2015 Singapore Grand Prix - 18-20 September

[henra]

They lost over 2 seconds in relative pace to their competitors and if they simply could not switch on their tires i don´t think the driver would praise the balance of the car and having 100% confidence in it.

Looking at the lap time I think it is a bit of both. Seb was a whopping 2s faster than last year and came to within ~1s of the all time Pole Record. That's massively quick and a bigger jump than in most of the races this season.
On top of that Merc seems to struggle with the balance of the car. Probably a combination of the power characteristic of the engine and the increased tyre pressures. When the car is not balanced you lose 1,5s very quickly even if you've got a great max DF.

[Jonnycraig]

Their new PU was evidently fine in Monza and it's not even important here, it's clearly not that.

Eh? The new PU of Rosbergs was ruined before he even got to run it in anger...

[SectorOne]

They lost over 2 seconds in relative pace to their competitors and if they simply could not switch on their tires i don´t think the driver would praise the balance of the car and having 100% confidence in it.

Looking at the lap time I think it is a bit of both. Seb was a whopping 2s faster than last year and came to within ~1s of the all time Pole Record. That's massively quick and a bigger jump than in most of the races this season.
On top of that Merc seems to struggle with the balance of the car. Probably a combination of the power characteristic of the engine and the increased tyre pressures. When the car is not balanced you lose 1,5s very quickly even if you've got a great max DF.

Not according to one of the drivers piloting said car.

“I had 100% confidence in the car,” explained Hamilton. “The balance was good, I had no understeer, the traction wasn’t particularly great but the balance was really good.

[Jonnycraig]

Sky win a side by side of Vettel & Hamilton, it's quite clear that the Ferrari just has miles more traction out of corners.

[Jordan44]

Sky win a side by side of Vettel & Hamilton, it's quite clear that the Ferrari just has miles more traction out of corners.

Which the theory of overheating their supersoft tyres supports. I strongly believe this to be the case.

[PlatinumZealot]

Yes. Although Hamilton claimed the balance was good it must have. Been areo balance because the was understeering like crazy compared to the ferrari in the video.

[condor]

Makes me wonder whether something political is going on behind the scenes and not technical as bhall has pointed out.

Yes, Now that Toto and Lauda managed to eliminate the title threat from Nico, Lewis has his title "secured", so they had a board meeting and decided to "throw" a couple of races, just looking after the best interest of the sport.
With odds as they are at the moment the can also boost their budget by betting on the opposition.

I find your posts strange. I can't work out if it's bitter passive aggressiveness or just plain trolling?

[ripper]

I bet on a RIC win

[atanatizante]

With a full tanks they could be in the sweet spot with their tyres so bearing in mind here at Singapore the rears are very hihg rates of degradation they opted before the weekend for a 2 stop strategy, hence a soft suspension setup which didn't bring the sweet spot in qualy but they do in the race.
Noe they've being caught out by Ferrari and RB which are heading for a 3 stop race, therefore opted for a setup which benefits more in qualy rather than the race, or in other words Ferrari and RB werw setting their cars more towards the qualy and Merc rather to the race, IMHO ...

[Jordan44]

With a full tanks they could be in the sweet spot with their tyres so bearing in mind here at Singapore the rears are very hihg rates of degradation they opted before the weekend for a 2 stop strategy, hence a soft suspension setup which didn't bring the sweet spot in qualy but they do in the race.
Noe they've being caught out by Ferrari and RB which are heading for a 3 stop race, therefore opted for a setup which benefits more in qualy rather than the race, or in other words Ferrari and RB werw setting their cars more towards the qualy and Merc rather to the race, IMHO ...

They were overheating the tyres though. When you put the fuel on board I assume more load goes through the tyres causing even more heating? But I guess you could also argue that the weight pushes it to the floor to increase traction.

[Juzh]

With a full tanks they could be in the sweet spot with their tyres so bearing in mind here at Singapore the rears are very hihg rates of degradation they opted before the weekend for a 2 stop strategy, hence a soft suspension setup which didn't bring the sweet spot in qualy but they do in the race.
Noe they've being caught out by Ferrari and RB which are heading for a 3 stop race, therefore opted for a setup which benefits more in qualy rather than the race, or in other words Ferrari and RB werw setting their cars more towards the qualy and Merc rather to the race, IMHO ...

They were overheating the tyres though. When you put the fuel on board I assume more load goes through the tyres causing even more heating? But I guess you could also argue that the weight pushes it to the floor to increase traction.

Doesn't work that way.

[Steven]

As always, a warm call to follow the race with us in the chatbox at http://www.f1technical.net/live/

[iotar__]

- Zzzzzz end of Mercedes' dominance really made F1 exciting again. Singapore is really success GP story.
- First and probably last overtake, Grosjean on Alonso, nice.
- Looked like Hulkenberg's fault.
- Debris + tyres = panic!!

[Jordan44]

With a full tanks they could be in the sweet spot with their tyres so bearing in mind here at Singapore the rears are very hihg rates of degradation they opted before the weekend for a 2 stop strategy, hence a soft suspension setup which didn't bring the sweet spot in qualy but they do in the race.
Noe they've being caught out by Ferrari and RB which are heading for a 3 stop race, therefore opted for a setup which benefits more in qualy rather than the race, or in other words Ferrari and RB werw setting their cars more towards the qualy and Merc rather to the race, IMHO ...

They were overheating the tyres though. When you put the fuel on board I assume more load goes through the tyres causing even more heating? But I guess you could also argue that the weight pushes it to the floor to increase traction.

Doesn't work that way.

Ok, well an explanation as to how it works would be nice.

[Jordan44]

So Mercedes running the softs now to spend more time on the supersoft at the end. Imagine if there's another safety car, they box for the supersofts, and then get free laps to try and close down Ferrari/RB on softs. They could still be in play if everything goes there way.

Their degradation doesn't look too good though.

Edit: Ted waffling about Merc deg- Hamilton did a 29.6 green first sector after Kvyat pitted whilst the rest were doing 29.9/ 30s.