Lewis Hamilton has taken another decisive win at the Japanese Grand Prix, fending off Max Verstappen in the final few laps. Daniel Ricciardo completed the podium for Red Bull Racing. The win is a major one for Hamilton, as his championship lead is now further extended after Vettel retired early on with power issues.
As soon as I saw how FI and Williams were confortably beating superior chassis/aero cars like Renault, Mclaren(and how crappy Haas and STR were) I knew that Hamilton would get the pole.
Curious to see how the pecking order of the race will be. Red Bull likely went all with race setup as their PU suck and they will never get pole anyway, but maybe Ferrari also was more race biased. If Hamilton dominates tomorrow, it's gonna be tough for Ferrari/Vettel to still win the tittle without bad luck for Mercedes/Hamilton(something which is very rare)
People seem to like to forget that Singapore Hamilton showed great race pace in FP2 when it was hotter. Look up the times, on softs he was untouchable, the supersofts just weren't working great for them there. IN Malaysia he had fantastic pace. In Hungary he got beat in qualifying by Bottas, he had a bad weekend setting up for a gearbox change. Bottas was a few tenths off Vettel, Ham usually has that over bottas, another weekend he'd have pole and have won there.
In the race itself despite being stuck up someone's gearbox for the majority of the race his pace was great, had no tire deg issues and to me looked faster than Kimi. By that I mean, there were several points where there were gaps for Hamilton and Kimi to close, Hamilton appeared to be able to put in faster laps. Vettel was obviously losing pace but how much, there were laps I believe Hamilton gained something like 1.8 seconds on the front two(Kimi obviously being held up). Despite the temps Hamilton had amazing pace.
Temps aren't the issue, Toto pretty much explained it, there are 5-6 parameters and it's certain combinations of those parameters where the car stops working, not just one or two of them.
Monaco is another one, Bottas was what, under half a tenth down on Vettel in Q3, Ham just had a ridiculously bad session but from what Bottas did it clearly wasn't representative of the car at all. Then Bottas's race pace all year has just been pretty much terrible, even then Ricciardo only jumped him because of the strategy call and using Max to get bottas to pit. So of the hot tracks, Ham poled in Malaysia(the hottest) and came second. He looked to have amazing race pace in Hungary, he was easily fastest in Baku and Monaco was just a disaster of a weekend but Bottas showed the car wasn't bad at all.
Singapore qualifying was to me both a combination of temps AND track surface/grip and mechanical grip required there. Race pace wasn't an issue. Malaysia again it worked in qualifying, race pace wasn't great but it's a combination of things, not just temp but temp, type of track surface, several things combining.
If it was temp alone Merc race pace would have been poor in Hungary and Baku but it wasn't at all.
Does anyone knows, what's the extra boost that Spec 4 PU gave for Ferrari? The rumored 10 hp is heard of, but does anyone know how much of the reduced oil burning has an impact on the performance?
Just out of curiosity and because he simply could not keep out of the matter, I have noticed I have not heard a thing from 'giantfan10' or something like that. What has happened to him?
Watching both laps side to side Seb drove every bit ad good its just that car was constantly tiny bit less stable then Merc in Hamilton hands that decided this one.
Watching both laps side to side Seb drove every bit ad good its just that car was constantly tiny bit less stable then Merc in Hamilton hands that decided this one.
Putting Ham and Vet side by side is a bit disrespectful of Bot IMHO.
Everything points to the trick suspension that they lost so late in the game for the season.
Baku stood out for me as well, not necessarily the result but because both air and track temps were high, but Merc dominated. That IMO has everything to do with the long straights there allowing the tires to cool, never getting critically hot and begin to slide, leading to to a faster erosion and more degradation.
The suspension is the reason this car has been labeled a "Diva". They clearly were relying on it. It's a German team, you know they won't show up next season with the same problem.
You say that, but Merc were terrible in 2015 in Singapore... and which other track did Merc not dominate at in 2015... Malaysia. A perfect car for every track isn't really possible and it's not a good target. A car that works better than other cars across as many tracks as possible is the ultimate solution. Out of 15 races Merc have 11 poles and 9 wins(could say 10 with Baku, but then maybe 9 with Singapore without the crash). Would you make a fundamental design change to the car to not be as weak in Singapore and Malaysia... if it also makes you less good at the other tracks?
Ferrari with their superior car in Malaysia and Singapore have 4 race wins this year and I'm not even sure 2-3 poles.
I find it crazy that people think Mercedes must fix this and make a car much stronger in Singapore, but no one is saying Ferrari/RBR must fix there car, so it's not ONLY stronger in Singapore and Malaysia. I don't think Merc should change their philosophy at all, being weak at a few tracks to dominate the season is by far the better option than making a car to dominate Singapore that isn't dominant for 2/3rds of the season.
Based on the type of tracks the last 5 races have, I think we'll be looking at, bar DNF/crashes/punctures, Merc with a minimum 13 wins and Ferrari getting at best up to 6 wins.
You say that, but Merc were terrible in 2015 in Singapore... and which other track did Merc not dominate at in 2015... Malaysia. A perfect car for every track isn't really possible and it's not a good target. A car that works better than other cars across as many tracks as possible is the ultimate solution. Out of 15 races Merc have 11 poles and 9 wins(could say 10 with Baku, but then maybe 9 with Singapore without the crash). Would you make a fundamental design change to the car to not be as weak in Singapore and Malaysia... if it also makes you less good at the other tracks?
Ferrari with their superior car in Malaysia and Singapore have 4 race wins this year and I'm not even sure 2-3 poles.
I find it crazy that people think Mercedes must fix this and make a car much stronger in Singapore, but no one is saying Ferrari/RBR must fix there car, so it's not ONLY stronger in Singapore and Malaysia. I don't think Merc should change their philosophy at all, being weak at a few tracks to dominate the season is by far the better option than making a car to dominate Singapore that isn't dominant for 2/3rds of the season.
Based on the type of tracks the last 5 races have, I think we'll be looking at, bar DNF/crashes/punctures, Merc with a minimum 13 wins and Ferrari getting at best up to 6 wins.
In my opinion, it's not about fixing the performance to suit Monaco, Hungary and Singapore for Mercedes. It's about the low speed corner performance, in every single circuit. W04 to W06, with FRIC and then some trick suspension, performed extremely well in all those places. Sing'15 was the only exception.
If you go back in this season and watch every single qualifying performance, barring Spain, you would notice that, W08 gave away time to Ferrari on corners that were low speed. If Mercedes fix W09 in that area, then they are bound to do well even in Monaco, Hungary and Singapore.
If it was temp alone Merc race pace would have been poor in Hungary and Baku but it wasn't at all.
You know how the bitumen holding together the asphalt and aggregate tends to sort of seep to the surface when it's too hot ? You might be right that it's not just the track temperature itself but the type of materials used to build it, it's age etc.
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Its most likely only suspension issues Mercedes has.
Their problem is with slow corners which is worsened when combined with high temps. Slow corners means hard braking, which in turn means diving. The Mercedes is quite stiffly sprung to maintain a constant height above the ground because of its shallow rake; there is no give in the suspension, therefore the cars dive energy is absorbed by the tyres which heat up sharply as a result. This problem will naturally be worse where there is a high density of corners.
The way that car goes into spoon looks physically impossible. I'd like to see the entry speed of other cars there.
On a side note; notice the tiny lock up into the hairpin. I saw it on live feed from the outside angle. It actually cost a couple hundredths, the 2nd sector of the first Q3 run was a wee little bit faster. He made i think -0.115 in the first sector, and lost around 0.03 in the second and third sectors compared to his first run. Both immaculate laps but to be honest the car looked just glued to the ground.
Yeh, my reaction to watching these cars at Suzuka was "HOLY --- this years cars are FAST here". The speed of change of direction through the Ses, and the fact that they visually barely seem to slow at all to enter Spoon is just crazy.
