2017 Spanish Grand Prix - Catalunya, 12-14 May

[n4rf]

One question in between the ongoing discussions:
Did no one notice that Hamilton undid his seatbelts after the finish line?
What do you think about that?
I was watching the ORF coverage and Alexander Wurz was quite unpleased with that. Imo, rightfully so. I'm in favour of stuff like taking another driver with you on the sidepod, but that's rather special circumstances and a really good show. Undoing the seatbelts might send a wrong signal to some people out there.
I wouldn't want anything major to happen because of that, but maybe a reprimand by the GPDA and/or FIA might send a good signal. On the other hand, these guys aren't schoolboys. Hm, I don't know...

[Restomaniac]

One question in between the ongoing discussions:
Did no one notice that Hamilton undid his seatbelts after the finish line?
What do you think about that?
I was watching the ORF coverage and Alexander Wurz was quite unpleased with that. Imo, rightfully so. I'm in favour of stuff like taking another driver with you on the sidepod, but that's rather special circumstances and a really good show. Undoing the seatbelts might send a wrong signal to some people out there.
I wouldn't want anything major to happen because of that, but maybe a reprimand by the GPDA and/or FIA might send a good signal. On the other hand, these guys aren't schoolboys. Hm, I don't know...

I did notice it and I did raise my eyebrows as I didn't think it looked good. However listening to him over team radio and watching him in the coodown room I would imagine he was just knackered and needed the freedom to move and cool down. I imagine it will just be a case of a quiet word asking him to wait until the car has stopped.

[Vasconia]

Being Barcelona a downforce track this result must be depressing for RB, after the so waited updates they are REALLY far.

Let's not forget that Verstappen was just 0.5s on QLF but Ricciardo a full 1s. Maybe Verstappen could've had a far better race pace. Verstappen time was also 1.7s faster than any other Renault-powered car, including the only factory car of the midfield(considering Mclaren/Honda to be backmarkers rather than midfielders). Can we really ask for more than that from RB? The car had little visible updates, they can't shove winglets, vortex generators, flow conditioners and etc into their car because the drag will hurt them too much. Their hands are tied, imo.

Let's remember that eventhough downforce is very important in Barcelona, the power impact on lap time is that of the average circuit, ie, it's not as important as on some extreme circuits but it's not small either, as on places like Monaco or Singapore.

"I still think the reasons for them being so close is more Mercedes becoming weaker than Ferrari stronger" - i think if that was true, Red Bull would be also closer to Mercedes and Ferrari.

According to Renault, their 2017 PU is just 0.3s faster than their 2016's. Remember when somebody at Force India claimed, during winter testings, that Mercedes had made an "unprecedent" step forward with it's 2017 PU?

I know everybody wants to ignore RB's power deficit and put the blame on the chassis/aero but what if RB turns out to be particularly competitive at Monaco, what will be said about RB in such case?

The espnf1's article author is a complete joke of a journalist. One doesn't even need to check any data to instantly realise how absolutely ridiculous and absurd the claims are A formidable demonstration of the amount of nonsense that one thinks when in desperation to believe that something is true

@NYGIANTS, sorry to demystify what you guys are willing to believe but the hypothetical ("supernatural") 1.21.8 lap time(the one where Hamilton was said to have gained 6s over Vettel, meaning a 1.28 lap from Sebastian ) would be "just" around 1.20.5, on 3 laps o fuel, as the 40 or 50kg that Hamilton still had in his car would account for 1.2-1.5s, given that currently 10kg increases lap times by around 0.3s(cars weights far more now, so, proportionally, 10kg increase in weight means far less than when it accounted for 0.4s, on 605kg cars ). I must say, when it comes to people's willingness to mystify Hamilton, it's on par with Ayrton Senna, with all the supernatural and physics laws' defying aspects associated with it.

edit: this mystification also reminded me the time when some claimed that Schumacher would win even on a Minardi.

Everything you say is true but the situation is still hard for RB. Its clear that Renault´s work with their PU has been bad, yes Honda is there, but Renault had much more time to develop the PU and since 2014 their improvement has been underwhelming. Their so waited update is being delayed and perhaps it won´t be until Austria, like it happens with Honda. Meanwhile Mercedes and Ferrari have already updated their already excellent engines. What the hell are doing in Renault?

Anyway, in 2016 Renault was clearly behind but Red Bull managed to build a very competitive car. Yes, perhaps Renault is now even more behind Merceces due to the great improvement by the German Factory. But I think that RB´s chasis is not as good as I had expected with the new rules. Don´t get me wrong, the chasis is very good, but perhaps I was expecting a "masterpiece".

Can´t wait to see what happens in Monaco, it will be a good indicator to see how good RB´s chasis really is.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

After going through the following links, I have found some interesting numbers (not more than others) about how fast was Hamilton when came alongside Vettel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0e2qGVIuL0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GsDk1B4esE

Lap 31
Vettel - 23.788 - 32.070 - 29.415 (15 laps old Softs)
Hamilton - 23.687 - 32.112 - 29.724 (10 laps old mediums)

Lap 32
Vettel - 23.699 - 31.821 - 29.673
Hamilton - 23.685 - 33.118 - 29.751 (Seems like Hamilton made a mistake in S2 and lost a second)

Lap 33
Vettel - 23.711 - 31.910 - 29.869
Hamilton - 23.662 - 32.182 - 29.724

Lap 34
Vettel - 23.739 - 32.138 - 30.xxx (estimated S3 time based on previous laps - Vettel started hitting traffic at the beginning of Sector 3 and VSC came out - Gap to hamilton was 7.2 seconds)
Hamilton - 23.505 - 32.013 - 29.7xx (estimated S3 time based on previous laps)

On lap 35, Vettel did 23.739 - 31.910 - 29.869 in S1-S2-S3.

On lap 37, when VSC ended, Vettel did 26.402 - 32.084 - 33.057 in S1-S2-S3.
-Vettel's times in S2, before and after VSC are almost similar. He lost 2.6 seconds in S1 for his in lap. He was in the middle of straight when VSC ended. So, his start for S1 was slower. That explains that 2.6 seconds loss.

-Vettel's time loss of 3.2 seconds in sector 3 is due to the fact that, he was entering pits and the sector 3 ends after a driver enters the pits. So he did not made any mistakes, just that he was trundling in pits.

-While Vettel was going slower in S3 on his in lap, Hamilton was going full speed for his out lap, which was not the case while Hamilton was going in pits. Vettel was under VSC. The VSC ended while Hamilton was entering the spot where PIT limit speed applies.

-Vettel's loss is, 2.6 seconds where he started S1. If the VSC would have ended when Vettel was exiting last chicane (instead of middle of straight), there would have been no time loss.

-So Mercedes calling Hamilton at the very last moment, gave them 2.6 seconds advantage. Their pit stop was 0.5 seconds faster than that of Vettel.

-Before pitting, Hamilton was trailing by 7.9 seconds and after Vettel pitted and came out, they were side by side. So, hamilton covered 5.3 seconds on his out lap up to turn 1 where he met Vettel (two thirds of S1, full of S2 and S3 of lap 37 and one third of S1 on lap 38). There was no magic 6 seconds on one lap, but a combination of many.

-When Hamilton came out of the pits, the gap was 23.909 seconds and Vettel was approaching turn 5.

Read following if you are interested in knowing how the 1.21.xxx would have been possible. Otherwise, ignore.

Lap 34 (Extrapolation of S3 and the lap time - 1:25.218)
Hamilton - 23.505 - 32.013 - 29.7xx (estimated S3 time based on previous laps)

Lap 37 (Extrapolation of S1 and the lap time - 1:21.959)
Hamilton - 22.800 - 30.792 - 28.367
Compared to lap 34, he was faster by 1.7 seconds in S2 and was faster by 1.3 seconds (extrapolation used for S1), I am guessing he would have been faster by 0.7 seconds on S1 (shorter distance and faster part compared to S2 and S3.
He did 22.712 on the lap where he overtook Vettel, with DRS and on next lap he did 23.313, so on his hot out lap, he could have done a 22.800).

[aral]

Is there any point in going on with all these times? We know that Vettel lost out due to VSC. We know that Bottas held up Vettel intentionally. We know that Vettel due to all this lost time, came out alongside Hamilton, thus proving the lost time. But the race is over, it is what it is. Figures can be bandied about to prove whatever you want to prove. So lets drop all this H did this, V did that. It is over.

[basti313]

After going through the following links, I have found some interesting numbers (not more than others) about how fast was Hamilton when came alongside Vettel.

You are writing such a long post and miss the most relevant sector???

Why is everybody who claims the VSC did not help much avoid to discuss S3 if Ham`s inlap? On a usual inlap this sector should be ~4 sec slower than a normal S3. But it is not. Guess why...

[turbof1]

After going through the following links, I have found some interesting numbers (not more than others) about how fast was Hamilton when came alongside Vettel.

You are writing such a long post and miss the most relevant sector???

Why is everybody who claims the VSC did not help much avoid to discuss S3 if Ham`s inlap? On a usual inlap this sector should be ~4 sec slower than a normal S3. But it is not. Guess why...

Is there any point in going on with all these times? We know that Vettel lost out due to VSC. We know that Bottas held up Vettel intentionally. We know that Vettel due to all this lost time, came out alongside Hamilton, thus proving the lost time. But the race is over, it is what it is. Figures can be bandied about to prove whatever you want to prove. So lets drop all this H did this, V did that. It is over.

He said drop it.

[Yurasyk]

C'mon guys, are we breaking rules by discussing time gain here? Still no one said the reasonable exact time gain of Ham by pitting under the VSC. So we still want to find it and are using the forum by it's direct purpose. We are not discussing what would be better to do.
Coming back to topic. I think, we should calculate the gain from VSC as a difference between the time gained in reality (~7.5s) and a time that could be gained if Ham did undercut in normal race conditions on the 36th lap.

[Just_a_fan]

Wow, not allowed to discuss an element of the race in the race thread. Makes one wonder about the point of the race thread really... perhaps race threads should be closed immediately the chequered flag falls. That way there is no danger of people discussing it.

The stuff that people get away with - trolling, insults - and no mod involvement. Talking about a race in the race thread leads to not one but two mods wading in.

Just wow.

[Phil]

I find it equally disturbing that posts are being deleted that are voicing concerns over why this discussion exactly should be dropped (e.g. my post has gone missing in this topic).

Anyway, I still think there is merit to discussing exactly where that gap of 7.9 seconds went missing and I applaud GPR-A as well as Nuvolari for going through the effort to dig out the sector times.

What might also help is an illustration of Circuit Catalunya:



I unfortunately don't have the exact positions of the cars but using the ORF feed, I tried to mark them respectively using Hamiltons onboard from lap 35 (a lap before he pitted) and used him as an approximation to gauge how much track VET passed under the VSC within 7.9 seconds.

Note the 2 red dots and the 2 blue ones. First blue dot is Ham lap 36 as the VSC sign changed to "ending" and he just turned into the pits. Second blue dot is when the VSC ended - at that point, he just hit the pit entry line.

The red dots are a rough approximation of where VET was at this point. The first red dot was where he roughly was as HAM was just turning off to the pits, the 2nd dot is where he was on the straight as the VSC ended and he was free to use full throttle.

Watching the feed again, I also realized that under the VSC, Vettel was very close to Grosjean. I assume he overtook him just as the VSC period ended, but maybe this also caused him to lose a bit of time.

Anyway, I think the numbers GPR-A posted are very accurate in determining that Vettel must only have lost 2.6 seconds in S1 (relative to Hamilton). As has been pointed out, there is also some time in S3 on Ham and VET inlap under and after the VSC respectively. The rest must have been sheer pace between fresh softs (HAM outlap) vs. old softs (VET inlap). They do say that for a successful "undercut" to work, the car must be within around 2 seconds to the car its undercutting within normal race conditions. Vettel had a slow pitstop plus there is some element of the VSC playing here that made the gap of 7.9s vanish by the time Vettel came out of the pits.

EDIT: To figure out how substantial the S3 times were, one would only need to compare Hamiltons S3 (inlap) with Hamilton S3 from lap 35 to deduct how much he gained by "shortcutting" under the VSC.

[Yurasyk]

Again, before the S3 of 36th lap there were 7.5 s between them.
Then up to the end of S1 on 38th lap just after the fight in the first corner the scenario was:
https://puu.sh/vT4V3.png

I think, we should calculate the gain from VSC as a difference between the time gained in reality (~7.5s) and a time that could be gained if Ham did undercut in normal race conditions on the 36th lap.

So, if we do that (using approximate hypothetical numbers [based on neighbor laps] for S3 of Ham entering to pit and Vet going normally on 36th lap and S1 of 37th lap for Vet going normally [they are marked as bold]) we get about this

Potential gain of usual undercut would be 2 seconds+0.6s loss caused by fight with Vet on S1 of 38th lap and going behind him later.
So the difference between actual scenario and hypothetical one is 4.9s. That is exact gain ±some tenth of Ham entering to pitlane under VSC.

[Artur Craft]

But I think that RB´s chasis is not as good as I had expected with the new rules. Don´t get me wrong, the chasis is very good, but perhaps I was expecting a "masterpiece".

Oh yeah. Most people were expecting Newey to come up with a dominant car with tones of downforce more than the others, a la the RB6, which isn't the case. The current car is not great but it's harsh to say it's bad(I'm not saying you or anybody else here said that, but other people on other places have), either. I think it's, at least, almost on par with Ferrari and Mercedes.

Just to create some extra hype and excitement. Last year, at Barcelona, RB was behind the pole time by a similar gap to this year's. And we all know their competitive pace at Monaco, afterwards

Without the intention to further feed the discussions originated by the espnf1 article, I just want to clarify that it's my opinion that Hamilton did a fantastic race, all along, not only on the lap(s) following the VSC. My only point is that no driver does physics defying stuff. Not Senna, Fangio, Clark, Schumacher, Alonso, Hamilton or whoever.

[skoop]

Is there any point in going on with all these times? We know that Vettel lost out due to VSC. We know that Bottas held up Vettel intentionally. We know that Vettel due to all this lost time, came out alongside Hamilton, thus proving the lost time. But the race is over, it is what it is. Figures can be bandied about to prove whatever you want to prove. So lets drop all this H did this, V did that. It is over.

SO what do you think - how would Rosberg have done at this race?

[NYGIANTS]

Onboards:

https://youtu.be/DN-7oUno2tM

https://youtu.be/ZZazEf2LYhA

[bonjon1979]

I find it equally disturbing that posts are being deleted that are voicing concerns over why this discussion exactly should be dropped (e.g. my post has gone missing in this topic).

Anyway, I still think there is merit to discussing exactly where that gap of 7.9 seconds went missing and I applaud GPR-A as well as Nuvolari for going through the effort to dig out the sector times.

What might also help is an illustration of Circuit Catalunya:

http://temp.conceptics.ch/ham_vet_barcelona.gif

I unfortunately don't have the exact positions of the cars but using the ORF feed, I tried to mark them respectively using Hamiltons onboard from lap 35 (a lap before he pitted) and used him as an approximation to gauge how much track VET passed under the VSC within 7.9 seconds.

Note the 2 red dots and the 2 blue ones. First blue dot is Ham lap 36 as the VSC sign changed to "ending" and he just turned into the pits. Second blue dot is when the VSC ended - at that point, he just hit the pit entry line.

The red dots are a rough approximation of where VET was at this point. The first red dot was where he roughly was as HAM was just turning off to the pits, the 2nd dot is where he was on the straight as the VSC ended and he was free to use full throttle.

Watching the feed again, I also realized that under the VSC, Vettel was very close to Grosjean. I assume he overtook him just as the VSC period ended, but maybe this also caused him to lose a bit of time.

Anyway, I think the numbers GPR-A posted are very accurate in determining that Vettel must only have lost 2.6 seconds in S1 (relative to Hamilton). As has been pointed out, there is also some time in S3 on Ham and VET inlap under and after the VSC respectively. The rest must have been sheer pace between fresh softs (HAM outlap) vs. old softs (VET inlap). They do say that for a successful "undercut" to work, the car must be within around 2 seconds to the car its undercutting within normal race conditions. Vettel had a slow pitstop plus there is some element of the VSC playing here that made the gap of 7.9s vanish by the time Vettel came out of the pits.

EDIT: To figure out how substantial the S3 times were, one would only need to compare Hamiltons S3 (inlap) with Hamilton S3 from lap 35 to deduct how much he gained by "shortcutting" under the VSC.

Love the geekery and pure effort that went into this and it has changed my opinion about this slightly. I've always assumed that Hamilton could only have won with the help of the VSC but actually I'm not so sure now. Had Merc pitted at the same time without the virtual safety car. Hamilton would've gained a good 2-3 seconds on the undercut alone. We have to assume that Ferrari would respond so as not to give track position away. So we can assume Ferrari would pit the next lap to try to cut this off. Vettel then, would've come out of the pits 4-5 seconds ahead of Hamilton on the slower tyre. Maybe Hamilton would've lost the best of his tyres in chasing seb down and wouldn't be able to get past but I suspect that the outcome would only be the same?

The other point to note is that this strategy of MErcs only works if they're not under threat from behind. It was absolutely crucial to Hamilton's race that he wasn't in danger of losing his place to Kimi, allowing him to take the gamble of going onto Softs for 30+ laps. Fascinating stuff all the same and thank you everyone for the hard work put into the number crunching!