2018 Singapore Grand Prix - Marina Bay, 14-16 September

[Phil]

However let’s look back to Monza. Hamilton was in Raikkonen’s dirty air and was reporting no problems in fact he was happy to go on radio saying how good his tyres were. He then went far longer than Raikkonen on his starting tyres. Then look at Vettel’s and Raikkonen’s soft tyres. Vettels looked bad, Raikkonen’s looked damn right dangerous.
All the evidence points to Mercedes having got right on top of their tyre eating issues.

Monza and Singapore are two very, very different tracks. One has a very gripy surface, long straights and very low speed corners, the other is a street circuit, low grip, short straights with low speed corners but high downforce configuration.

While Mercedes did solve some of its tire issues that plagued them at the beginning of the year, Ferraris tire issues had to do with them pushing too hard on the soft tire at the beginning of the stint with lots of rubber on the tire. Blistering is a different issue that is not the same as tire wear! Again: the blistering Kimi suffered had nothing to do with driving in dirty air, but with overheating the tire when pushing too hard at the beginning of the stint!

[Restomaniac]

However let’s look back to Monza. Hamilton was in Raikkonen’s dirty air and was reporting no problems in fact he was happy to go on radio saying how good his tyres were. He then went far longer than Raikkonen on his starting tyres. Then look at Vettel’s and Raikkonen’s soft tyres. Vettels looked bad, Raikkonen’s looked damn right dangerous.
All the evidence points to Mercedes having got right on top of their tyre eating issues.

Monza and Singapore are two very, very different tracks. One has a very gripy surface, long straights and very low speed corners, the other is a street circuit, low grip, short straights with low speed corners but high downforce configuration.

While Mercedes did solve some of its tire issues that plagued them at the beginning of the year, Ferraris tire issues had to do with them pushing too hard on the soft tire at the beginning of the stint with lots of rubber on the tire. Blistering is a different issue that is not the same as tire wear! Again: the blistering Kimi suffered had nothing to do with driving in dirty air, but with overheating the tire when pushing too hard at the beginning of the stint!

Mercedes have historically had massive problems following in another cars wake. Suddenly that has stopped. To the point that Hamilton was very happy to broadcast it in Monza. The reason Raikkonen had to push so hard was because Hamilton was sat on a tyre that previously would have been knackered and instead had plenty of life left in it. I imagine Ferrari were shocked by it.

We then go to a track which previously for Mercedes was a tyre eater and lo and behold Mercedes seemed to be THE car to be in to the point that the Mercedes in the hands of Hamilton smashed the field in qualifying and cruised in the race. Again I imagine Ferrari can’t get their head around the Mercedes pace.

Yes very different tracks but an underlying clear direction.

[Phil]

That "historically" is quite old when you consider Melbourne and how Hamilton was glued behind Vettel after being caught out by the safety car.

Some tracks make following other cars easy, some don't. Monza is a track that made following easy (again, because the tow and DRS are powerful and few corners that have lots of downforce), Singapore is not one that does. If it were, then Bottas would have had no problems driving up to Hulkenberg and triggering the blue flags being waved.

[Restomaniac]

That "historically" is quite old when you consider Melbourne and how Hamilton was glued behind Vettel after being caught out by the safety car.

Some tracks make following other cars easy, some don't. Monza is a track that made following easy, Singapore is not one that does. If it were, then Bottas would have had no problems driving up to Hulkenberg and triggering the blue flags being waved.

Hey it’s fine it’s not Mercedes’ hard work then.

[Phil]

I think the answer is pretty simple: when you have corners that rely on lots of front wing downforce to push the car to the surface to retain front-end grip, you obviously will suffer when following another car disturbing that air flow. Obviously, some cars are more reliant on front-end grip and some cars maybe disturb the air behind them more than others.

If and how much that turbulent air disturbs the one behind, depends on the circuit and the type of corners. Fast corners (high speed) obviously have more/require more downforce than low-speed corners that rely on mechanical grip. Monza is easy to explain because it's a low-downforce track, very high top-speeds and most corners (chicanes) are fairly slow. The last corner is perhaps medium speed, but what is lost there is then made up on the straight with the massive tow. Same applies to T3 at Monza (the right hander). What follows is a long straight up to the chicane.

Singapore is a street circuit. Very low grip, not very high top-speeds, so teams run maximum downforce (like at Monaco). Because it's low grip, it's important to have as much downforce as possible. Obviously, the more downforce you run/have, the more you lose when in another cars wake.

Mercedes have made lots of progress obviously, especially on the traction side and with the new rims they are running, have a better grip on managing the rear temperatures? But I don't think they suddenly found a magical solution to running close without losing tire performance. If you look at Bottas's race at Singapore, it points to the contrary.

[Restomaniac]

I think the answer is pretty simple: when you have corners that rely on lots of front wing downforce to push the car to the surface to retain front-end grip, you obviously will suffer when following another car disturbing that air flow. Obviously, some cars are more reliant on front-end grip and some cars maybe disturb the air behind them more than others.

If and how much that turbulent air disturbs the one behind, depends on the circuit and the type of corners. Fast corners (high speed) obviously have more/require more downforce than low-speed corners that rely on mechanical grip. Monza is easy to explain because it's a low-downforce track, very high top-speeds and most corners (chicanes) are fairly slow. The last corner is perhaps medium speed, but what is lost there is then made up on the straight with the massive tow. Same applies to T3 at Monza (the right hander). What follows is a long straight up to the chicane.

Singapore is a street circuit. Very low grip, not very high top-speeds, so teams run maximum downforce (like at Monaco). Because it's low grip, it's important to have as much downforce as possible. Obviously, the more downforce you run/have, the more you lose when in another cars wake.

Mercedes have made lots of progress obviously, especially on the traction side and with the new rims they are running, have a better grip on managing the rear temperatures? But I don't think they suddenly found a magical solution to running close without losing tire performance. If you look at Bottas's race at Singapore, it points to the contrary.

Bottas was just awful.

[ab_f1]

Was wondering about different needs of tyres HS vs US vs Soft in terms of temperature management.

Are teams allowed to use different style wheel rims for different sets?

I mean can the team use 1 style rim to keep HS from having too much temp and another for soft to get more temp fed.

[strad]

Why?
I guess you'd have to ask a psychologist and Perez. He has a years long history of bad conduct. The team had to order them not to race each other,mostly because of Perez's actions ,, lifted it and as I understand it are going to reinstitute those orders again. He can't control himself and can't stand being past or losing a place... Especially to Ocon.

[NathanOlder]

I think the answer is pretty simple: when you have corners that rely on lots of front wing downforce to push the car to the surface to retain front-end grip, you obviously will suffer when following another car disturbing that air flow. Obviously, some cars are more reliant on front-end grip and some cars maybe disturb the air behind them more than others.

If and how much that turbulent air disturbs the one behind, depends on the circuit and the type of corners. Fast corners (high speed) obviously have more/require more downforce than low-speed corners that rely on mechanical grip. Monza is easy to explain because it's a low-downforce track, very high top-speeds and most corners (chicanes) are fairly slow. The last corner is perhaps medium speed, but what is lost there is then made up on the straight with the massive tow. Same applies to T3 at Monza (the right hander). What follows is a long straight up to the chicane.

Singapore is a street circuit. Very low grip, not very high top-speeds, so teams run maximum downforce (like at Monaco). Because it's low grip, it's important to have as much downforce as possible. Obviously, the more downforce you run/have, the more you lose when in another cars wake.

Mercedes have made lots of progress obviously, especially on the traction side and with the new rims they are running, have a better grip on managing the rear temperatures? But I don't think they suddenly found a magical solution to running close without losing tire performance. If you look at Bottas's race at Singapore, it points to the contrary.

Monza has more high speed corners than Singapore though Phil. So surely that means following wont be the easiest thing in the world. The slow speed nature of singapore means following would be equally easy as Monza.

We wont count curva grande but you still have the 2 Lesmo's , Ascari which is 3 turns & Parabolica. So 5 corners that are equal or faster than the 1 and only high speed corner at Singapore (final turn)

I think these 2 circuits plus Canada and monaco are the 4 easiest tracks to follow on the current F1 calendar.

Maybe at Sochi to that list too.

[Phil]

Yes, but a car running a high downforce setup will be more affected by dirty air, than a car running a low downforce setup, everything being equal. And, as i said, surface and grip levels plays a huge role too.

I didnt say Monza doesnt have highspeed (higher) corners. I believe i named them too (just not by names), but i also mentioned that the loss there was made up by the huge straights and the tow (as well as DRS support in Lewis’s case).

So is there really any dispute over why Lewis could follow relatively easy in Monza without having a negative affect on his tires?

[Jolle]

Was wondering about different needs of tyres HS vs US vs Soft in terms of temperature management.

Are teams allowed to use different style wheel rims for different sets?

I mean can the team use 1 style rim to keep HS from having too much temp and another for soft to get more temp fed.

I think that's not allowed anymore since they had different weight in wheels in the 80's to get up to the minimum weight during scruterneering. Plus, if they were allowed, they would have different rims for every set

What I do know for sure is that the wheels with different parts aren't allowed, since they all had those weird disks in '09.

[GrandAxe]

Lewis simply drove a very intelligent race. Bottas couldn't replicate that, even in clear air.

Ferrari complained about Mercs slow warm up lap affecting the Q3 pace? They had revealed a weakness. Red Bull with potentially better race pace and Ferrari faster in a straight line? Fine! To counter, Lewis embarked on a tyre destruction derby. He drove up to 10kph slower than what was expected, knowing he could warm his tyres to get on pace faster than those behind could. The colder the tyre, the more it slides and the faster it wears.

With cold tyres the Ferrari's higher top speeds didn't mean a thing and with Lewis able to get on pace faster. As Vettel's pit stop window neared, Lewis began pulling out a gap that Vettel couldn't manage on cold, worn tyres. Lewis having managed his tyres perfectly, could negate any undercut on a harder tyre by simply getting on the expected race pace of the hyper's which were up to 2 seconds faster in Singapore. Game over.

IMHO, Ferrari had wanted a very aggressive two stop race for Vettel, with him quickly clearing Perez and then putting in blistering laps in clear air. Unfortunately, Vettel failed to deliver even though from his Q2 argument with the team over the radio, he quite fancied his chances on that tyre.

It was a highly tactical race about tyres, tyres, tyres (coupled with the odd deceptive radio message).

[PlatinumZealot]

Not sure why you all arguing who has the slower car. I shameless want Hamilton to have the fastest car from now on. Gotta take it while you can.

[NathanOlder]

Yes, but a car running a high downforce setup will be more affected by dirty air, than a car running a low downforce setup, everything being equal. And, as i said, surface and grip levels plays a huge role too.

I didnt say Monza doesnt have highspeed (higher) corners. I believe i named them too (just not by names), but i also mentioned that the loss there was made up by the huge straights and the tow (as well as DRS support in Lewis’s case).

So is there really any dispute over why Lewis could follow relatively easy in Monza without having a negative affect on his tires?

No argument at all, I was pointing more towards drivers could follow relatively easy in Singapore without having a negative affect on their tyres due to the slow corner speeds.

[Vasconia]

Seb was around a second to two seconds behind hamilton for all those initial laps of the GP. Don't underestimate how much more is taken out of the tyres sliding around in the wake of the car ahead. Hamilton was serenely pootling along in clean air while Seb had less downforce, struggling in the dirty air coming off the back of the merc.

However let’s look back to Monza. Hamilton was in Raikkonen’s dirty air and was reporting no problems in fact he was happy to go on radio saying how good his tyres were. He then went far longer than Raikkonen on his starting tyres. Then look at Vettel’s and Raikkonen’s soft tyres. Vettels looked bad, Raikkonen’s looked damn right dangerous.
All the evidence points to Mercedes having got right on top of their tyre eating issues.

That would be strange because Ferrari used to be quite good in that aspect. They followed Mercedes or others cars in several races withouth having tyre issues.

Its true that Vettel was quite close during the first 8-10 laps, being more than 1,300 seconds behind. But being the pace so slow, could this fact affect him more or less than with a faster pace?