2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix - Baku, April 27-29

[komninosm]

Doubtful Bottas had any chance of winning it without a safety car. He was 12 second ahead of Vettel in 2nd - meaning after a stop at best 8 second behind Vettel and just ahead of Hamilton. With 12 laps to go, doubtful. He would have quite easily had Hamilton though.

Wasn't Hamilton catching up on Vettel whose Ferrari had trouble with softs? It was like already closer to 6 seconds gap.
I think without Safety Car Hamilton would catch up on Vettel just when Bottas caught up on both of them. Probably the podium would be Bottas > Hamilton > Vettel.
Why did Ferrari not put Ultrasofts on Vettel after Supersofts lasted for 80% of the race?

On the same lap when SC was called out, which was just after vettel and bottas crossed sector 2 line, vettel probably finnaly got his tire temps up and he was about to smash fastest lap at the time, but then SC came out. Judging by ric's unexpectedly slow outlap on US tires, it's fair to say without SC vettel easily wins the race, even with bottas doing a late charge.Bottas would first have to go trough hamilton, losing him more time, and at that point gap would be at least 8s in favour of vettel, if not more.

Ric was on US, Vettel was on Soft. Why did Ferrari not put him on ultrasofts?
Did Vettel do a purple sector 1 and 2? How do you know? Do you have the timings?

[NathanOlder]

He was less than 2 tenths up on Bottas best sector times. Hardly smashing the fastest lap considering Bottas was on tyres over 40 laps old when he set his fastest lap at that point of the race.

No one knows what might have happened. All we know is what DID happen.

[foxmulder_ms]

Baku was Vettels to lose. Bottas was nowhere in that first stint and i am amazed people think he would have been in contest for the win without the safety car.

ultra softs were quite smt. They were enough for Renault to pass redbull handily.

Red Bull were massively down on power early on in the race because of a battery issue I thought? Losing 20s to the front 3 can't have been genuine lack of pace surely

myth.

[Juzh]

He was less than 2 tenths up on Bottas best sector times. Hardly smashing the fastest lap considering Bottas was on tyres over 40 laps old when he set his fastest lap at that point of the race.

No one knows what might have happened. All we know is what DID happen.

Ok, he would not smash it, but what's more important is his relative pace comapred to bottas. Vettel was a whole 1.8s faster than bottas trough S1 and S2. Had bottas not pitted that lap in normal conditions he would start to lose a lot of time comapred to Vettel on warmed up tires. Couple that to US also not being good for fast laps out of the box and you can see why bottas would have a hard time catching Vettel in the final laps.

[Juzh]

Did Vettel do a purple sector 1 and 2? How do you know? Do you have the timings?

[Phil]

He was less than 2 tenths up on Bottas best sector times. Hardly smashing the fastest lap considering Bottas was on tyres over 40 laps old when he set his fastest lap at that point of the race.

No one knows what might have happened. All we know is what DID happen.

Ok, he would not smash it, but what's more important is his relative pace comapred to bottas. Vettel was a whole 1.8s faster than bottas trough S1 and S2. Had bottas not pitted that lap in normal conditions he would start to lose a lot of time comapred to Vettel on warmed up tires. Couple that to US also not being good for fast laps out of the box and you can see why bottas would have a hard time catching Vettel in the final laps.

Exactly. According to the Mercedes strategy video, they would have brought Bottas in 10 laps before the end for his last dash to the line on US. No doubt, the soft-tire on Vettels car had their issues, but Bottas was also going to come out around 8 seconds behind Vettel. 10 laps / 8 seconds = 0.8s. If we account for two laps to 'get the job done and allow yourself some margin to overtake', lets assume 2 laps to overtake, 8 to get close at a gap of 8 seconds. That means Bottas would have had to be quicker by at least a second, every single lap, on average.

On Lap 47 to 51, Hamilton's quickest lap on the US tire was a 1.46.xxx. Average more around high 1.46, if not 1.47. Prior to the safety car phase, Vettel was doing high 1.45 on his soft tires (lap 35 to 38). At no point did any car on the ultra-softs on a much lighter car ever do those kind of lap times. This is somewhat due to the cold USs from the safety car period, but given they had 3 laps to get them up to temps, also suggests that Mercedes would have struggled for some time after an assumed pitstop too. In order to 'beat Vettel' with 8 laps to go, Bottas would have had to substantially faster times (probably in the 1.42 to 1.43s). I'm not at all convinced that would have been doable.

Another example: The quickest full lap a RedBull did on ultra softs around that phase of the GP was a 1:45 (Dan) on the lap before they crashed.

[George-Jung]

Another example: The quickest full lap a RedBull did on ultra softs around that phase of the GP was a 1:45 (Dan) on the lap before they crashed.

You mean the lap they finished just before crashing into each other?

That was with huge DRS for Ricciardo as well.

[NathanOlder]

He was less than 2 tenths up on Bottas best sector times. Hardly smashing the fastest lap considering Bottas was on tyres over 40 laps old when he set his fastest lap at that point of the race.

No one knows what might have happened. All we know is what DID happen.

Ok, he would not smash it, but what's more important is his relative pace comapred to bottas. Vettel was a whole 1.8s faster than bottas trough S1 and S2. Had bottas not pitted that lap in normal conditions he would start to lose a lot of time comapred to Vettel on warmed up tires. Couple that to US also not being good for fast laps out of the box and you can see why bottas would have a hard time catching Vettel in the final laps.

I totally agree that Vettel probably wins the race, I just thought saying "Vettel easily wins the race" was a little much. It would have been interesting to see, and I think Mercedes would have let Bottas pass Hamilton as soon as he caught him, a bit like Hamilton passing Bottas in Hungary last year.

[F1NAC]

[Just_a_fan]

That's a good video. Nice to hear a bit of the radio chatter from the race. Be nice to hear some other teams too.

[Andres125sx]

Nice video, great post-production

[Wynters]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfGYwYoNdj8

Great post, thank you! Really nice to see a bit more about what goes on behind the scenes.

[NathanOlder]

https://www.gpfans.com/en/articles/3969 ... aku-crash/

So looks like Marko has accepted it was Max's fault. Some intersting points made in that interview. Nothing about being stuck behind a Mercedes as one Orange Fan seemed to think

[dans79]

https://www.gpfans.com/en/articles/3969 ... aku-crash/

So looks like Marko has accepted it was Max's fault. Some intersting points made in that interview.

To me, the quote hints at Gamesmanship on the part of Max.

"Verstappen told us that his tyres were ready," Marko said. "His lap time had just dropped by more than three-quarters of a second.

"Then Verstappen got the signal to come in and suddenly he drove two green sectors! With tyres that, according to what he had said earlier, were at their end."

[NathanOlder]

I don't understand what Max was getting out of it other than a good battle with his team mate. Surely Max could have been closer to the cars in front if he wasn't messing around and bluffing ?