2017 Belgian Grand Prix - Spa Francorchamps, 25-27 August

[notsofast]

I was discussing the interpretation of sporting regulation 20.4. Perez wasn't penalized by the stewards, and I think it's because he was no longer changing direction when Ocon started the pass.

Whether Perez is an idiot is a different question.

[NathanOlder]

Wrong- Alonso noticed it and also slowed down, thus resulting in staying behind and have the DRS.

https://youtu.be/S3kbxjBAYmM

He'snot wrong. He is 100% correct. You are wrong in saying he is wrong. Hamilton was using smart tactics and tried to let Alonso pass before the DRS line. This time Alonso was equally as smart and stopped that happening. 2 very smart drivers right there in the video you posted.

First of all, you were right about Lando Norris. Great kid with huge potential.

2nd,

"He slowed down in order to being overtaken by Alonso to get drs at the long straight."

Maybe this is a translation error, because English is not my native language; but.. Alonso did not overtake him before DRS detection zone, so Hamilton never got the DRS at the straight.

Hamilton tried it, but Alonso was too 'smart' and noticed it, so it didn't work.

Thanks for the Lando comment,

As for the DRS comment, I was just saying it was a smart move by Lewis to try it, and equally smart by Alonso to stop it. I was just backing up what someone else said about Lewis being smarter than some think.

[F1T]

Pirelli escapes trouble with standing waves in tyres - Development blog

It was just 2 years ago when Pirelli attracted some negative publicity with tyre cuts at the same Spa-Francorchamps when on Friday and Saturday, images revealed considerable standing waves in the rear tyres of some cars. It's a known phenomenon, but the intensity of it at Spa even left some top engineers without explanations.

Perhaps the most obvious occurrence was the one on Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes F1 W08. As he exited the chicane and powered up onto the start finish straight, the car vibrated intensely for around 5 seconds. The vibrations were thanks to an unusual deformation of both rear tyres, even though Hamilton wasn't particularly hard on the kerbs. A bit later on in qualifying, the deformation broke off a rear wing element on Lance Stroll's Williams as well. The issue cost him a second run in Q1.

On Saturday evening, after Pirelli had asked teams to share data, so they could better analyse the issue, Williams' Paddy Lowe confirmed he didn't see such deformation before.

"We have often seen before a kind of standing wave in the sidewall, but in this case, we're seeing a standing wave on the tread with sort of a flat threepenny bit shape to it," he said. "I've never seen that before. It's a very high amount of energy in that."

Pirelli reported on Sunday morning the issue was of no real concern to them, with lab simulations showing no immediate issue with the tyres themselves. Mario Isola, Pirelli's motorsport chief, said they were still trying to understand the matter.

"It looks like we have this vibration just out of Turn 19 and Turn 1, so it is a specific point," he admitted, "it's not on all the circuit. But because it is the first time we see it so clearly, and maybe also the slow motion images were announcing a little bit this effect, when we see this, we want to understand it.

"We are checking with all the teams, because it's important to have feedback from them. They have not only the data, they look at the suspension, they look at the floor, they look at the wings, so they can give us more complete feedback. Obviously if you touch certain frequencies, then you can generate a failure."

Indeed, the rotational force exerted on the wheels, combined with high grip of the tyres creates flexing in the tyre walls. At a certain frequency - which depends partly on the tyre construction - flexural waves can form around the edge of the tyre. It appears that in this case at Spa, the energy in the waves was such that the tyre wall didn't normalise when completing a full rotation, resulting in the more than obvious shudder of the car itself.

It'll be interesting to see if Pirelli can discover and reveal a complete explanation, and if such behaviour will be seen again at Monza, where cars similarly accelerate hard out of slow corners.

[Treble]

Before this topic goes to ****, here are some interesting points by AMuS:

- Mercedes (according to Toto) took out some wing to have a better top-speed at the expense of S2. This hurt their overall lap time but they felt they could get away with it and better defend on the straights.
- Hamilton lifted purposely a bit before Eau Rouge to yield less of an advantage to Vettel on the safety car restart. Thanks to this, he could just defend the lead.
- The safety car helped Hamilton according to Mercedes because there was some concern over a blister on the right-rear tire. The safety car gave them the opportunity to pit.
- Mercedes chose soft because they didn't have a fresh US like Ferrari. They also felt that their car is better on the soft and it'd be the better tire if Hamilton could somehow defend his position after the restart.
- Mercedes has more options with the ERS deployment. Hamilton was able to deploy all his energy on the straight, where as the Ferrari started derating towards the end of the straight.

Cheers Phil

Good points, I didn't know about the wings removed.
Anyone knows anything about the Merc engine story? It will be with the 0,9 limitation in Monza or not?

[Treble]

You are reading too much into Toto's reaction. The RTL post race interview of Hungary made it pretty evident that Toto wanted the positions reversed. His demeanour was probably due to the argument he had with Niki before (who was rather vocal post race that the positions should not have been reversed).

So you think an interview with the media is more sincere than his instant reaction when that happened?

Sorry but I can´t buy that

It is not about the interview. It was obvious in RTL. At the end of the race Lauda was disappointed because he didn't want the " position swapping" and he made a point about that. Instead for Toto was very important to respect the word given during the race. For this reason he pushed for that and that one was the reaction vs Lauda when the drivers swap the position. It's pretty clear.

[dans79]

Good points, I didn't know about the wings removed.
Anyone knows anything about the Merc engine story? It will be with the 0,9 limitation in Monza or not?

Unless the rules have changed, only power unit components introduced on or after Monza are subject to that constraint.

[foxmulder_ms]

I cannot believe they gave 10sec stop-go penalty to Kimi. That is the same penalty Vettel got for headbutting Hamilton in Baku. Wow!!!!!!!!!

Now, a car travelling at 320kph with people on the race track is so much more dangerous than playing bumper cars at very low speeds. No lifes were at risk in Baku whereas in Spa they were. Just a spontaneous tire explosion and Kimi has no control over the place he is going to crash into.

As for the "oh my gawd F1 drivers need to be role models" discussion: I would love to crash my car into another car on the highway every second day. People pull out right in front of me, block the fast lane, run 10cm from my boot, if I was rich and did not have to care I would just plow into them as well. At least in the heat of the moment. And I'm very likely not the only one.

Get real, if he was running 300km/h, he would not get the penalty. It has nothing to do with safety. It is just a false face saving theater. There is no consistence with the application of the rules. FIA is really annoying. I dislike them. I agree he should have a penalty because he should have slowed down but a 10 sec stop and go (harshest penalty available) is absolutely unjust.

[foxmulder_ms]

On the first pit stop series, did Raikkonen slow some to try to block Lewis before he pitted? I thought Lewis caught up to him rather quickly. (And then ate him alive!)

To answer my own question, Lewis gained 2.5 seconds on lap 14 alone so I am guessing Raikkonen was in the backing up mode.

Ferrari would never ask Kimi to do that, there is no number one or number two driver at Ferrari, because some of the fanboys here said so.

=D> =D>

[jonas_linder]

Pirelli escapes trouble with standing waves in tyres - Development blog

Maybe it is something similar to "tire shaking" often seen in dragracing. It is often attributed to the air bubble in the tires collapsing, re-establishing it self, collapsing.. over and over. The tire shakes are known to be bad enough to tear the chassis apart, destroy wheel bearings and gearboxes. This is not the best video I've seen, but you can shortly see a similar phenomena.

[Just_a_fan]

Good points, I didn't know about the wings removed.
Anyone knows anything about the Merc engine story? It will be with the 0,9 limitation in Monza or not?

Unless the rules have changed, only power unit components introduced on or after Monza are subject to that constraint.

It's been suggested that the FIA will require Mercedes to make the customer engines the homologation engines and thus their Spa engines won't be considered to comply. If that is the case, does that mean that Mercedes have to introduce a new, newly compliant, engine and thus are being forced by the FIA to take a grid penalty...?

[Just_a_fan]

Get real, if he was running 300km/h, he would not get the penalty. It has nothing to do with safety. It is just a false face saving theater. There is no consistence with the application of the rules. FIA is really annoying. I dislike them. I agree he should have a penalty because he should have slowed down but a 10 sec stop and go (harshest penalty available) is absolutely unjust.

No need to "slow down", he just needed to momentarily lift off the throttle a bit. Just need to be able to point to the telemetry and say "there - I lifted". At 300km/h, a lift will knock off sufficient speed for the telemetry to show that the driver slowed down. All very silly but that's the way of the game these days.

[dans79]

Good points, I didn't know about the wings removed.
Anyone knows anything about the Merc engine story? It will be with the 0,9 limitation in Monza or not?

Unless the rules have changed, only power unit components introduced on or after Monza are subject to that constraint.

It's been suggested that the FIA will require Mercedes to make the customer engines the homologation engines and thus their Spa engines won't be considered to comply. If that is the case, does that mean that Mercedes have to introduce a new, newly compliant, engine and thus are being forced by the FIA to take a grid penalty...?

I can't see the FIA doing that, because that would widely be seen as influencing the championship in Ferrari's favor. Not to mention, all these rumors are based on the assumption that the spec Merc introduced violates the the 0.9 restriction.

[ringo]

@Vanja,
TwanV,

I'll quote the exact rule:

sporting regulation 20.4.

20.4 Any driver defending his position on a straight, and before any braking area, may use the full width of the track during his first move, provided no significant portion of the car attempting to pass is alongside his. For the avoidance of doubt, if any part of the front wing of the car attempting to pass is alongside the rear wheel of the car in front this will be deemed to be a 'significant portion'.

As you can see, there's nothing in the rules prohibiting a driver from going for a diminishing gap. As is clearly stated, the car ahead MUST watch out if the front wing of the attacker is alongside his rear wheel. The only reason Perez wasn't penalized for his mistake was the fact that it was his team mate. When was the last time that you can remember an inter team 'incident' had been penalized ?

He wasn't penalized also because he started moving first i believe? Key word is attempting. Ocon didn't attempt before perez started moving over.
Also damage to his car was probably seen as punishment enough.

[ringo]

For me the only way you can measure just how dominant a car really was is to look at where BOTH cars finished. So - take Schumacher. I would say the only years he had a dominant car was 2002 and 2004, because in both occassions Barichello finished a comfortable 2nd.
In every other year, it was Michael maximising the car to its limit, and it wasn't all car - because just look where his teammates ended up in the championship table.
Out of the 7 titles, i'd give 2 of them as gimmes - so he's a solid 5x world champion, with 2 free ones - (although he arguably worked hard to get to that position, and 2 free ones was his reward for putting that time and effort in.................Unlike Alonso, who cries and runs away).

If you look at Ham's career, the only time he's been in a dominant car has been 14-16.
I would say michael has had Podium capable cars his entire career apart from 91,96, 05, 10,11,12. So thats 6 years out of19 where he did not have consistent podium capable cars. - 32%
Ham's career is what, 2007 to now, so thats 10 years. He has not had podium capable cars in 09, 13. So thats 2 years out of 10 =20%.

so in that respect, Ham's achievement makes total sense..... he's been in a better car for a longer %, and he's had a dominant car for 3 years vs michaels 2. The fact that he's done it in fewer races also makes sense.
thats not to take anything away from the achievement - it takes a driver of his calibre to actually do the job in the first place and get the poles he's had.

You must be crazy if you think Ferrari weren't dominant most of the time shumacher was driving after 1999. The ferrari was most of the time the best car to drive over a season. Alonso's years as WDC for renault are the only years i think ferrari was a bit behind, But this was only for nuances like michelin tyres and renault's super start off the line and their narrow angle engine which gave them an aero advantage. MS didn't have a second tier car at all. It was always a championship challenger. And this is why some of the ferrari years, his last set of WDC were boring to watch. He was utterly dominant in a top car.
No point in talking percentages. Delete MS mercedes years and then you see the true picture. Let's not taylor statistics. Hamilton is only 200 races in, let's just enjoy what he can do in the next 50 to 60 races if his career goes that far. No point in trying to diminish achievements. Senna and Shumacher racked up their stats in dominant cars just the same with factors such as #2 drivers, weak competition, and regulations that were so loose the performance gap in the field was much wider.

[ringo]

Good points, I didn't know about the wings removed.
Anyone knows anything about the Merc engine story? It will be with the 0,9 limitation in Monza or not?

Unless the rules have changed, only power unit components introduced on or after Monza are subject to that constraint.

It's been suggested that the FIA will require Mercedes to make the customer engines the homologation engines and thus their Spa engines won't be considered to comply. If that is the case, does that mean that Mercedes have to introduce a new, newly compliant, engine and thus are being forced by the FIA to take a grid penalty...?

I don't think it will require a whole new engine. Maybe a threaded plug or orifice something to simply reduce oil flow into the intakes. that's a simple modification that can be done in the pits.