2017 Brazilian Grand Prix - Interlagos, 10-12 November

[PlatinumZealot]

If they do they will have to comply to the oil directive though.

That would be the directive they already comply with, would it.

No proof of that whatsoever.

They dont have to comply if the engine is the same spec as that instroduced before Monza even if it is a fresh engine. The only problem arises if the engine is a new Spec. So far we have no confirmation on the spec though.

[FrukostScones]

So why were Red bull so far off the pace ? Merc and Ferrari turn things up a bit more as the title is over ?

It cant be down to the circuit not being good for their power deficit as Mclaren are ahead of Force India and Renault.

So where are Red Bull ????

Probably their trick suspension got castrated again. New TD.

[TAG]

I wonder if Hamilton will say the "Brazilian fans are the best fans" this weekend.

[drunkf1fan]

Did anyone at all say he could slice tires at will while keeping his front wing intact... no. Some people pointed out that someone losing a front wing loses you a massive amount less time than losing a rear tire, rarely results in lasting damage and in the given situation where not doing it, meant trailing Hamilton who by being in 2nd place would absolutely win the title left him nothing to lose and no good options left. Even then people mostly said they wouldn't be surprised if it did it on impulse, he also knew he had front wing damage already. I think it was brundle who rather stupidly said he didn't know about the damage because you can't see your front wing, but considering you could actually see bits of his wing flying over the cockpit then he obviously absolutely knew he had damage and was coming out of the corner in 3rd.

It's also very hard to argue that it didn't work, at the time he was facing finishing 3rd to Hamilton second, he finished 4th to Hamilton in, honestly I forget, 9th in the end? To say it didn't work is to be blind, it didn't work as well as he needed it to but it absolutely did work out great. Imagine if he went into that race needed a 4 place finishing gap to win the title or stay in it, it would have worked.

[godlameroso]

Steering column snapped.....

Jokes aside, should be a good show tomorrow. I predict P5 for Lewis

If there's a safety car/VSC anything is possible, however if it's a clean dry race I don't think they can catch Alonso from way back, if he gets ahead of Perez on the opening lap I'm pretty sure he can hold down 5th. In Mexico he was stuck behind a slower Haas and wasn't able to use his pace, tomorrow everyone in front of him is faster so that will give him clean air to use his pace, which as we saw today is only 1 second slower. The gap needs to be over 1.4 seconds to make an overtake doable without a mistake from the lead driver.

People really do latch on to things said, needing to be 1.4 seconds faster at one track doesn't mean you need that gap everywhere. Mexico is a freak track, where you have a ridiculously long straight and yet slipstreaming/drs barely works. You do not need to be 1.4seconds faster per lap full stop, vettel was not 1.4 seconds slower in COTA, Hamilton passed him anyway, Vettel was not 1.4 seconds faster than Hamilton and he passed him, same with Ricciardo on Bottas. 1.4 seconds was incredibly specific to Mexico and probably wasn't true anyway, not directly.

Aside from that position doesn't mean much of anything in general, time from the front does. You can come 5th and be 20 seconds behind the leader or 80seconds behind the leader. Alonso has had some okay position finishes but he's ended up mostly 70+ seconds behind the leaders. Vettel in Malaysia and using too much fuel so he had to back off massively he ended up 37 seconds back from Max, Max starting from 16th finished 12 seconds behind Hamilton in COTA, etc.

People get held up and lose time, or gain it in clean air but the general pace of the car pretty much dictates how close you can get to the front. Hamilton has a car that with good luck can finish ~15 seconds off the lead despite coming through the back and with bad luck should be within ~30 seconds, if there are safety cars at the right time he could easily get a podium.

Mexico and Alonso was actually ~130 seconds behind the leaders and despite how much he was held up, he didn't lose a minute, in Japan he was 99 seconds behind the leaders, Cota Alonso was 40 seconds back before midway and Vandoorne was 87 seconds off the lead by the end. That car has little race pace and has never had so.

Unless some miracle happens in the race I'll be extremely surprised if Perez, Hamilton and likely Ocon and Massa don't finish ahead of Alonso.

Are you serious? You can't compare the pace of the leaders in clean air to Alonso stuck behind a car that's a second a lap slower, Alonso started from the back in Japan, he started from the back in Mexico, his pace was good in COTA, if you look at his long run he's doing 13.75 ish, slightly faster than the Force India, Williams, and Renault, and the leaders were doing mid to low 13's.

Almost every time we see the long runs in FP2 show more or less where the pace of the cars are, look how far Hamilton finished behind Verstappen, I recall he was lapped in Mexico, that's how much you get held up behind slower cars. There's a huge difference when you're running in clean air and can push the car, vs when you're stuck behind a slower car, furthermore, Brazil is almost as difficult to pass at as Mexico, maybe even more so. Relatively thin air reduces the effectiveness of a slipstream, and difficulty to follow in sector 2 makes mounting a serious challenge through S3 & 1 tricky even with the Honda PU.

Alonso long run pace:

18 1:13.923
19 1:13.817
20 1:14.604
21 1:15.909
22 1:13.782
23 1:13.779
24 1:13.820
25 1:13.488
26 1:13.858
27 1:15.692
28 1:14.524
29 1:13.775
30 1:13.621

Perez long run pace

26 1:13.346
27 1:13.541
28 1:14.311
29 1:13.537
30 1:13.787
31 1:13.954
32 1:14.249
35 1:13.964
36 1:13.670
37 1:13.998
38 1:13.957
39 1:13.881
40 1:14.082
41 1:13.940
42 1:14.595

Vettel long run pace

29 1:13.160
30 1:13.574
31 1:13.534
32 1:13.433
33 1:13.419
34 1:13.556
35 1:13.577
36 1:13.677
37 1:15.241
38 1:13.597
39 1:13.425
40 1:14.492
41 1:13.243
44 1:13.322
45 1:12.889
46 1:12.767
47 1:12.992

The pace is there.

[OneAlex]

On the sidelines of the race, a little back and forth from Ted Kravitz's notebook popped up today when he accidentally ended up interviewing Bernie about "Ferrari being F1".

Ted: "And I think you've said sometimes Max and you would change the technical to keep them competitive, was that really what went on?"

Bernie: "Well I suppose you could sort of say it was really like that but it was a little different.. we asked them what regulations they wanted"

Ted: "But sometimes we would change the regulations to stop Williams winning or to stop er... well, we tried to stop, tried to change the regulations last year to stop Mercedes winning and give Red Bull a chance."

Bernie: "There's an answer to that... give them the same engine".

Source http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12474/ ... s-mercedes

8 minutes in.

[PlatinumZealot]

Any bets on rain or safety cars? How about another crash out for Massa again? Lol

[godlameroso]

No rain as far as I can see, but there's always a chance of a safety car, the track lends itself to accidents. Track temperatures will be brutal, and with the thin air cooling may be marginal. Running in dirty air won't help matters.

[drunkf1fan]

Are you serious? You can't compare the pace of the leaders in clean air to Alonso stuck behind a car that's a second a lap slower, Alonso started from the back in Japan, he started from the back in Mexico, his pace was good in COTA, if you look at his long run he's doing 13.75 ish, slightly faster than the Force India, Williams, and Renault, and the leaders were doing mid to low 13's.

Almost every time we see the long runs in FP2 show more or less where the pace of the cars are, look how far Hamilton finished behind Verstappen, I recall he was lapped in Mexico, that's how much you get held up behind slower cars. There's a huge difference when you're running in clean air and can push the car, vs when you're stuck behind a slower car, furthermore, Brazil is almost as difficult to pass at as Mexico, maybe even more so. Relatively thin air reduces the effectiveness of a slipstream, and difficulty to follow in sector 2 makes mounting a serious challenge through S3 & 1 tricky even with the Honda PU.


The pace is there.

What, firstly yes you can, second, in clean air at no time has he had the pace of the leaders, at any stage this season, just hasn't happened. Second, one of the reasons he gets stuck behind cars that are much slower is... he's nearer their pace. That car in clean air as well as not, finishes in general 80+ seconds back from the leaders, that hasn't changed. If in three races they finish in clean air 80 seconds back then they finish 85 seconds back having been 'held up' by another car for half the race, do you really think they'd magically be 40 seconds down the road without the traffic?

As for the times you mentioned, without context they are meaningless. Practice times do not at all directly translate to race pace without knowing roughly what is going on in terms of the program being run which has a HUGE effect on the pace. All last year and most of this year Ferrari beat Merc very often in FP2 yet were half a second back compared to Mercedes race pace, because they aren't directly comparable. When you know the team's program you can estimate but requires more than basic reading of the times. Perez did 4 hot laps on his supersofts, Alonso did 2, that directly makes their stints not comparable

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DOScOmTX0AM5e3f.jpg

Combine that data for tires, sometimes you have to get a little creative also, Vettel pitted so many times that two pitstops are missing, judging by the times and laps done, the final two pitstops and as such the final 6 laps were actually on the less used soft tire. However, Vettel ran fully 32 laps on that tire while averaging a lower lap time than Alonso who did 20, again pretty much incomparable here. You run the tires to a temp you want to achieve a distance you want, Alonso did the least heavy running on the tire so times should be faster.

Then factor in other things, Honda doesn't care about engines being used, they want the engines to run higher modes more often to get data. FI are budget constrained and are desperate to not take engine penalties(because beyond 4 engines they pay more for every engine), so chances are FI are in lower engine modes, Ferrari don't want penalties not due to budget but branding, they don't want another failure compared to Mercedes.

On fuel, Mercedes have for a very very long time run absolutely max fuel, Mclaren from memory seem to never seem as competitive as FP2 suggests so I would guess they are on midrange fuel, FI's entire strategy is really about running as long as possible and tire saving, one stopping when others might two stop so again longer run with heavy fuel is more relevant to them as their first stint is crucial to their style of racing but I can't say for sure they run heavy fuel. Ferrari tend to run midlevel fuel but also looked well off the pace on Friday and improved a lot so personally I think while their times are already better, they gained significantly since then.

They certainly don't seem to have terrible pace, a shorter track with only two real straights helps but I think Alonso will finish 70+ seconds off the leaders even if he runs most of the race in clean air because their car is that much slower, it's that simple. Hamilton (without crashes, damage, badly timed safety cars) shouldn't have any trouble catching and passing him.

[George-Jung]

A lot of writers overhere.. how many books have there already been published?

Jeeezz keep it a bit shorter, no need to use that many words..

[Restomaniac]

My responce on looking at that was. Well that's a new car.
New PU, Chassis, Gearbox and bodywork. I imagine only the tub will survive.

In fact screw it, if it's a pit lane start anyway. Don't bother stripping the only car and just give him a totally new car.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

The only way I see Lewis coming close to top 4, in a normal circumstance, would be by trimming as much wing as possible and make it a rocket ship on straights. Otherwise, he would get stuck behind. I remember one driver having done that in 2006 Brazil GP. What a drive it was.

[Restomaniac]

The only way I see Lewis coming close to top 4, in a normal circumstance, would be by trimming as much wing as possible and make it a rocket ship on straights. Otherwise, he would get stuck behind. I remember one driver having done that in 2006 Brazil GP. What a drive it was.

Schumacher finished 4th from around 8th in 2006 IIRC. Are you sure you mean 2006 or have I missed your point. Sorry if I have.

[Fulcrum]

Not sure if there is any truth to the suggestion Hamilton will take a new engine.

Either way, if he has a good start, that's a lot of the work done already. He'll only struggle to pass Williams or Force Indias as he moves forward, which practically guarantees him a top 6 position. Throw in a safety car and anything is possible.

This should make for an entertaining race. Given Bottas has struggled recently with the tyres, he could bunch up the top 3/4/5 before the first pitstop.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Not sure if there is any truth to the suggestion Hamilton will take a new engine.

Either way, if he has a good start, that's a lot of the work done already. He'll only struggle to pass Williams or Force Indias as he moves forward, which practically guarantees him a top 6 position. Throw in a safety car and anything is possible.

This should make for an entertaining race. Given Bottas has struggled recently with the tyres, he could bunch up the top 3/4/5 before the first pitstop.

Link -> Hamilton to start from pitlane after "surprise" crash

As Hamilton was set to start from the back of the field anyway, Mercedes has opted to fit parts “of a different specification to those used in qualifying”.

Mercedes says it will also fit a new engine, with Hamilton moving onto his fifth internal combustion engine, MGU-H and turbocharger.