Big Tea wrote: ↑30 Oct 2018, 00:19
NathanOlder wrote: ↑29 Oct 2018, 23:05
Big Tea wrote: ↑29 Oct 2018, 21:25
'just in case'. Better to finish 4th than win and have the cars dsq'd later. Possibly a special case as it was the one that closed out the championship.
So they may make a return in Brazil ? Or maybe not as the WCC is still on.
I suppose the other thing could be that there is something involved they do not wish to show to other teams if they make a protest. Something hardly worth reveling for 3 races when they can keep it dark and use it next year?
Not likely, but possible?
I think it's relatively simple, the rear tires were graining due to sliding, the real question is, were the tires heating up enough to grip into the track rather than sliding and causing horrible graining. My guess is Merc actually wanted to up their rear wheel carcass temps to alleviate the horrendous graining they got in free practice runs and that maybe led to them being even worse rather than better.
Really the tires just didn't work for anyone but cars with excellent mechanical grip and even then... not well.
I've said it elsewhere, this wasn't a case of good tire deg causing more stops, this was a case of the tires simply not working. We want deg where someone can push harder, be faster then do more stops or go slower, do less stops, we want the strategy choice. When for all but a few cars the tires are so bad everyone has to pit multiple times and they still have to go insanely slow and the tires still look absolutely awful that's not good tire deg. That's RBR/Ferrari had just enough mechanical grip advantage to make the tires work less badly than the rest. THe tires were utterly unsuitable for the task of racing in Mexico and the track surfaces lack of abrasiveness and bite into the tires allowing even completely fresh and warm tires to slide across the track and grain immediately, combination from hell. Pirelli and the FIA should have been getting flack all weekend for allowing this situation to happen and instead so many fans said woo, tire deg again, completely misunderstanding what happened.
In the US Hulk was running a second off the pace of Kimi and Max at the front consistently throughout the whole race, in Mexico Hulk was running fully 3 seconds off Max's pace.... the race was a complete and utter failure where 80% of the cars couldn't make the tires work.
Like I said, this race should be close to the scandal of Indianapolis in 2005. Okay the tires weren't exploding and it wasn't dangerous, but the 'race' part of the weekend was a race between 4 cars, with the rest trying to finish on tires that weren't suitable for use. Somehow the commentators ignored that the tires weren't working all weekend and the fans too.
It doesn't help that the track design itself is absolutely horrible. We have some stands, lets put the track through it and oh, lets maximise the time in there so put 3 insanely slow awful corners in there with zero passing and ruining the entry to the straight. Honestly I find not a single positive thing about the track itself except the fans are great and enthusiastic, but they'd be that if they'd made a 'real' track without it going through the middle of the stadium and put in some real damn corners and a surface that works with the tires and cars well.
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