2018 German Grand Prix - Hockenheimring, July 20-22

[Restomaniac]

Laps before Seb's slide in to the gravel.

Vettel
45 1:19.251
46 1:20.700
47 1:19.382
48 1:19.133
49 1:20.281
50 1:23.376
51 1:29.270

Hamilton
45 1:17.251
46 1:19.386
47 1:16.957
48 1:17.792
49 1:18.899
50 1:21.122
51 1:29.258

Hamilton was eating in to Vettel's advantage. If Vettel was aware of that, it might have caused him to push too hard on the tyres he was on. The only one who knows is Seb and he isn't saying.

It would be more informative if you had stuck the times for Bottas and Raikkonen up as well.

[cooken]

People are giving Seb an awfully hard time here. Nobody recalling part(s) of his FW broke off not too many laps before he crashed? Now, we've seen in the past many a FW failure with seemingly very little affect on performance, but surely it was a contributing factor.
Also not fair to compare his pace at that point to Kimi, who was quickly becoming a pylon on completely worn tyres.

Gosh it's so toxic in here lately, vitriol everywhere and not much capacity to keep things in perspective. Take a deep breath, look to next week and try to enjoy what may be the best season long war we've had in ages.

Bottas had fresher tyres than Vettel as well but Hamilton was still making him look like he was stood still. Sometimes it’s ok to admit somebody screwed up.

Well true enough on that, but Bottas on S vs Ham on US an on damp track, that's to be expected even without considering Hams skill in wet. Tyre temp I reckon certainly was playing a factor and not surprising Seb had better pace than Bot given Ferraris characteristics there. Anyway I certainly don't want to absolve Seb, he should've been able to anticipate grip levels even with a damaged wing - I just wanted to point it out as a factor. Believe me I am in no way a fan of his and was full of glee when he went off, but folks need to cool the torches.
In general the forum behaviour is far too melodramatic lately.

[Just_a_fan]

Laps before Seb's slide in to the gravel.

Vettel
45 1:19.251
46 1:20.700
47 1:19.382
48 1:19.133
49 1:20.281
50 1:23.376
51 1:29.270

Hamilton
45 1:17.251
46 1:19.386
47 1:16.957
48 1:17.792
49 1:18.899
50 1:21.122
51 1:29.258

Hamilton was eating in to Vettel's advantage. If Vettel was aware of that, it might have caused him to push too hard on the tyres he was on. The only one who knows is Seb and he isn't saying.

It would be more informative if you had stuck the times for Bottas and Raikkonen up as well.

As you wish:

Kimi
45 1:19.719
46 1:21.798
47 1:19.680
48 1:20.789
49 1:20.117
50 1:22.168
51 1:33.961

Bottas
45 1:18.222
46 1:21.822
47 1:20.370
48 1:19.568
49 1:19.723
50 1:22.063
51 1:31.867

[rogazilla]

Tl;dr

Question during the safety card period why didn’t leclerc kept the gap at 55 second and subsequently Alonso and gasly are kept a minute behind? Don’t they bunch up during safety car just can’t overtake?

[drunkf1fan]

Completely disagree. Vettel did something metronomically dumb today. In the 5 laps leading up to his crash, he extended his gap to Raikkonen from 3 to 10 seconds. He was just pushing too hard and I have no idea why? It almost felt like he was trying to prove an unnecessary point!

A part of me has a feeling he did not like being held up by Raikkonen for that long. It's not the first time he would have lost his hot head and done something daft.

Was it Vettel driving too fast or Kimi & Bottas too slow? I am honestly unsure, but as Hamilton was coming up behind both Bottas and Kimi, i recall a lot of backmarkers being tangled up in a big battle that surely must have accounted for that huge gap opening to Vettel ahead?

It just looked odd. Hamilton was taking seconds out of everybody apart from Vettel. We had car spinnings all over the place. Then Vettel slides off.

In hindsight it seems pretty obvious that Vettel was pushing too damn hard on old S tyres and TBH when he hit the barrier my first thought was well that’s what you get for pushing that damn hard.

Hamilton gained 10 seconds out of a 22 second lead after his pitstop on Vettel. He was 23.7 seconds down on lap 43 and he was 12.1 seconds down on lap 50. That is 11.5 seconds gained in 7 laps with at the time another 17 laps to go, Vettel, Bottas and Kimi all on much older tires and all on the slower soft tire which wasn't good for those conditions.

I really don't know why so many people are saying that Vettel wasn't slow.It's worth noting that on lap 49 and 50 Bottas was faster than Vettel before he crashed.

[Jackles-UK]

Hamilton earned the win today with a superb drive, no luck involved as I think he was on track to win the race with the pace he had on the US tyres regardless of Vettel binning it. The real skill though was consistently lapping close to the pace of VET, RAI & BOT on tyres 30 laps older than his rivals, this allowed him to go aggressive and fit the US tyres rather than fitting the mediums like Alonso had to.

He can consider himself a little lucky though to extend his championship lead by as much as he has. I get the feeling that had the race been in any other country Vettel would have played the numbers game and brought it home on the podium at worst. Having had a pretty poor record by his standards at Hockenheim (which is only 28 miles from his home town) I think he was on a death-or-glory mission to finally win on home soil and pushed too hard to try and protect himself from Hamilton who was flying behind him.

On the penalty, it probably should have been a more severe punishment but given that all cars were at safety car speed there wasn’t really any danger involved in doing what he did. The FIA also had to kind of guess as no penalty is actually specified in the ruling; I would therefore expect a rule clarification from them in the not too distant future followed by uproar when the defined penalty is different to the one Hamilton received!

[Edax]

On the penalty, it probably should have been a more severe punishment but given that all cars were at safety car speed there wasn’t really any danger involved in doing what he did. The FIA also had to kind of guess as no penalty is actually specified in the ruling; I would therefore expect a rule clarification from them in the not too distant future followed by uproar when the defined penalty is different to the one Hamilton received!

I wonder wether the call was made on strategy, or because of the panic around bottas car. If it was the latter I certainly see no reason for a penalty. Safer to jump the line than to run into a pit crew which has lost all oversight.

[drunkf1fan]

Hamilton earned the win today with a superb drive, no luck involved as I think he was on track to win the race with the pace he had on the US tyres regardless of Vettel binning it. The real skill though was consistently lapping close to the pace of VET, RAI & BOT on tyres 30 laps older than his rivals, this allowed him to go aggressive and fit the US tyres rather than fitting the mediums like Alonso had to.

He can consider himself a little lucky though to extend his championship lead by as much as he has. I get the feeling that had the race been in any other country Vettel would have played the numbers game and brought it home on the podium at worst. Having had a pretty poor record by his standards at Hockenheim (which is only 28 miles from his home town) I think he was on a death-or-glory mission to finally win on home soil and pushed too hard to try and protect himself from Hamilton who was flying behind him.

On the penalty, it probably should have been a more severe punishment but given that all cars were at safety car speed there wasn’t really any danger involved in doing what he did. The FIA also had to kind of guess as no penalty is actually specified in the ruling; I would therefore expect a rule clarification from them in the not too distant future followed by uproar when the defined penalty is different to the one Hamilton received!

Looking at the numbers I'm not sure Vettel was or could play the numbers. He was losing a lot of time to Hamilton already but more over he was slower than Kimi and Bottas also in the final two laps. Looks to me like his tires probably dropped out of the temp window and he lost grip and could well be responsible for his crash.

Had he not crashed if he continued losing over a second a lap to Bottas and not much less to Kimi, well to me I would think if his tires had gone off the cliff he had no option but to pit. IF he went onto ultras pretty much that lap he's going to be ~15 seconds behind Kimi. Kimi would probably need to pit again, Bottas probably wouldn't. Could he catch Bottas, hard to tell, Ham on the ultras and faster than anyone I think would get by those two and no chance VEttel catches him with that gap on only 10 lap fresher tires.

However if he pitted right then at it's wettest, he might well have put on inters which would have left him imo out of the top three. He'd pit, be slow and 15 seconds behind Kimi then he and Kimi pit for fresh ultras within a few laps. Neither would have any chance of catching the front two.

[PlatinumZealot]

Team orders twice for the lead in the same race, a bit too much for me.

At least one of them didn't come from a cockpit. Guess which one did.

[PlatinumZealot]

I was fist pumping back in 2007 on that last race when Hamilton was desperately trying to get his car working again as he slipped further and further back. I feel kinda stupid having done that, especially considering i ended up being a fan of Lewis in 2008, but sport sometimes gets the better of us... :/

Did a few fist pumps today too. Vettel in the wall, beating on his steering wheel like a Conga drum made my day.

[Zynerji]

Great drive by Hamilton.

No penalty for Hamilton's pit infringement delegitimizes the FIA, race stewards, and F1 as a whole.

It's literally professional wrestling now, not a technical sport.

Makes me want to vomit. Especially with previous infractions and Whiting directives/ threats. The justification contortions are literally awful... To say they didn't penalize BECAUSE OF THE SAFETY CAR made it less dangerous is utterly stupefying. If anything, all infractions under the safety car should come with DOUBLE penalties.

I can't watch anymore...

[Zynerji]

I was fist pumping back in 2007 on that last race when Hamilton was desperately trying to get his car working again as he slipped further and further back. I feel kinda stupid having done that, especially considering i ended up being a fan of Lewis in 2008, but sport sometimes gets the better of us... :/

Did a few fist pumps today too. Vettel in the wall, beating on his steering wheel like a Conga drum made my day.

Only low class fans applaud crashes, regardless of who the driver is.

[Moose]

I actually am one of those who feels fans should be allowed to express themselves. But, I've not seen one mention of this in the media, specially the British media. I know the reaction if the shoe was on the other foot.

I was at Silverstone in 96 cheering for Hill. When Michael retired, we all cheered and yah-booed the Schuie fans nearby. When Hill later retired, they returned the favour. All in good spirits. No one got aggressive etc

I must say that the web allows the more aggressive fans to vent their anger and it ruins things for all. It doesn't really happen at the track side.

As for the media - each nation's media tries to appeal to their local audience
They believe that the local audience will naturally support the local driver/team. Hence "biased" reporting. It's not surprising and can be ignored, on the whole.

Honestly, I think this is mostly just that the internet is incapable of transmitting tone of voice.

When you were at the track, I bet you said things that were very similar to the kinds of things that trolls say on the internet. The difference is that you said them with a grin on your face, and a friendly attitude, and the Schumacher fans were easily able to tell that you were ribbing them. On the internet, you can't tell if someone is being an asshole, or if they're being an "asshole".

[Bill_Kar]

Great drive by Hamilton.

No penalty for Hamilton's pit infringement delegitimizes the FIA, race stewards, and F1 as a whole.

It's literally professional wrestling now, not a technical sport.

Makes me want to vomit. Especially with previous infractions and Whiting directives/ threats. The justification contortions are literally awful... To say they didn't penalize BECAUSE OF THE SAFETY CAR made it less dangerous is utterly stupefying. If anything, all infractions under the safety car should come with DOUBLE penalties.

I can't watch anymore...

I'm tired of people whining and threatening like that.

So, just stop watching. You won't be missed, frankly.

[Moose]

Well true enough on that, but Bottas on S vs Ham on US an on damp track, that's to be expected even without considering Hams skill in wet. Tyre temp I reckon certainly was playing a factor and not surprising Seb had better pace than Bot given Ferraris characteristics there.

Eh? I'm not sure I get you. The Mercedes tends to keep its tyres warmer than the Ferrari as far as I can tell.

Points that back up this view point:

• At the circuits with the thinner tyre treads, Mercedes have had an advantage - it's harder to get heat into the thinner treads because they move around less. Mercedes putting more heat into their tyres makes them work better

• Mercedes had an advantage for the whole weekend at Austria until race day, that advantage reversed on race day, suggesting that in P1/2/3/Q Ferrari struggled to warm the tyres, while at the race, Mercedes struggled to cool them.

• Mercedes have historically been (and still are) better on harder tyres than on softer. They get less of an advantage from softer rubber than Ferrari does. The softer tyres have both a lower operating window, and move around on, making them easier to heat up. Keeping the tyres warmer explains this.

• Mercedes do poorly in Singapore - a circuit that has the perfect storm of lots of braking (raising brake and tyre temps), soft rubber, and high track temperatures.

• You often see Ferrari taking 2 hot laps in qualifying, while Mercedes only take one, suggesting that the Mercedes gets temperature into the tyres fast, while the Ferrari needs a lap to build up the temperature.

I think a cooler track actually favoured the Mercedes. That, plus Hamilton having the better tyres for the cooling track, plus Hamilton being a rain master added up to Hamilton being multiple seconds a lap faster.