2018 Italian Grand Prix - Monza, 31 Aug - 2 Sep

[Hammerfist]

I don't understand why everyone is so downbeat abut Mercedes after Spa. They were basically equal speed with Ferrari. They just lacked the burst of speed which Ferrari can maintain for like 5-10 seconds. Otherwise they are almost identical. In my opinion if Vettel couldn't have passed at the 1st straight it would have stayed stagnant. Therefore, I don't have favorite for this race. It is a coin flip.

It's not just Spa though. They have been behind Ferrari for quite a few races. Hamilton somehow stole some races filled with Vettel errors, rain and good luck. But in all those races Ferrari was favored to win. Even in Spa, we did not really get to see the true pace of the Ferrari in the dry and Lewis put it on pole again. I think a dry weekend in Monza will prove that those Mercedes fears are real. The way Vettel passed Lewis after Radillion cannot be down to just slip stream; he was so much faster he passed him in the middle of the kemmel straight and did not even to worry about covering Lewis under braking. Ocon had the double slipstream, that is why he was so much faster than both, plus the Racing Point car is usually faster in the straights than the Ferrari and Merc anyway.

[Big Mangalhit]

I don't understand why everyone is so downbeat abut Mercedes after Spa. They were basically equal speed with Ferrari. They just lacked the burst of speed which Ferrari can maintain for like 5-10 seconds. Otherwise they are almost identical. In my opinion if Vettel couldn't have passed at the 1st straight it would have stayed stagnant. Therefore, I don't have favorite for this race. It is a coin flip.

It's not just Spa though. They have been behind Ferrari for quite a few races. Hamilton somehow stole some races filled with Vettel errors, rain and good luck. But in all those races Ferrari was favored to win. Even in Spa, we did not really get to see the true pace of the Ferrari in the dry and Lewis put it on pole again. I think a dry weekend in Monza will prove that those Mercedes fears are real. The way Vettel passed Lewis after Radillion cannot be down to just slip stream; he was so much faster he passed him in the middle of the kemmel straight and did not even to worry about covering Lewis under braking. Ocon had the double slipstream, that is why he was so much faster than both, plus the Racing Point car is usually faster in the straights than the Ferrari and Merc anyway.

It can be mainly slipstream, just look at the hilarious erikson vs hartley battle in which they successively passed each other in the kemmel straight.

[Hammerfist]

I don't understand why everyone is so downbeat abut Mercedes after Spa. They were basically equal speed with Ferrari. They just lacked the burst of speed which Ferrari can maintain for like 5-10 seconds. Otherwise they are almost identical. In my opinion if Vettel couldn't have passed at the 1st straight it would have stayed stagnant. Therefore, I don't have favorite for this race. It is a coin flip.

It's not just Spa though. They have been behind Ferrari for quite a few races. Hamilton somehow stole some races filled with Vettel errors, rain and good luck. But in all those races Ferrari was favored to win. Even in Spa, we did not really get to see the true pace of the Ferrari in the dry and Lewis put it on pole again. I think a dry weekend in Monza will prove that those Mercedes fears are real. The way Vettel passed Lewis after Radillion cannot be down to just slip stream; he was so much faster he passed him in the middle of the kemmel straight and did not even to worry about covering Lewis under braking. Ocon had the double slipstream, that is why he was so much faster than both, plus the Racing Point car is usually faster in the straights than the Ferrari and Merc anyway.

It can be mainly slipstream, just look at the hilarious erikson vs hartley battle in which they successively passed each other in the kemmel straight.

The lower midfield cars can usually stay closer to each other, plus we are talking about Ericsson vs Hartley, two of the worst drivers on the grid. When Bottas passed Perez it didn't look nearly as easy.

[Juzh]

I don't understand why everyone is so downbeat abut Mercedes after Spa. They were basically equal speed with Ferrari. They just lacked the burst of speed which Ferrari can maintain for like 5-10 seconds. Otherwise they are almost identical. In my opinion if Vettel couldn't have passed at the 1st straight it would have stayed stagnant. Therefore, I don't have favorite for this race. It is a coin flip.

Can confirm.

[siskue2005]

Out of the next 8 races, Lewis only needs to win 3 races and come 2nd in the rest of 5 races to win the championship by 3 points ..............i think the championship will go down the wire.
Realistically Lewis can win Suzuka, Austin and Brazil.....rest he can scrape in 2nd at the minimum.

[LM10]

Out of the next 8 races, Lewis only needs to win 3 races and come 2nd in the rest of 5 races to win the championship by 3 points ..............i think the championship will go down the wire.
Realistically Lewis can win Suzuka, Austin and Brazil.....rest he can scrape in 2nd at the minimum.

Do you expect Hamilton to be 2nd at the minimum in Singapore? Can be, but I would not bet on it.

[MtthsMlw]

Looks like a mostly wet Friday. Could shake some things up since Ferrari usually needs the practise to get the set-up right.

[siskue2005]

Out of the next 8 races, Lewis only needs to win 3 races and come 2nd in the rest of 5 races to win the championship by 3 points ..............i think the championship will go down the wire.
Realistically Lewis can win Suzuka, Austin and Brazil.....rest he can scrape in 2nd at the minimum.

Do you expect Hamilton to be 2nd at the minimum in Singapore? Can be, but I would not bet on it.

I don't...also I don't expect Vettel to win 5 out of 8 races either

[Just_a_fan]

Out of the next 8 races, Lewis only needs to win 3 races and come 2nd in the rest of 5 races to win the championship by 3 points ..............i think the championship will go down the wire.
Realistically Lewis can win Suzuka, Austin and Brazil.....rest he can scrape in 2nd at the minimum.

Do you expect Hamilton to be 2nd at the minimum in Singapore? Can be, but I would not bet on it.

Depends who Vettel crashes in to...

[Chuckjr]

Pole is pretty much meaningless with the massive Ferrari straight line speed, and tire wear advantage. The lower downforce at Monza won't help Mercs blistering problem. Cold weather will only complicate that issue. Rain could be the only factor which goes against the Ferrari this year at Monza. Looking forward to the race.

[atanatizante]

Vettel has just 1 set of soft tyres so based on Spa race he can do a 22+laps on SS in the first stint and then swap for the second stint on S tyre till the end but the catch is that he could not afford to use it in FP2 and that could pose a risk in the race ...

The other scenario: he could test medium tyres in FP2 but I don`t think he is willing to use it in the race coz there`s a major speed loss per lap due to delta time between S an M tyre ...

Meanwhile, Lewis could start on S tyre knowing he could lose the lead after the first straight even if he wins the pole, then stay longer and in the end have a short stint on SS tyre at max attack mode

[Zynerji]

Out of the next 8 races, Lewis only needs to win 3 races and come 2nd in the rest of 5 races to win the championship by 3 points ..............i think the championship will go down the wire.
Realistically Lewis can win Suzuka, Austin and Brazil.....rest he can scrape in 2nd at the minimum.

Do you expect Hamilton to be 2nd at the minimum in Singapore? Can be, but I would not bet on it.

I don't...also I don't expect Vettel to win 5 out of 8 races either

Because we haven't seen him do THAT before...

[Phil]

https://postimg.cc/image/udwdmp08d/
Meanwhile, Lewis could start on S tyre knowing he could lose the lead after the first straight even if he wins the pole, then stay longer and in the end have a short stint on SS tyre at max attack mode

That wont work, as Ferrari will just mirror the strategy in Q2.

Assuming Mercedes see themselves as the underdog and want to win the WDC at all costs, the intelligent thing to do would be to split strategies with Hamilton and Bottas. Have Bottas do S and Hamilton SS in Q2. Ferrari will surely mirror Hamilton as he is the WDC contender. Then use the second driver, Bottas, play a road block to when Vettel stops before to ensure an overcut works. Same would apply in reverse too.

It’s dirty stuff, especially for the second driver and IMO Mercedes wont do it, but it is still fascinating to discuss the posibility of a tactic like that being used...

[Zynerji]

https://postimg.cc/image/udwdmp08d/
Meanwhile, Lewis could start on S tyre knowing he could lose the lead after the first straight even if he wins the pole, then stay longer and in the end have a short stint on SS tyre at max attack mode

That wont work, as Ferrari will just mirror the strategy in Q2.

Assuming Mercedes see themselves as the underdog and want to win the WDC at all costs, the intelligent thing to do would be to split strategies with Hamilton and Bottas. Have Bottas do S and Hamilton SS in Q2. Ferrari will surely mirror Hamilton as he is the WDC contender. Then use the second driver, Bottas, play a road block to when Vettel stops before to ensure an overcut works. Same would apply in reverse too.

It’s dirty stuff, especially for the second driver and IMO Mercedes wont do it, but it is still fascinating to discuss the posibility of a tactic like that being used...

How did we go from fans hating team orders to something like this being discussed?

Blows my mind that any team would execute a strategy to that level of hindrance.

[atanatizante]

I think the tire was only possibly an issue on the SS and evidently, both Hamilton and Vettel were pushing. Vettel because he needed to ensure a large enough gap not to be undercut, Hamilton to remain close enough. This put the tires on the first stint under quite some strain. Probably just a combination of track layout, surface, tire compound. and car characteristic. Also, both did more laps than expected on the SS than what Pirelli predicted. No point in stopping too early and getting into traffic.

I think it’s safe to assume that overall, the Ferrari always had a slight advantage with tire degradation, so Mercedes do need to slightly compromise their set-up. On some tracks more so than others. By how much probably depends on the track layout, tire compound, surface and temperature.

Seems to me that now Ferrari`s car performs better on cooler track temps (e.g.China, Canada, Belgium) and Merc on hotter ones (UK, Germany, Hungary) where Vettel reported some issues in the first stint on all 3 races when the only constant was the high track temperature ...

Lewis did have the same issue on SS tyres in Austria but he also was pushing and most of all for being in the dirty air behind another driver. At Spa he opted for more downforce coz on their simulations back at home they found that`s the best setup in order to have the quickest lap time and has nothing to do with traction, which is down to rear suspension setup rather than downforce levels.

At Spa they followed the same strategy back from Vettel`s days at RB and were hoping that Lewis could stay ahead after the first lap. Instead, he was forced to stay in Vettel`s dirty air and charging to stay close to him for trying an undercut to work. These two factors lead to blistering and furthermore for poor S2 times in the race, which was in high contrast with what happened in Q1&Q2. Hence the importance to run in clean air ...