2017 Spanish Grand Prix - Catalunya, 12-14 May

[Xwang]

As a team you need to react to the here and now. Hoping gets you nothing. You are looking at it in hindsight which is always 20/20. Ferrari thought Mercedes were going to undercut and reacted, incorrectly as it happens.

Ferrari seems to be too much focused on what Merc might be doing and lets easily force themselves in sub- optimum strategies. In a 2 stop race you don't have to worry too much about the undercut in the first stop but in the second one.

I agree too

[psychemedia]

Quick sketch of race history chart:



And battlemaps from HAM and VET perspective:





Track concordance chart - showing time to cars ahead/behind on track for each lap from perspective of a given driver - for HAM shows his tussle with VET:



Via F1Datajunkie: F1 2017 Spanish Grand Prix - Race Charts.

[cirrusflyer]

Wow, can't believe my post was so promptely deleted. I guess there is some moderator in here who is very fond of Hamilton and don't want people saying anything which isn't "he's the best driver ever". My post didn't even have anything negative about him. Just pointing out the second driver treatment of Bottas and confirming Juzh's opinion of Hamilton being lucky(but on a overall context, not only on this race)

Nope, mods did not deleted your post, it is on page 22. They do not deserve bashing and finger pointing... they are doing good job with moderation.
Mods delite this one please cos adds nothing to the race debate.

<<Your post is not being deleting as it is relevant in the light of an unwarranted attack on the impartiality of the moderators. When some who have a particular liking for one driver or another start posting one eyed views of their particular driver, it tends to foul up reasonable debate, so mods will try to keep a debate on an even keel. If this means deleting or editing a comment, it will be done.
Thanks for your support.>>

[cirrusflyer]

And the race was great to watch!
Intense and it kept me on the edge. On the circuit where overteaking is "not" possible, there was quite a lot of overteaks and even more attempts that resulted with cars beeing wheel to wheel.

[Yurasyk]

Genious Ferrari strategist came back. Well done.

[NathanOlder]

Thought the race was good, and makes the championship a very interesting one for sure. As for the incident in to T1 as Vettel came out of the pits, I thought it was a bit lucky to not get a penalty as he had a car fully up the side and he ran the other car completely off the track including a push (contact) so I was a little to surprised to see nothing come of it. It was nothing like the Bottas incident on lap 1 as kimi closed in on him and gave him nowhere to go, Seb used the whole track from apex on the right to white line on the left with Hamilton completely on his side the whole time. In the drivers conference Seb smiled and said he left Lewis room which Lewis laughed and disagreed with.
Anyway it wouldn't have effected the result, it would have just been nice to see the stewards not allowing someone to run someone completely off the race track.

[SameSame]

Thought the race was good, and makes the championship a very interesting one for sure. As for the incident in to T1 as Vettel came out of the pits, I thought it was a bit lucky to not get a penalty as he had a car fully up the side and he ran the other car completely off the track including a push (contact) so I was a little to surprised to see nothing come of it. It was nothing like the Bottas incident on lap 1 as kimi closed in on him and gave him nowhere to go, Seb used the whole track from apex on the right to white line on the left with Hamilton completely on his side the whole time. In the drivers conference Seb smiled and said he left Lewis room which Lewis laughed and disagreed with.
Anyway it wouldn't have effected the result, it would have just been nice to see the stewards not allowing someone to run someone completely off the race track.

Hamilton could also have been penalised for not rejoining the track correctly. I think the stewards decided to not give either of them a penalty and let them race fair and square to the flag.

[AMG.Tzan]

Really nice and straight race between teams (strategy) and drivers (on track passing)!! At last we got a nice duel we those two and I don't think any of them was lucky/unlucky or their strategies being right/wrong! Unlucky for Bottas, Raikkonen, Verstappen DNFs...great race from Wehrlein!!
On the battle front...I was surprised at how Hamilton made those softs last 30 laps and still kept up with Vettel's mediums in the end...and why on earth did Mercedes pit him right when the vsc was ending??? Had they pitted him a lap earlier he would have come out in front of Vettel...but at least we got a bit of racing! Also Bottas did his job, saved Hamilton from falling 10 secs behind Vettel and then retired
Anyway...lovely race at a track that's not famous for overtaking!! Really nice old school championship this year

P.S. I love how people start to moan after a bad weekend for Hamilton and say that he has lost his edge because of his lifestyle...and then he comes back with a drive like that!!

[siskue2005]

On the battle front...I was surprised at how Hamilton made those softs last 30 laps and still kept up with Vettel's mediums in the end...and why on earth did Mercedes pit him right when the vsc was ending??? Had they pitted him a lap earlier he would have come out in front of Vettel...

if they have done that Vetel would also come in pits the next lap and the gap would have stayed similar around 8 sec.

Toto said that they pitted exactly when the VSC ended so that Vettel won't get a chance to pit during the VSC.

[dobbster71]

I didn't see todays race but, judging by the results, there should be a lot of kudos given to the Sauber team. Fantastic result for them.

[NL_Fer]

Pitting at the final VSC stage gave Hamilton the advantage to be right next to Sebastian when he returned to the track, Sebastion on softs had a lead of 6 or 7s at that moment they pitted.

Both Ferrari and Mercedes did a flawless strategy. Everybody expected for Vettel to catch on the end, after Hamiltons tyres would degrade, but he kept them in great shape. Both also showed some stunning agressive overtake moves. Great show.

[F1NAC]

Overtake under yellow? how come? https://twitter.com/DanielB_CANADA/stat ... 3903382529

[i70q7m7ghw]

It's hard to tell from that angle, but it looks like the pass starts before the yellow and happens just as they enter in to the yellow zone. Also, we can't see ahead, there could be a green at the very next corner. Ultimately, it wasn't investigated at the time and it won't be investigated now.

[mwillems]

Thought the race was good, and makes the championship a very interesting one for sure. As for the incident in to T1 as Vettel came out of the pits, I thought it was a bit lucky to not get a penalty as he had a car fully up the side and he ran the other car completely off the track including a push (contact) so I was a little to surprised to see nothing come of it. It was nothing like the Bottas incident on lap 1 as kimi closed in on him and gave him nowhere to go, Seb used the whole track from apex on the right to white line on the left with Hamilton completely on his side the whole time. In the drivers conference Seb smiled and said he left Lewis room which Lewis laughed and disagreed with.
Anyway it wouldn't have effected the result, it would have just been nice to see the stewards not allowing someone to run someone completely off the race track.

Hamilton could also have been penalised for not rejoining the track correctly. I think the stewards decided to not give either of them a penalty and let them race fair and square to the flag.

I think the ruling was that you had to go round the bollard if you touched or went through the humps. As he didn't, the rule didn't apply.

I also think that Liberty want more wheel to wheel racing and less of teams calling foul and shouting for penalties, a la football. Personally, I'm happy for that, I want to see them scrap, I want to see some drivers make others less inclined to battle like Senna did, I want to see dramatic wheel to wheel action and to see the drivers suffer the consequences if their own hubris pushes them too far.

[siskue2005]

Overtake under yellow? how come?
https://twitter.com/DanielB_CANADA/stat ... 3903382529

He waited till he passed the yellow flag.
He passed him after the yellow flag.
And moreover there is another rule which states that u can pass someone under yellows safety car or VSC etc if the car u r passin going unreasonably slow. Here the back marker was clearly moving for him, still he waited till he passed the yellow