dans79 wrote: ↑26 Oct 2017, 19:24
drunkf1fan wrote: ↑26 Oct 2017, 19:01
Based on what... based not on qualifying, because qualifying is one thing but the race is another. It's pretty plain to see for anyone with some common sense that RBR is much faster in a race than in qualifying. Verstappen came from 16th and could well have finished within a couple of seconds of Vettel who went into the first corner in 1st place. That implies excellent race pace and also implies that if he had started 5th he could well have come second and potentially been a lot closer to Hamilton than Vettel got.
If RBR and Verstappen in particular didn't have better race pace than Vettel/Ferrari then he shouldn't have been anywhere near either Ferrari at the end of the race.
Just to highlight this, by the 3rd lap Verstappen was 16 seconds off the lead due to the field spreading out quickly. The lap before Vettel's first stop Verstappen was 11 seconds behind him, right after Max's pitstop he was 18 seconds behind Vettel having gone much longer while Vettel was quick after the pitstop. Just before their second pitstop Verstappen was only 5 seconds down on Vettel and at the end he was 2.5 seconds behind Vettel with one lap to go.
Compared to Hamilton, he finished 11 seconds behind him despite starting 16th and being 16 seconds behind after 3 laps, but Hamilton was cruising after he regained the lead so it's hard to say how competitive he would have been, but that Verstappen and RBR together had greater race pace than Kimi or Vettel is pretty much unquestionable.
With a faster car and overtaking being relatively easy at Cota, I would have been surprised if Max didn't get ahead of both Ferrari's had he not had penalties.
Their is more to racing than just starting and finishing positions. For example tire strategy, number of stints, and what tires used in the stints.
https://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2017/10/23/ ... pit-stops/
Which has what relevance here? Tire strategy and number of stints isn't relevant, if you end up 11 seconds off the leader via 1 or 3 stops doesn't matter, that you were 11 seconds behind the leader does. Tires used also doesn't matter, those are part of the reason you are as fast as you are, nothing more or less.
Verstappen had to pass many more cars and effectively had a tire life and time penalty for starting so far back and yet finished just over 2 seconds behind Vettel who had a rear gunner helping keep Verstappen away from him.
Different cars with different pace, different tire wear enable different strategies, that is just how it is. realistically Verstappen's strategy was the most compromised anyway, 24 laps on supersofts then 13 laps on the soft, which he was fast on, but was quickly approaching a point he'd get held up and he went for a different and bold strategy. However had he not done so he could have gone to the end on softs, he was gaining on Kimi who was gaining on Vettel.
Realistically the last round of pitstops had little effect on the race. Without them Bottas was slow, Verstappen would have struggled to get past Kimi without significant tire life difference, Kimi was never going to pass Vettel. Without getting to say somewhere between 4th-7th then getting a safety car, you'll finish miles behind the front few guys unless you are faster than them, that is just the way it is.
RBR have also shown exceptional race pace for the past few tracks. In Singapore in Fp2 red bull looked categorically faster than Ferrari, which seems to have been completely ignored as so many claim Vettel would certainly have won there. LIkewise we're told without question that Vettel would have poled in Malaysia and won easily.
Now in America Verstappen was 16 seconds back from Vettel after 3 laps, but finished the race 2 seconds behind him. In Malaysia after 3 laps Vettel was 13 seconds behind Max and the closest he got was 18 seconds behind, but that was clearly completely unsustainable performance as he used way too much fuel and ended up 37 seconds behind. Had he been more sensible he could have certainly finished closer than 37 seconds back, but he'd also never have closed the gap to within 19 seconds as he did, I think a conservative estimate is he'd have ended up around 25 seconds behind Max in similar circumstances. It doesn't matter what strategy you use, it matters where you finish up and imo Max's strategy in the USA was far from optimal, 5-7 laps less on his first stint and 9-10 laps more on his softs would likely have been superior in pace, maybe going to ultras for the last stint.
Don't forget against the same Mercedes, Ferrari didn't have the pace to hold that lead but in Malaysia, where Ham got pole, that RBR was able to pull away from the Mercedes... so I think there is plenty evidence that the RBR has more race pace than the Ferrari right now and is absolutely better able to challenge the Mercedes.
