2016 Japanese Grand Prix - Suzuka, 07-09 October

[Silent Storm]

Vettel was being faster but he made a mistake in the last lap. Anyway Kimi´s performance is(and has been) great. This is the real Kimi.

Vettel lost nothing more than a tenth with that mistake, If anything Raikkonen could have been even faster but had understeer, he has been complaining about understeer the whole weekend and wanted to increase front tyre pressure after Q2 and still had some understeer in his final lap, while Vettel is happy with his setup and balance.

Just because something is not transmitted on the radio does not mean in wasn't said. Personally I think vettel and raikkonen have been pretty much identical this weekend so far.

According to Vettel the balance seems good and at times when he is not happy with the handling he is open about it whether it is FP, Qualifying or Race. http://www.planetf1.com/news/vettel-ple ... -mercedes/

“It’s been a very good day,” the quadruple World Champion explained.

“The car felt good in qualifying, and it was very tight.“It’s even more of a pleasure to put both cars ahead [of Red Bull] but I think it’s a combination of things. The car felt a lot better than last year. It’s a track where you obviously need a stronger car to go faster.

“It’s usually quite a challenging track looking at the downforce of the car and the handling. The fact that we’re in front of Red Bull and closer than in the last couple of races to Mercedes, is a good sign.”

[Mark4211]

Annotated wheel adjustments: Pole position lap - Japan 2016
https://vimeo.com/186065768

[SectorOne]

Mercedes running without Qualy engine boost. Should send some signals to the competition.

[Juzh]

Vettel lost nothing more than a tenth with that mistake, If anything Raikkonen could have been even faster but had understeer, he has been complaining about understeer the whole weekend and wanted to increase front tyre pressure after Q2 and still had some understeer in his final lap, while Vettel is happy with his setup and balance.

Just because something is not transmitted on the radio does not mean in wasn't said. Personally I think vettel and raikkonen have been pretty much identical this weekend so far.

According to Vettel the balance seems good and at times when he is not happy with the handling he is open about it whether it is FP, Qualifying or Race. http://www.planetf1.com/news/vettel-ple ... -mercedes/

“It’s been a very good day,” the quadruple World Champion explained.

“The car felt good in qualifying, and it was very tight.“It’s even more of a pleasure to put both cars ahead [of Red Bull] but I think it’s a combination of things. The car felt a lot better than last year. It’s a track where you obviously need a stronger car to go faster.

“It’s usually quite a challenging track looking at the downforce of the car and the handling. The fact that we’re in front of Red Bull and closer than in the last couple of races to Mercedes, is a good sign.”

Obviously RAI has been pushing the car too much if he feels understeer? Would make sense since their laptimes have been nearly identical troughout.

[Vasconia]

Mercedes running without Qualy engine boost. Should send some signals to the competition.

In order to prevent another blown-up? but if this is the case, have both drivers with team agreed to do the same? perhaps in the name of keeping the equality between them?

[Silent Storm]

Just because something is not transmitted on the radio does not mean in wasn't said. Personally I think vettel and raikkonen have been pretty much identical this weekend so far.

According to Vettel the balance seems good and at times when he is not happy with the handling he is open about it whether it is FP, Qualifying or Race. http://www.planetf1.com/news/vettel-ple ... -mercedes/

“It’s been a very good day,” the quadruple World Champion explained.

“The car felt good in qualifying, and it was very tight.“It’s even more of a pleasure to put both cars ahead [of Red Bull] but I think it’s a combination of things. The car felt a lot better than last year. It’s a track where you obviously need a stronger car to go faster.

“It’s usually quite a challenging track looking at the downforce of the car and the handling. The fact that we’re in front of Red Bull and closer than in the last couple of races to Mercedes, is a good sign.”

Obviously RAI has been pushing the car too much if he feels understeer? Would make sense since their laptimes have been nearly identical troughout.

Vettel is the one pushing too much hence going off track multiple times. The good point of slight understeer is better tyre degradation in race. That might give Ferrari a small advantage in race.

[Just_a_fan]

Annotated wheel adjustments: Pole position lap - Japan 2016
https://vimeo.com/186065768

The turn-in in to the first part of Degna is phenomenal (47s on the video - watch it full screen for best effect). It's not as fast as 130R but the rate of direction change is amazing. A real indication of where high downforce cars leave their normal-grip cousins behind. 130R is also pretty special as it's flat at 315km/h but modern cars make that "normal" as with Eau Rouge / Raidillon at Spa.

I always liked the head-on view of the Imola chicane (turns 12 and 13) at Magny Cours for the same reason. The rate of direction change was always spectacular. You still get it watching from the outside of Copse at Silverstone too.

[BanMeToo]

I noticed that too, really something.

[FrukostScones]

Just one question.
Like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDAGmI6SH3k
or like that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JknW7h8DS0s

[Mansell89]

Anyone else expecting a collision between the Mercs tomorrow?

The only thing stopping it is if one of them has an awful start and gets too far back.

People saying Red Bull look tyre-limited with no new softs available but the hard tyre seemed a good compound on Friday so can two new sets of the hard compound pay dividends?

[carisi2k]

Mercedes running without Qualy engine boost. Should send some signals to the competition.

They still had a qualy boost. The engine had a slightly thicker oil to keep the engine reliable is the only difference.

[Fifty]

Maybe this isn't the place. But what Hamilton did in the written press box was horrendous. He just lost what little support I had for him.

Sorry Mr Hamilton. You get paid upwards of $50 million by Merc and F1 and your additional sponsors to be in the limelight. You agreed

[basti313]

Anyone else expecting a collision between the Mercs tomorrow?

The only thing stopping it is if one of them has an awful start and gets too far back.

There are many other possibilities. One is a clean get away for both and then disappearing. The pushing last year was based on a good, but not perfect start by Ros and a very good start by Ham. If it does not happen the same again, they will not crash, as they will not be next to each other. I think the likelihood of one having a bad start and ending up touching a Bull or Ferrari is higher than a Merc crash.

People saying Red Bull look tyre-limited with no new softs available but the hard tyre seemed a good compound on Friday so can two new sets of the hard compound pay dividends?

Everyone at the top has two new hard sets. Mercs and Rai put only one installation lap in FP1 on them, Vettel did three laps.
I do not see the relevance of the new Soft set for the Mercs. Running S-S-H is too ambitious in my point of view.
This might be a chance to pressurize the Mercs if you are in a Bull and traffic allows it, but the last stint would be too long. Ferrari strategy calls are too stupid to pressurize any one. So it should be a clear and boring S-H-H.

[atanatizante]

1. With a thicker oil Merc PU has less end power and was clearly handicapped in Q3 and furthermore be in the race with less overtaking possibilities.
2. Lewis said he changed his car setup between FP3 and Qualy, taking into account it`s a Rosberg track and furthermore he didn`t have had an edge on FP1 & FP2 and FP3 sessions.
So he switched his focus towards the race setup and was cut by surprise by being so close to Nico`s pole time, as we could tell in the press conference after the Qualy ...
3. Now with these good prospects of a good race for Lewis, which are the tyre strategy for this race?
Seeing the tyre for the race team by team and bearing in mind last week race could we foresee a 1 stop strategy, with a S-H tyre choice? ...
Or it`s a 2 stop race like last year and we could see a S-H-S or S-H-M tyre strategy (the hard one being mandatory) ?

I think S-H-M is the best option here, coz taking into account here is almost 1 sec/lap delta between hard and medium tyre, the longer you stay the bigger is the time loss, but you must stay on them enough time to make the last stint on medium tyre alive ... so the first stint on softs is somewhere between 13-18 laps - Pirelli predicted 15 - then a 21-12 laps on the hards and then the last stint between 19 and 23 laps - Pirelli said 21 - on the medium ones.

There also could be a S-M-H tyre strategy but this one and the other one above is always track temperature dependent ...

And I think the reason behind Merc option for that new set of soft tyre is that they think it`s possible to do a S-H-S race, with a 18-15-20 lap stints between them ...

[RedNEO]

I'm in split minds about the race as I want rain for McLaren but I want a dry race to help Nico avoid the chaos