LionKing wrote:There is one aspect you are not considering in your assessment Phil; the pace advantage Rosberg would have if there were no safety car.
Vettel was 10 seconds behind Lewis after his final stop, caught him in 14 laps with soft tires when both in clean air. Rosberg would not have taken the mediums without the safety car.
Vettel and Rosberg would have done sth like SS - SS -S or SS -S - S. As I said, once they built a pit stop gap, it would have been over for Lewis. They would have made their pit stops and come out in front. 15 laps on SS and 25 laps on softs against 40 lap on mediums for Lewis. (even without considering Lewis being behind the Toro Rossos.)
Yes and no. Ignore Rosberg and focus on Vettel; Vettel
was on that SS-SS-S strategy and Vettel was also dictating pace as the leading car. Even if Rosberg had been on the 'faster S' tyre instead of the 'M', he would have been held up and limited by Vettels pace for the most part of that stint. And Vettel was driving as fast as he could because he was driving to win.
I'm fairly confident though that Rosberg wouldn't have gotten by 'on track'. He didn't get by Raikoennen either and was only able to pass him through the pits and Ferrari covering Vettel instead of Kimi. If we focus solely on Vet vs Ros without safety-car, the only way Vettel would have won is by pitting earlier than Ros (which he was going to anyway, being on the less durable SS tire), then hope and pray that his fresher last stint on S would be as quick or initially quicker than Rosberg who'd be on S and pitting for another S later so that he'd come out BEHIND him and then again, hope and pray that Rosberg can not pass him on fresher tires. That was Vettels winning strategy.
But Rosberg changed to mediums on a 'free pitstop', meaning that for Vettel to win, he would have had to drive out a 20+ second gap, then at worst come out behind Rosberg and attack him to the flag on fresher tires.
If we include Hamilton into this, I conclude the 16.5 seconds he lost being behind Ves and Sai is pretty accurate. Without the safety car, he would have lost the same amount (given Ves and Sai did not change tires under the red-flag, so the situation didn't change). That would have put Hamilton roughly 40 seconds behind Rosberg still in 2nd and limited by Vettels pace on SS by lap ~32, but both needing to pit. I'm assuming Hamilton would have decreased that gap of 40 seconds as the laps continued until maybe 30 seconds.
The key point is; both would have pitted and come out *in front* of Hamilton. So no, Hamilton wouldn't have beat them on without the safety-car. Once pitted, even if the gap might have been down to 5-10 seconds, those gaps would have increased again as a result of both Vettel and Rosberg being on shorter stints on faster tires.
However, it would have been perhaps quite close. You see, with the red-flag scenario, Hamilton had 3 cars to pass: He was held up by two and passed Ricciardo on the track. That all cost time. Without a safety car and red-flag, it would have only been the two Torro-Rossos, as Ricciardo would have falled behind that pack due to his stop. So the net cost would have been slightly less without the safety car. I still don't think it would have been enough to beat either Vettel or Rosberg, but I'm fairly confident Kimi (assuming his car hadn't broke down) would have been nicked by Hamilton.
So my fairly analytical conclusion is:
With red-flag: Hamilton 2nd, Rosberg win (obviously)
With safety-car, no red-flag: Hamilton win [, 2nd Vet, 3rd Ros]
Without safety-car, no red-flag: Hamilton 3rd [, Vet win, Ros 2nd]
So, luck or no luck, the red-flag netted him 3 points. Big deal. On the other hand, I think the red-flag won Rosberg the race and robbed us of a spectacular Ros/Vet/Ham fight. Even if we ignore Hamilton, I think Vettel without a red-flag, safety-car could have held on to the win - just - and only due to the fact that Rosberg I don't think would have found a way past Vettel on track, just like Hamilton didn't get by the Torro-Rossos.
On the other hand; To think that Ferrari leading with both cars for the first 3rd of the race managed to lose both positions to Mercedes speaks volumes on a track like Melbourne where passing is very difficult IMO. I conclude Mercedes is mighty and I don't think Ferrari is that much closer than last year at all. They might still win a few GPs this year due to better tire degredation on some tracks, the occasional strategic error, Mercedes drivers fighting each other etc, but pace wise, I don't think they are close enough, or much closer than last on most tracks. I think under the presumption that they might ace the starts better here and there will be some cause of concern for Mercedes however, as getting ahead will mean that the race will be dictated by strategy on some tracks and that will cause a dilemma for Mercedes, especially with the parity between Hamilton and Rosberg.
As an example: The no-red-flag, yes safety car scenario: Imagine Hamilton had won yesterday thanks to going medium. I can't imagine Rosberg being too happy about that, because he will feel that he was on the wrong strategy and that there's no way a driver who was in 6th by the 3rd corner should have had any chance on beating him from further back due to strategy.
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