2017 Canadian Grand Prix, Montreal, 9-11 June

[Big Mangalhit]

And also very important, the drivability. The way the power is delivered is also key and the coding of the ECU is really important in that sense. Renault had many problems with that especially in 2015

[TAG]

I think that Ferrari has an incredible amount of mechanical grip tbh. How it overtook the FI's without a bargeboard and if I'm not mistaken, with that broken front wing it still managed a decent gap towards Ricciardo.

Answer: RAW POWER under the engine cover. I don't see why people refuse to accept that this ferrari engine is a monster, and is the most powerful engine this year.

So here we have one vote for mechanical grip and one for raw power. It's like Mercedes keeps telling us, they're the underdog this year. How Ferrari have lost four out of the seven races is beyond me.

[Big Mangalhit]

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2017/06/14/2 ... ranscript/

Canadian radio transcript

[WaikeCU]

I think that Ferrari has an incredible amount of mechanical grip tbh. How it overtook the FI's without a bargeboard and if I'm not mistaken, with that broken front wing it still managed a decent gap towards Ricciardo.

Answer: RAW POWER under the engine cover. I don't see why people refuse to accept that this ferrari engine is a monster, and is the most powerful engine this year.

So here we have one vote for mechanical grip and one for raw power. It's like Mercedes keeps telling us, they're the underdog this year. How Ferrari have lost four out of the seven races is beyond me.

Well here's that. To me, the Merc is still the better car, but harder to find the sweet spot setup wise to really make the rubber work. The Ferrari is easier in that way to setup.

I think I have a reason to that. If I compare the Merc to the Ferrari, I'd feel the attention to detail is on another level on that Merc. BUT it has a downside to that. I think if there's a lot more details, there will be also a lot more things to check. Thus harder to setup, because there's a lot of details that has an influence on the performance of the car.

[giantfan10]

Answer: RAW POWER under the engine cover. I don't see why people refuse to accept that this ferrari engine is a monster, and is the most powerful engine this year.

So here we have one vote for mechanical grip and one for raw power. It's like Mercedes keeps telling us, they're the underdog this year. How Ferrari have lost four out of the seven races is beyond me.

Well here's that. To me, the Merc is still the better car, but harder to find the sweet spot setup wise to really make the rubber work. The Ferrari is easier in that way to setup.

I think I have a reason to that. If I compare the Merc to the Ferrari, I'd feel the attention to detail is on another level on that Merc. BUT it has a downside to that. I think if there's a lot more details, there will be also a lot more things to check. Thus harder to setup, because there's a lot of details that has an influence on the performance of the car.

Ummm you cant have it both ways ...the mercedes is either the better car or its not ..period.
Not its the better car BUT they cant set it up properly BUT it cant get heat in the tires BUT it doesnt work well in traffic BUT... all those "buts" are integral in deciding if a car is great/good or not.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

There was a comparison between Vettel and Hamilton Q3 lap of Montreal and it showed quite clearly that on every stretch of straight, Vettel was in fact closing the gap to Hamilton. Vettel lost the time in the corners, not the straights. That's where he gained on Hamilton...

Theoretically speaking, if Vettel was losing time on corners and gaining on Straights, then he was down on downforce, which in turn contributes in straight line speed. That still doesn't give a picture of PU power. It's a compromise that Ferrari chose.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

I think that Ferrari has an incredible amount of mechanical grip tbh. How it overtook the FI's without a bargeboard and if I'm not mistaken, with that broken front wing it still managed a decent gap towards Ricciardo.

Answer: RAW POWER under the engine cover. I don't see why people refuse to accept that this ferrari engine is a monster, and is the most powerful engine this year.

And still, they were 8MPH slower throughout the race in Russia, compared to Mercedes, where Mercedes were struggling for tyre grip in the race.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

if they are actually so bad on tyres why is it only 1 driver at a time moaning. why is the car so fast still compared to everyone else if the tyre issue was such a issue surely more than 1 team would be beating them. only sabuer are moaning about the tyres like Mercedes. they are miles ahead of the other merc teams and they are also not moaning about tyre issues. its simple they don't actually have tyre issues they have just got a caught by the comp for the first time in years.

The way to understanding the situation, in my opinion is this. Based on the Pirelli data, teams have an understanding of what a right operating window for a given set of tyres and on the team's simulation, their car generates a certain performance data for that operating window, which becomes a reference point.

As the team understands their downforce levels, drag and other performance indicators, they come to a track and hit the ground running. As they see, when the car doesn't hit the right tyre temperatures, they observe the performance numbers and when the numbers are not as expected, they know that lack of having the tyres in the optimum temperature window is causing performance degradation. When the car is then set to bring the tyres in the right temperature window, the performance most likely matches the simulation numbers.

The challenge that Mercedes is facing is, their car doesn't stay in the optimum operating window for longer in races AND some times doesn't hit the right temperature window AT ALL in qualifying. Causing Monaco like situation. In fact Monaco was where they witnessed both.

For the question, how is Mercedes faster even with tyre issues compared to other Mercedes powered cars. The answer lies in how good the chassis is. Even when the other Mercedes powered cars are in the right temperature window, their performance numbers could still be poorer than a Factory Mercedes car which is in wrong tyre temperature window. Perfectly possible. And when that Factory Mercedes car hits the sweet spot, you see a lap like the one produced by Lewis in Canada. 1.4 seconds faster than the next best Mercedes PU powered car of Massa. And see what happened to Bottas, he was 8 tenths slower than Lewis (which is abnormal), but was still faster than Massa by 6 tenths and he was complaining about tyre issues in Q3.

Both Mercedes drivers are struggling at various circuits in qualifying and in races. That shows, there is no consistent way of getting that into optimum temperature window. On some tracks, one driver's way of heating of tyres works and on others, other driver's way of heating works. That is Mercedes' biggest headache currently.

So, when Mercedes manages to find an appropriate solution to their tyre woes, they would run away with qualifying and races. W08 is a monster with a critical weakness. Question is, will they be able to find a cure? By when?

[ENGINE TUNER]

There was a comparison between Vettel and Hamilton Q3 lap of Montreal and it showed quite clearly that on every stretch of straight, Vettel was in fact closing the gap to Hamilton. Vettel lost the time in the corners, not the straights. That's where he gained on Hamilton...

Not saying it's down to engine power, but there are lots of reasons to believe that the Ferrari PU is in fact right on par with the Mercedes PU this year. Measuring PU performance is probably quite complex this year. Peak power is one factor, torque another (which engine produces more power at a lower rev point) and then of course also the ability to do that while being more efficient. Then you have the kinetic part - how much of that energy can be recovered and how long can it be sustained?

You are forgetting the most important factor, drag, the Ferrari, seems to me, to produce less drag while creating similar amounts of downforce to the Merc.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

There was a comparison between Vettel and Hamilton Q3 lap of Montreal and it showed quite clearly that on every stretch of straight, Vettel was in fact closing the gap to Hamilton. Vettel lost the time in the corners, not the straights. That's where he gained on Hamilton...

Not saying it's down to engine power, but there are lots of reasons to believe that the Ferrari PU is in fact right on par with the Mercedes PU this year. Measuring PU performance is probably quite complex this year. Peak power is one factor, torque another (which engine produces more power at a lower rev point) and then of course also the ability to do that while being more efficient. Then you have the kinetic part - how much of that energy can be recovered and how long can it be sustained?

You are forgetting the most important factor, drag, the Ferrari, seems to me, to produce less drag while creating similar amounts of downforce to the Merc.

Sorry, that doesn't make sense. In Sector 1, which is full of chicanes and corners requiring great deal of downforce, Vettel was 3 tenths down on Hamilton's S1 time. That shows, Ferrari had less downforce (less drag obviously) and hence, was faster on straights.

[Phil]

There was a comparison between Vettel and Hamilton Q3 lap of Montreal and it showed quite clearly that on every stretch of straight, Vettel was in fact closing the gap to Hamilton. Vettel lost the time in the corners, not the straights. That's where he gained on Hamilton...

Not saying it's down to engine power, but there are lots of reasons to believe that the Ferrari PU is in fact right on par with the Mercedes PU this year. Measuring PU performance is probably quite complex this year. Peak power is one factor, torque another (which engine produces more power at a lower rev point) and then of course also the ability to do that while being more efficient. Then you have the kinetic part - how much of that energy can be recovered and how long can it be sustained?

You are forgetting the most important factor, drag, the Ferrari, seems to me, to produce less drag while creating similar amounts of downforce to the Merc.

I didn't forget it. But it's more difficult to gauge. In regards to QF in Montreal, I'm going to assume that both Ferrari and Mercedes set their car up to their "optimum". They both don't have to compromise set-up (like RedBull or McLaren or any other team with an underpowered PU), so they both probably spend a lot of resources on simulations to calculate how much downforce to hit the "optimium" for a given track. Optimimum meaning the perfect trade-off for a given track between how much drag/downforce vs straight line speed.

Assuming both Ferrari and Mercedes had their "optimum" for the best possible lap around Montreal for their car - the Mercedes turned out to be quicker in the hands of LH, but at the expense of slower straight line speed.

So I'd say the conclusion is: Either Ferrari got it wrong (set-up) and had too little downforce or maybe the Ferrari does indeed have more grunt. It was also interesting that Ferrari gained nearly on *every straight* - not just the long ones. This suggest to me, regardless of drag efficiency, that that Ferrari has might traction and very good acceleration.

Didn't anyone else see the map chart with the comparison between Ferrari/Mercedes? I'm pretty sure it was on the offical broadcast prior to the race in the build up. If no one has seen it, I'll try to post a screenshot.

Let me know.

[Hammerfist]

There was a comparison between Vettel and Hamilton Q3 lap of Montreal and it showed quite clearly that on every stretch of straight, Vettel was in fact closing the gap to Hamilton. Vettel lost the time in the corners, not the straights. That's where he gained on Hamilton...

Not saying it's down to engine power, but there are lots of reasons to believe that the Ferrari PU is in fact right on par with the Mercedes PU this year. Measuring PU performance is probably quite complex this year. Peak power is one factor, torque another (which engine produces more power at a lower rev point) and then of course also the ability to do that while being more efficient. Then you have the kinetic part - how much of that energy can be recovered and how long can it be sustained?

You are forgetting the most important factor, drag, the Ferrari, seems to me, to produce less drag while creating similar amounts of downforce to the Merc.

Sorry, that doesn't make sense. In Sector 1, which is full of chicanes and corners requiring great deal of downforce, Vettel was 3 tenths down on Hamilton's S1 time. That shows, Ferrari had less downforce (less drag obviously) and hence, was faster on straights.

They probably have to trim downforce to avoid losing too much on the straights. To me its obvious the merc power unit is still better. Look at how the other merc customer teams performed in canada. They all did well and the normally competitive Ferrari powered Haas car was slower.
The only circuits that ferrari seems to beat the merc on pace dont feature many straights. I think they will struggle to beat merc in baku but will be favored in Hungary.

[ENGINE TUNER]

please post it

[dans79]

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2017/06/14/2 ... ranscript/

Canadian radio transcript

Most of the Lewis/pit conversation was about Vettel and what he was doing.

[TAG]

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2017/06/14/2 ... ranscript/

Canadian radio transcript

Most of the Lewis/pit conversation was about Vettel and what he was doing.

as it should be, he's the guy he's after in the championship