2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix - Baku, April 27-29

[Fulcrum]

Regarding the times, surely we can't judge them relative to last year considering the track temps are completely different?

[Phil]

Probably not, but given they all qualified at the same time last year and same time this year (among each other), it is peculiar that most cars improved their Q3 times (relative to last year) and Mercedes did not?

To me, the conclusion is quite logically down to tire performance/management/setup.

[ripper]

He won't need to, because he did his best run on the US tire in Q2. So Kimi will be starting on the US tire (vs. everyone else from the top 6 who will start on the SS).

I predict a straight forward SS-S strategy for most. Kimi might be a dark horse given he is starting on the US, but his strategy options will be limited due to his damaged SS tire. Personally, I think we can speculate all we want about which car is best, fastest etc, but IMO, there's too high a chance that the race will be influenced by a safety car. Usually, a safety car benefits the risk takers - those that are gambling, rather than those that are already at the front and playing it safe (to protect their position).

If it's a straight forward race, no safety-car, I think the victory could go to Mercedes as Ferrari may be vulnerable with a single car up front. Either way, the victory either Vettel or a Mercedes. If it's a chaotic race, I think RedBull could win this race. RedBull are always ready to gamble and take risks and they are aggressive enough to try something creative (like stopping early and late with their cars).

If Raikkonen can't change SS tyres and they are too much damaged they are going, in a SC free race, for a US-S race I guess stretching a bit the US and the S stints.

Anyway I'm betting on another chaotic race and a RIC's victory

[f1316]

You’re not comparing apples with apples: last year the race was held in June and they *still* struggled getting tyres up to temp; this year, in April, it’s even worse so natural they’d be slower.

I guess you haven't read Toto's statement recently. Mercedes' problem is not getting tyres up to temp, it's about getting all four tyres in to the right temperature window, all at once. Fronts and Rears are not in sync. When fronts are, then rears aren't and where rears are, then front aren't. Sometimes it's lack of temperatures and sometimes overheat. So, it's not a straight forward, getting tyres up to temp situation. Last year, the car performed better in colder temperatures, but Baku had 50+, but the car still performed.

So they don't fully understand the Mechanical situation (in proper worlds, the vehicle dynamics) of the car. It's a great car with great aero, but the mechanical side is where the team has been struggling to get it together.

All the cars are quicker - we’ve seen that in all the like-for-like comparison races we’ve had so far - so no, Mercedes could not go faster in the W08.

I am confused with your statement. All the cars are quicker, but Mercedes could not go faster in W08?

2017
W08 did 1m40.593
SF70H did 1m41.693
RB13 did 1m41.897

2018
W09 did 1m41.677
SF71H did 1m41.498
RB14 did 1m41.911.

SF71H is obviously faster than SF70H, but W09 is slower by 1.1 seconds! Did you read that? I know it is not a practical scenario about W08 being on the track now. But fact is fact, despite spending 12 months of development effort (which costs in excess of $500 mn) the W09 is slower. When the nose regulations changed from 2014 to 2015, Mercedes claimed they struggled to get the downforce back, but W06 was still faster than W05, despite having a compromised aero philosophy! Lost in excess of a second by spending more, sound crazy.

With Halo, this year's oil limit and race at this time of year there is no doubt W08 would be slower than W09. Ferrari was just 0.2 quicker than last year and we all see how much their car is better than last year's especially in qiualifying.

GPR-A completely missing my point.

Let’s take winter testing: the cars regularly go slower in Barcelona qualifying than they did during testing. Do you think it’s because the cars got slower since testing? Or is it because the conditions are completely different?

It’s the same here. The Baku race is being held in completely different conditions than it was last year, so you cannot simply say ‘oh look, they’re 1.1s slower than last year, they must have gone backwards ‘ - it’s a completely different situation. You couple that with the things Harvester said like halo etc. and it’s clear that any comparisons with quali time last year is far too facile an analysis.

[Vanja #66]

Probably not, but given they all qualified at the same time last year and same time this year (among each other), it is peculiar that most cars improved their Q3 times (relative to last year) and Mercedes did not?

To me, the conclusion is quite logically down to tire performance/management/setup.

That's a valid conclusion, but not the only one. The other one would be that Halo and extra weight is a good solid hindrance compared to last year. That said, maybe Merc made up half a second with W09 over W08, but Halo is costing about a second and a half here - and all other teams made up over a second and a half with new cars. It's a number tossing, yes, but you know - it's not like you can make a car over a second faster with proper tyre treatment. According to Bottas after China Q, you can't make up even half a second with proper tyre prep and treatment.

[Fulcrum]

Yeah, we're not experiencing the dramatic degradation of 2012/3, but Mercedes - amongst others - don't seem to generate consistent performance from this year's rubber. With the cars being that much closer as well, their issues are more pronounced than might have been the case 2 years ago.

[MtthsMlw]

Watched a comparison between last year's pole and this year's and it seems like Vettel lost all the time on the main straight. Until turn 16 they were equal.
Is that really just different conditions?

[Vanja #66]

On a different note, if Mercedes doesn't win here and win the WDC, they'll become only the third team that managed not to win in the first four races and still win the WDC. It happened in that famous season of anomalies in 1982 with Keke Rosberg and in 1964, with John Surtees and Ferrari.

[iotar__]

Wait, they didn't give Hartley a penalty? FIA/Whiting are a complete and utter joke.

Their justification is bizarre, puncture, he moved left not knowing what he was doing. Yes, complete lack of awareness in a dangerous and controllable situation = penalty. He had plenty of time to figure it out. Yet they give 5 places grid for slowing down under d-yellows. Penalty for Red Bull benefactors? Never, not in our F1.

[Restomaniac]

When the teams made their allocations for these tracks, they had little information on how these tires were going to be on all these tracks. The trend has usually been that the softest is the best, especially for qualifying, because it gives you the fastest lap, even if they only last for 3 laps. Obviously, this sets you up for a disadvantage during the race when you need to start on them.

If you look at the trend of the last few races - race circumstance meant that it was better (strategically) to run a harder tire in your 2nd stint (or even in Q3 and the first stint of the race) in order have a better outlook for the race because sometimes, race position and stopping fewer is better than running faster but being stuck in traffic. Also, because these tires have a different temperature window they need to hit, it's important to know what you are getting into. For that they need tires. If they only have 2 or 3 sets for the entire weekend, it obviously sets them up at a disadvantage, because they need to test one in FP to know how long they last and what kind of performance they can extract, they may need one during Q2 (if they want to start on that tire during the race) and then it would of course be preferable to have an extra set during the race (like in China when Mercedes didn't) when a circumstantial safety car meant having one would have been key to win the race.

Phil, this discussion between Restomaniac and myself started from completely different reasons and morphed into this because of some arguments from his side. This is the post in question:

I would be reasonably sure that the Ferrari team are fully aware as to how their car uses each type of tyre, and their strategists will have chosen the tyres that in their educated opinion, will work best for them.

Ferrari will have had no clue how their car treats the new compounds in 'anger' when they decided on this weekends tyre compounds.

The point is, it's a street circuit and all teams brought 8+ SS compounds last year, which was the softest at the time. Now most of the brought 9+ compounds of softest available, some however brought 7 (Renault) and Pirelli stated the track is a bit smoother this year. To say that teams (specifically Ferrari, but I don't think he meant only them) have had no clue how tyres would react to being run on this track at the time of choosing is a serious underestimation of their knowledge, experience, understanding of statistical data and whatnot.

I'm not talking about differences between starting from pole and starting from second row, I'm talking about having a good understanding of what the track will be at the time of running. How your car behaves in simulator in different temperature conditions, how bad the wear should be, could it be like China (teams have certainly had in mind an option of running on Softs in Q2 and going all the way on Medium to the end, yet they chose a lot of Ultras) or could it be like Monaco (when Seb ran more than half a race distance on Ultras). The most important for teams is - can they make a good correlation between different compounds and use the data from, say, softest compound to have a good estimation on how the harder ones will behave. If they do, well, they don't need more than 2 sets of prime and option tyres for any weekend - and I will be very surprised if this turns out to happen on every race for the rest of the season.

I giggled reading Restomaniac's post, I'm not even close to understanding how F1 tyres are made and how they work - but I know what I don't know and I understand what teams can know before choosing their tyres for the weekend. Ferrari used a lot of time in 2016 to learn about 2017 tyres. That knowledge didn't evaporate and it seems Mercedes (for example) is still playing catch-up. As far as I'm concerned, this discussion should be put to rest and we should enjoy the Qualy ahead of us.

They clearly didn't have a clue because they got it wrong as this weekend has proved. Instead of giggling about it you maybe could have understood my POV.

[Restomaniac]

I personally think there's merit to both points. The teams had to decide the tire allocation for this weekend well in advance. As you say, F1 is data driven and thus it's logical there was a lot of reasoning why teams allocated what they did. I think what most here (Restomaniac included) are arguing, is that with the power of hindsight, with the power of knowledge of the last 3 races, there's a genuine point that allocating as many softest tires as possible may not have been the best allocation. If most teams could revert their allocation, I'm sure they would have brought some more SS instead. Which tires are best for a race is very dependent on tire temperature, their car and well, factors that are well outside what they could possible predict couple of months ago. And there has definitely been a trend so far this year that suggests that having as many of the softest tires as possible is not the way to go. It may have been in the past, because for example last year, the Pirellis were very conservative in their compounds and ended up being far more durable than what they wanted/expected. This year, the tires are more on point. You have a qualifying tire (the HS and the US), but those are arguably not very good 'race tires'.

Personally, I think Renault had their tire allocation spot on, but they are a little too far off the pace to really gain a big advantage from them. It would have been great for Mercedes to have more softs or super-softs for the race - it would definitely set us and them up better strategically.

Exactly they used last years data and Ideas in their blind guess. They go it wrong.

If you had offered every single team a free swap of a set of US to SS before FP3 I would guess every single team would take that up apart from Renault.

[Morteza]

[Zynerji]

I'm not buying the one stopper as the fastest strategy, not at all. One safety car is all it takes to ruin that plan, I think it would make more sense to approach every race as a two stopper and adjusting instead of going for a default 1 stopper.

This is literally why I think Kimi will win.

He's the highest placed 2 stopper, with 5 cars ahead with harder tyres that already have more laps on them. I expect him to be in first place by lap 4, then the stretch-dash while praying for a safety car that will come eventually. US->S->US to allow the late change to 1 stop if more safety cars come after, or chase down people that are on old tyres with his fresh US and light fuel after the track rubbers in even more.

Dark horse winner.

[Vanja #66]

They clearly didn't have a clue because they got it wrong as this weekend has proved. Instead of giggling about it you maybe could have understood my POV.

I hope I won't regret asking this, but how can you still say that with Renault actually saving a set of SS instead of US for P3/Q/R and then used them in P3 instead of saving them for the race? Every team ended up having 4 sets of US for Q/R, 1 SS and 1 S. Every team. Those who brought 4 sets of SS and those who brought only 1 still chose to have 5 sets of US for Q/R and only 1 set of SS (with Top 10 drivers loosing a set of qualy tyres as usual). Nobody complained about US tyres, meaning they got what they expected.

[Unc1eM0nty]

This is literally why I think Kimi will win.

I expect him to be in first place by lap 4

Really ?