others to follow, not of Mr. James Vowels'.
Lewis didn't said "I NEED A PIT STOP". He just said the tyres are getting colder (I have been watching every bit on Sky, until the broadcast ended just now). The strategy guy didn't took the decision because Lewis COMMANDED HIM TO DO SO.

[henra]

I really think that Ricciardo´s move on Raikkonen was far more punishable and he didn´t get a penalty. He wasn´t alongside and hit Kimi´s rear tyre...

I agree. on the other hand Hulk's race was basically over since his car got damaged while Kimi just lost one place. Still looking at the pure maneuver Ricciardos attack was indeed much more borderline than Fernando's.