2019 British Grand Prix - Silverstone, July 12-14

[zibby43]

But surely Hamilton’s luck needs to run out at some point, no?

If someone is consistently "lucky" then the chances are that luck is not especially involved.

Aw shucks, Hamilton is the best driver in F1, no doubt. Not saying he didn’t deserve it.

But I know Bottas didn’t deserve to lose, either. He just doesn’t have a champion’s luck.

If BOT would've pulled a gap on HAM in the first stint, then the SC period may have turned out differently. HAM made his own luck with his pace and his ability to look after the tires enough to stay out longer until the SC period arrived. There's no question it was fortuitous, given the circumstances. But you have to be in a position to capitalize upon such situations.

Also, BOT could've had better pace in his second stint. Both drivers raced well, and very clean/respectfully. HAM is just on another level right now with his tire management, as evidenced by his final lap.

[langedweil]

I think it might be likely for the first time this season Gasly has had an equally upgraded car

Yes, I think Gasly always had a slower car because they Max is their favorite, how naughty right? Pretty sure Gasly will be bang on with an equal car and much faster.
Max is just a dirty racer, nobody likes him and now Gasly showed he's faster and better and a clean driver so pretty sure all B stuff goes to Max now, hail Gasly!

Koekwaus

[Restomaniac]

Two stopper wasn't necessarily the wrong choice, just that he made the one stopper work fine but seeing as he's just generally faster than Bottas and significantly better on tire wear I wouldn't be certain that a one stop was the right choice for Bottas even if it was for Hamilton.

Bottas just isn't good on tire wear. I've said for a long while now but if Bottas can get ahead into the first corner at an Australia, Monaco, etc then sure he can win, and at super low deg tracks like Russia, again he can look good. Almost anywhere with real tire deg he's just not competitive. Even Toto called him out as tire wear being his next biggest flaw. If he wants to fight Ham he needs to basically study the hell out of Ham and work to change his driving style to get the same tire life, if he keeps doing the same thing over and over he's not going to get anywhere. COmpetitive in qualifying but can't match in race pace, remind you of any other of Ham's team mates

All that does kind of kill the argument that it was the safety car that cost Bottas though and thus he was unlucky. Which was kinda my poInt.

BTW Bottas doesn’t have the ‘runs on the board’ with regard to years of service that Rosberg did at Mercedes and that’s before we even cover they fact that he (Rosberg) and Hamilton had history stretching back years. Bottas is on a year to year rolling deal ATM for a reason.

[Restomaniac]

Watch a replay of Bottas wife and his side of the garage afterwards. And the replay of when Vettel took out Max. See the reaction of the crowd there? Arms up in the air. Don't forget, a lot of these teams are based right next door and all their families are there rooting their teams. So don't go saying nobody felt that way because that simply isn't true. Hamilton and British fans got what they came for so that's good for them. Plus I said many, not everyone.

So your evidence is Bottas’ side of the garage and his wife and a random camera shot of the crowd? Also I could be wrong but I think it’s a stretch to call team staff and their families ‘fans’.

So ‘many’ but nodody I spoke too or heard talking though, which included plenty of RedBull fans. Maybe it should have been ‘few’ or who knows many ‘very few’. Still you keep on though

Family and employees aren't allowed to be fans? They are mere spectators and bystanders there against their will? Well shoot, I can't help you there.

https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/2718 ... ven-better

Hey look if you need to use friends and family to back up you argument that ‘fans’ felt robbed then go for it. However it’s still not ‘many’ in the grand scheme of 141,000 attending race day fans now is it. Also it’s not even the full grid nor a full team. I imagine everyone else walked off after watching a brilliant race.

What we have learned here is that some people are never ever happy. I’ll happily watch the race again for a 3rd time knowing it’s a brilliant race.

[hollus]

This is a quote from racefans from Saturday after Q:

Home favourite Lewis Hamilton missed pole position by the tiniest of margins – a mere six-thousandths of a second – but his car ran superbly over a long run on Friday and he’s been keen not to mess with the formula. “The race trim is still good,” he said after qualifying. “I didn’t want to move from the set-up I had, too far away, because it worked so well on the long run yesterday.”

Fits very well with what happened on Sunday, doesn't it?

[Vasconia]

What a race!!!

First laps were truly amazing. I have a renowed respect for Bottas, it was amazing how he defended his position from Hamilton´s extreme pressure. He truly deserved to win but this SC was a joke, and also the strategy.

The Ferrari-RB battle was the other highlight of te race, those Wheel to Wheel battles between Max and Charles are pure gold, I could watch them 1000 times. Too bad that Vettel didn´t have enough patience to fight back after he had been overtakenk by Max. Ferrari should be worried because its the second race in a row where RB has clearly a better pace.

A great defense by Carlos against Daniel. Super solid race and cold blood to have the right defensive strategy to keep the 6th position. Excellent.

Haas should fire both drivers, seriously...

[Restomaniac]

This is a quote from racefans from Saturday after Q:

Home favourite Lewis Hamilton missed pole position by the tiniest of margins – a mere six-thousandths of a second – but his car ran superbly over a long run on Friday and he’s been keen not to mess with the formula. “The race trim is still good,” he said after qualifying. “I didn’t want to move from the set-up I had, too far away, because it worked so well on the long run yesterday.”

Fits very well with what happened on Sunday, doesn't it?

It does then when you consider that tiny gap in qualy. It was obvious that the writing was on the wall for Sunday. Hamilton being all over Bottas like a cheap suit early on pointed at who had the better driver/car combo. I just don’t buy the argument that Bottas was unlucky because Hamilton’s 1 stopper was always going to be far faster than Bottas’ 2 stopper.

[zibby43]

This is a quote from racefans from Saturday after Q:

Home favourite Lewis Hamilton missed pole position by the tiniest of margins – a mere six-thousandths of a second – but his car ran superbly over a long run on Friday and he’s been keen not to mess with the formula. “The race trim is still good,” he said after qualifying. “I didn’t want to move from the set-up I had, too far away, because it worked so well on the long run yesterday.”

Fits very well with what happened on Sunday, doesn't it?

To build on that, here are a few excerpts from Mark Hughes' fascinating 2019 British Grand Prix Race Report:

"Hamilton had a plan. The Mercedes team had a plan. But they weren’t the same plan.

Mercedes – just like everyone else – was convinced this was going to be a two-stop race based on the wear of the left-front seen on the Friday long-runs, on both softs and mediums. At the race morning meeting it had been decided that the two drivers could choose an offset strategy. Or rather, whoever was in second place would get the option of running longer if he’d managed to keep his tyres in better shape – and thereby get the benefit of newer tyres in the second and third stints.

After a medium-tyred long-run simulation on Friday that was devastatingly better than anyone else’s (including Bottas’), Hamilton reckoned he had better race pace and way better tyre management. He was not at all as convinced as his team that this was a two-stop race.

He was pretty sure he could make it into a one-stop. But didn’t make a big thing of it. In the full knowledge that Bottas had bought into the two-stop plan and that the fastest way to run a two-stop was medium/medium/soft. Therefore Bottas would be committed to that two-stop as soon as his first set of mediums were replaced by another (as at least two different compounds must be used). All Hamilton had to do was stay in touch, keep his tyres in good enough shape to run longer – and then ask for the hard. Giving him the opportunity to one-stop, with Bottas trapped into a two. It was audacious, but he was backing his own ability."

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/opin ... t-strategy

[Just_a_fan]

Strange, aren't Bottas' engineers on team Mercedes? Did Bottas' engineers know that Lewis would split strategies? And while knowing this choose the two stop over Lewis' one stop, the slower of the two strategies? Wouldn't you call this a strategy blunder, regardless of whether or not a safety car was calculated into the two stopper? The hard tire has been proven to go the distance and retain performance late into a race. Perhaps Bottas side of the garage forgets this.

The strategy meeting is both drivers and their race engineers sitting down together. Both knew what the other was doing and both went their way.

Or are you suggesting that the management came in and said "let's screw Bottas, just for kicks and giggles"?

[ispano6]

This is a quote from racefans from Saturday after Q:

Home favourite Lewis Hamilton missed pole position by the tiniest of margins – a mere six-thousandths of a second – but his car ran superbly over a long run on Friday and he’s been keen not to mess with the formula. “The race trim is still good,” he said after qualifying. “I didn’t want to move from the set-up I had, too far away, because it worked so well on the long run yesterday.”

Fits very well with what happened on Sunday, doesn't it?

It does then when you consider that tiny gap in qualy. It was obvious that the writing was on the wall for Sunday. Hamilton being all over Bottas like a cheap suit early on pointed at who had the better driver/car combo. I just don’t buy the argument that Bottas was unlucky because Hamilton’s 1 stopper was always going to be far faster than Bottas’ 2 stopper.

You still don't get it. It's not about the 1 stopper or 2 stopper, it's the fact the team decided to "split" strategies when both could have gone med-hard and raced to the end. Splitting strategies unnecessarily forced one of the two to decide to go med-med which automatically guarantees you have to 2 stop to change to a different compound. But we now know Hamilton had the strategy in mind like a few here did. It was a no-brainer and Bottas' side of the garage got duped into the inferior strategy.

[Just_a_fan]

This is a quote from racefans from Saturday after Q:

Home favourite Lewis Hamilton missed pole position by the tiniest of margins – a mere six-thousandths of a second – but his car ran superbly over a long run on Friday and he’s been keen not to mess with the formula. “The race trim is still good,” he said after qualifying. “I didn’t want to move from the set-up I had, too far away, because it worked so well on the long run yesterday.”

Fits very well with what happened on Sunday, doesn't it?

Exactly. He backed himself to be able to use that pace in the race to leap frog Bottas even if he wasn't in to T1 first.

[ispano6]

The strategy meeting is both drivers and their race engineers sitting down together. Both knew what the other was doing and both went their way.

Or are you suggesting that the management came in and said "let's screw Bottas, just for kicks and giggles"?

1.Explain the reasoning for "splitting" strategies (to make the racing interesting is BS).
2.In what way is MED-MED-(SOFT/HARD) better than MED-HARD-(MED/SOFT)?
3.Which of the two has the option for a one stopper? Hrmmm.

[Just_a_fan]

You still don't get it. It's not about the 1 stopper or 2 stopper, it's the fact the team decided to "split" strategies when both could have gone med-hard and raced to the end. Splitting strategies unnecessarily forced one of the two to decide to go med-med which automatically guarantees you have to 2 stop to change to a different compound. But we now know Hamilton had the strategy in mind like a few here did. It was a no-brainer and Bottas' side of the garage got duped into the inferior strategy.

Read zibby's post above viewtopic.php?p=847929#p847929 . The team decided both drivers should do two stops as that's what Pirelli were recommending. Hamilton knew he could make one stop work so he decided to try it out and see. If it didn't work then he still had the option to get a third set of tyres to the end. So Hamilton made the strategy call and then made it work. That's what champions do.

[ispano6]

You still don't get it. It's not about the 1 stopper or 2 stopper, it's the fact the team decided to "split" strategies when both could have gone med-hard and raced to the end. Splitting strategies unnecessarily forced one of the two to decide to go med-med which automatically guarantees you have to 2 stop to change to a different compound. But we now know Hamilton had the strategy in mind like a few here did. It was a no-brainer and Bottas' side of the garage got duped into the inferior strategy.

Read zibby's post above viewtopic.php?p=847929#p847929 . The team decided both drivers should do two stops as that's what Pirelli were recommending. Hamilton knew he could make one stop work so he decided to try it out and see. If it didn't work then he still had the option to get a third set of tyres to the end. So Hamilton made the strategy call and then made it work. That's what champions do.

It's not about the two stops, it's about what tire was used for the 2nd stint.

[Just_a_fan]

1.Explain the reasoning for "splitting" strategies (to make the racing interesting is BS).
2.In what way is MED-MED-(SOFT/HARD) better than MED-HARD-(MED/SOFT)?
3.Which of the two has the option for a one stopper? Hrmmm.

Hamilton made the call for hard tyres from the car during the race, having decided himself to go long on the first stint. The team didnt' make the call, Hamilton did.

I know it's fashionable amongst certain people to hate Hamilton and see the team as always screwing his team mate, but really, the team just wants a one-two and doesn't care who wins. Hamilton knows that and rolled the dice. It worked this time and he got the trophy.

If Bottas had done a better job on Friday, perhaps looked at the data a bit better, perhaps done a better job on the first set of tyres, he too could have stayed out longer on the first stint and chosen the hard tyre. But he didn't. He just followed the plan. Hamilton rolled the dice, kept his first set in better shape (even when running within a second of Bottas lap after lap), and then went long on the first set. He took the hard tyre and gambled (knew/believed?) that he could make them last. The team weren't sure - that's why they tried to get him to pit near the end for fresh tyres: they weren't sure if the hard would go the distance as Pirelli reckoned 30 laps and Hamilton did 32 laps on it. As it happened, the tyre held up better than anyone thought it would. Hamilton, in the car, knew how the tyres were doing so he was the only one who understood the situation. That's just clever racing. Or "luck" if you prefer.