2018 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, 22 -25 March

[Sieper]

I think Verstappen already made the undercut on Magnussen (despite diffusor damage). But yes, Then one of the Haases would likely have had P3.

[komninosm]

I agree the 3 PU rule is destroying not only the race but the weekend. In the rain it seemed more and more people were inclined to not bring their cars out during free practice so that' s horrible for fans.

And I don't understand the need for Mercedes to always run a tiny gap with the cars behind them. From what I could see Lewis could extend his gap at will. He was in the clear air, he had no traffic. A 3 second gap with 2 Ferrari's right behind you and no Bottas means they were just asking for it. Simple as that. It's utterly mind boggling an outfit like Mercedes would run a race with so tiny a gap. I do not believe that they did not have pace in their car to have extended to at least 5 seconds.

They were saving tires, not the engine, they still needed to go 40 laps on that 1 set and would have to worry about tires for any restarts after that time.

Ok so going with that argument I still don't get why when Kimi pitted Hamilton had to pit. If he had more than a 3 second gap from the beginning then he would not have gotten an undercut and he could have kept going for a longer stint cause he would see Vettel is still not pitting and once Ham had done a satisfactorily long stint he could have then pitted without any thread - or he could have done a Ferrari and pitted under VSC as well!

I also asked that, but no reply. Were Hamilton's tires used up or still had life in them? Was he losing time to Raikonnen or was the gap holding still?

[komninosm]

Here is my take on what happened with the Mercedes software blunder:

Lewis was 11.7s behind Vettel just before the VSC appeared, however that jumped to 16.2s JUST BEFORE Vettel pit. This time jump is due to the fact that the VSC maintain the distance delta between two drivers and not the time delta (Before the last race, I thought the VSC maintained the time delta so I was surprised when the time delta jumped from 11.7s to 16.2s). Once Vettel rejoined the track, he was about 1s in front of Lewis. Mercedes said they needed Lewis to be less than 15s behind Vettel in order to be safe. As such, they thought he had a 3s margin.

Considering the above numbers, it can be said that Mercedes were correct in their assessment that Vettel would lose 15s while pitting under VSC (16s-15s=1s) and correctly accounted for the fact that the speed was unlimited on pit entry & exit. What they completely missed was that the activation of the VSC would INCREASE the time delta between Lewis and Vettel (from 11.7s to 16.2s).

So the group who coded the program did a massive and costly oversight and forgot to include that parameter. What they were seeing was the safe margin under VSC but NOT the safe margin under normal racing conditions. If properly coded, the software should have displayed that Lewis needed to be less than 10s-11s behind Vettel in order to be safe.

I still think it doesn't make sense that they are allowed to race in the pit entry and exit.
And as far as no overtakes and boring one stop strategies for everyone, I think bringing back refueling would make it a better show. More fighting, more overtakes, different strategies viable, less haste in pitstops causing tires to come off.

[digitalrurouni]

I can see the rationale to bring back refueling. But you can DEFINITELY forget about any possibility of overtaking while the cars are fighting each other on the grid which is why I would think let's not bring refueling back. I think it's ok how it is right now that under VSC if you are pitting that's an avenue for you to gain an advantage. I mean at least Hamilton saw the red mist and gave Vettel a chase...whereas if he was off in the distance (which by rights he should have been given the pace he had in hand IMO) then it would just have been a matter of maintaining the gap and pretty much would have been a HAM, RAI, VET podium - basically they would have ended how they had started. At least this way we got some spice though as a Hamilton fan seeing this win basically be given away was frustrating for me to accept lol!

[JasonF1]

They were saving tires, not the engine, they still needed to go 40 laps on that 1 set and would have to worry about tires for any restarts after that time.

Ok so going with that argument I still don't get why when Kimi pitted Hamilton had to pit. If he had more than a 3 second gap from the beginning then he would not have gotten an undercut and he could have kept going for a longer stint cause he would see Vettel is still not pitting and once Ham had done a satisfactorily long stint he could have then pitted without any thread - or he could have done a Ferrari and pitted under VSC as well!

I also asked that, but no reply. Were Hamilton's tires used up or still had life in them? Was he losing time to Raikonnen or was the gap holding still?

Hamilton has said he still had life in them , the only reason they pit him was to cover themselves from an undercut from Kimi.

[sosic2121]

Ok so going with that argument I still don't get why when Kimi pitted Hamilton had to pit. If he had more than a 3 second gap from the beginning then he would not have gotten an undercut and he could have kept going for a longer stint cause he would see Vettel is still not pitting and once Ham had done a satisfactorily long stint he could have then pitted without any thread - or he could have done a Ferrari and pitted under VSC as well!

I also asked that, but no reply. Were Hamilton's tires used up or still had life in them? Was he losing time to Raikonnen or was the gap holding still?

Hamilton has said he still had life in them , the only reason they pit him was to cover themselves from an undercut from Kimi.

Kimi had purple S2 so Mercedes had to play safe and pit Hamilton.

[NathanOlder]

I also asked that, but no reply. Were Hamilton's tires used up or still had life in them? Was he losing time to Raikonnen or was the gap holding still?

Hamilton has said he still had life in them , the only reason they pit him was to cover themselves from an undercut from Kimi.

Kimi had purple S2 so Mercedes had to play safe and pit Hamilton.

100%, It was crazy not to pit. So Merc did the right thing, If they Tyres were still ok, it still made no sense to stay out as the new tyres were almost definitely going to be better and running to the end from that point was always pretty easy.

[komninosm]

Meh they could have stayed out 1 more lap at least to see if they could match Kimi's speed.