2019 Hungarian Grand Prix - Hungaroring, August 2-4

[foxmulder_ms]

yes that one intrigued me as well. I was wondering why they didn't put max on to a set of softs to nullify Lewis's pitstop. What I don't understand is how Lewis only ended up 19 seconds behind when he was behind Max. How long was the pitstop window and surely red bull could have pulled off one of their 1.9 second stops.

It was not 19sec. Right after he left the pit it was over 20sec.

[drunkf1fan]

Yes, but after he left the pit, Max still has almost a minute of the track left and Hamilton has almost the whole lap to catch up. What matters is the gap over the line the next time around.

The gap as they both cross the line the next lap around was 19.2 seconds. That's effectively the gap Max/RBR would be up against when pitting.

If we take the first pitstop the really useful times are the gap the lap before the pitstop and the gap the lap after. The gap across the line while someone is in the pit is already reduced due to pit lane entry, being slower and the stop. So take the first stops, on lap 24 Ham was 1.3 seconds behind and the lap after Max's stop he's 18.9 seconds behind Hamilton, so a roughly 20.2 second delta.

The gap when Ham stops, Max is 16.5 seconds behind the lap before, then 4.9 seconds ahead the lap after, so a little bigger delta. As Hamilton was half a second quicker through the pitlane on his second stop then most of the gap is probably the pitstop being worse or being more careful on entry/exit. Considering Hamilton's outlap was his fastest outlap of the race, the chance of Max making it out ahead of Hamilton was effectively non existent. Sure Ham could make a mistake anywhere but there's a far higher chance of a bad pitstop losing you half a second then Ham making a mistake on grippy tires and losing the probably 2 seconds required.

Realistically even at 20 seconds he probably loses out, but at 19.2 it's a near certainty it fails.

If RBR pitted first there was a slim chance they'd win, but honestly I couldn't see it. Hamilton is too fast, too good at keeping his tires in and he pitted 6 laps later. The real question is if Max pitted first and went for that strategy would Merc have matched the strategy, obviously they'd come out behind but they were before hand, they felt faster and would still feel they'd have better tires end of the stint if they waited a lap or two then pitted.

Honestly I think it was fairly inevitable with that speed on the hards that Ham gets Max if both stay out on the hards. It's vastly less likely Max catches and passes Hamilton if they try the 2 pit and I still think Ham is favoured if he pits a lap later than Max because he showed over the whole race he was faster.

I still think it's impossible to say which car was faster, Hamilton + the Merc was definitely faster, but would Hamilton + the RBR been faster, the same or slower than Max in the Merc, all complete guesswork. But Ham's relentless pace, easing into stints (most of the time), keeping his tires in and maintaining pace to the end are incredibly. Max is also exceptional at this, far beyond Ricciardo, bottas, Vettel. Think say Brazil last year where he's just blowing the Ferrari's, Bottas, Ricciardo away on pace yet pits later as well. Ham and Max are a league ahead of anyone else in the field, but without the same car very hard to know which is faster. I think it might be close enough that one might be faster at his best tracks while the other is faster at their best tracks. I also think that is part of where Hamilton's advantage was yesterday, he's just absolutely and truly ridiculous in Hungary. 2014 was insane, Rosberg being held up by vergne so pits, Ham blows him a way a couple laps later, then has great pace, Rosberg burns out his tires catching and can't pass with way fresher tires, ends up pitting, catches up again, even more completely massive tire difference, still can't make the pass.

[Pyrone89]

You do realise how an undercut works ?

So according to you If Max pit at the end of lap 57 (the gap being 14.7) for some used softs, have a wild guess to what Mercedes would have done, they also had same age softs available to them, and now they have a at least a 6 second window to box Hamilton on the next lap. Lewis pits, comes out 4 or 5 seconds ahead of Max on 1 lap newer tyres.

If you were able to see Lewis strategy being a guaranteed win as soon as Hamilton went in to the pits, how can you then make such an error in thinking Max could pit for softs on lap 57 and then fail to see Hamilton could/would box to cover him with the luxury of having enough time to make a 6 second pit stop and still come out in front of Max with newer tyres. Unbelievable Jeff.

Your logic fails . How can you make such a simple math error . Max was still in front at the lap 57 mark, even by 15 seconds. If he had pitted he would have come out 5 seconds behind Hamilton and Hamilton could not have reacted because he would then come out behind Max again and this time on equal tyres with 13 laps to go and 15 seconds behind.

My bad, I totally misunderstood what was being said

No problem, big kuddos for admitting it. Cant upvote at the moment because I have seemed to piss off someone who seems intent on doenvoting almost every post I make.

[Just_a_fan]

You can't vote in race threads anyway.

[Pyrone89]

You can't vote in race threads anyway.

Just noticed that. Didnt know they had different rules for different type of topics

[Just_a_fan]

Voting is supposed to be for posts that add value. Race threads get heated and people do a lot of down voting as a result. Easier to just not have voting.

[iotar__]

Voting is supposed to be for posts that add value. Race threads get heated and people do a lot of down voting as a result. Easier to just not have voting.

- Nonsense .
- BTW valuable F1 experts with no bias dig months old random posts from random threads (content does not matter) to downvote them because they can't do it in the race threads . Either that or they care about quality and value added and they are just diligent

[ENGINE TUNER]

Does the FIA still publish the lap times for each lap for each driver? They used to make this available but I have no idea where to find it these days.

This site is very helpful

http://en.mclarenf-1.com/

[bosyber]

Yes, but after he left the pit, Max still has almost a minute of the track left and Hamilton has almost the whole lap to catch up. What matters is the gap over the line the next time around.

The gap as they both cross the line the next lap around was 19.2 seconds. That's effectively the gap Max/RBR would be up against when pitting.

If we take the first pitstop the really useful times are the gap the lap before the pitstop and the gap the lap after. The gap across the line while someone is in the pit is already reduced due to pit lane entry, being slower and the stop. So take the first stops, on lap 24 Ham was 1.3 seconds behind and the lap after Max's stop he's 18.9 seconds behind Hamilton, so a roughly 20.2 second delta.

The gap when Ham stops, Max is 16.5 seconds behind the lap before, then 4.9 seconds ahead the lap after, so a little bigger delta. As Hamilton was half a second quicker through the pitlane on his second stop then most of the gap is probably the pitstop being worse or being more careful on entry/exit. Considering Hamilton's outlap was his fastest outlap of the race, the chance of Max making it out ahead of Hamilton was effectively non existent. Sure Ham could make a mistake anywhere but there's a far higher chance of a bad pitstop losing you half a second then Ham making a mistake on grippy tires and losing the probably 2 seconds required.

Realistically even at 20 seconds he probably loses out, but at 19.2 it's a near certainty it fails.

If RBR pitted first there was a slim chance they'd win, but honestly I couldn't see it. Hamilton is too fast, too good at keeping his tires in and he pitted 6 laps later. The real question is if Max pitted first and went for that strategy would Merc have matched the strategy, obviously they'd come out behind but they were before hand, they felt faster and would still feel they'd have better tires end of the stint if they waited a lap or two then pitted.

Honestly I think it was fairly inevitable with that speed on the hards that Ham gets Max if both stay out on the hards. It's vastly less likely Max catches and passes Hamilton if they try the 2 pit and I still think Ham is favoured if he pits a lap later than Max because he showed over the whole race he was faster.

I still think it's impossible to say which car was faster, Hamilton + the Merc was definitely faster, but would Hamilton + the RBR been faster, the same or slower than Max in the Merc, all complete guesswork. But Ham's relentless pace, easing into stints (most of the time), keeping his tires in and maintaining pace to the end are incredibly. Max is also exceptional at this, far beyond Ricciardo, bottas, Vettel. Think say Brazil last year where he's just blowing the Ferrari's, Bottas, Ricciardo away on pace yet pits later as well. Ham and Max are a league ahead of anyone else in the field, but without the same car very hard to know which is faster. I think it might be close enough that one might be faster at his best tracks while the other is faster at their best tracks. I also think that is part of where Hamilton's advantage was yesterday, he's just absolutely and truly ridiculous in Hungary. 2014 was insane, Rosberg being held up by vergne so pits, Ham blows him a way a couple laps later, then has great pace, Rosberg burns out his tires catching and can't pass with way fresher tires, ends up pitting, catches up again, even more completely massive tire difference, still can't make the pass.

Well said, and since we cannot vote (for mostly very good reasons) on the race thread, I quoted for truth.

Part of the tension that made that fight interesting for me was not that the question of HAM/Merc combo was faster on the day than VER/RBR, it seemed likely HAM was faster, but, not clear whether he was fast enough, for long enough, to get to Verstappen in time to do something, and whether VER could, as he indeed has been able to before (like in that first win of his in Spain), keep his tyres working well enough to stop Hamilton winning. Also because the teams themselves likely weren't clear on that due to the rain-disrupted FP-sessions.

[Wouter]

Does the FIA still publish the lap times for each lap for each driver? They used to make this available but I have no idea where to find it these days.

A few days before the race, you have to click on the event and timing picture at this site.
There you can find everything of the weekend.

On top of this site you can choose other races on "Show Menu".

https://www.fia.com/events/fia-formula- ... ampionship

[CRazyLemon]

Only way was to pit in the same lap as Lewis did, and hope Lewis wouldn't stay out. Basically impossible.
People praise Mercedes move as stroke of genius, while it's a textbook move done many times before.

This all was possible by pace advantage Mercedes had, which was obviously more than 1.5/10s! And in the end it actually didn't work until Max hit a cliff.

Maybe if they prolonged 1st stint by lap or 2(while risking undercut!) or if max was easier on his hard tires after the pit stop(risking over cut!) maybe he could avoid the cliff.

One more maybe, if RB went for M instead of Mercedes, maybe Lewis would hit the cliff (his H tires were surely damaged from pushing hard and mistakes he done).

As I and others have said, this was only possible because of the positions of the other cars. Second in their team and Ferrari.
We would have expected at least 2 cars to have been in that gap had all things been equal. Mercedes could have called their own car but had Max team mate of a Ferrari or two been there it wound not even have been considered.

I agree 100%.
That's why you need a good 2nd driver...

Maybe Max should have backed up until the gap to the Ferrari's was too small for a stop. Going slower would also have preserved his tyres.

[Just_a_fan]

Does the FIA still publish the lap times for each lap for each driver? They used to make this available but I have no idea where to find it these days.

A few days before the race, you have to click on the event and timing picture at this site.
There you can find everything of the weekend.

On top of this site you can choose other races on "Show Menu".

https://www.fia.com/events/fia-formula- ... ampionship

Yes, there's lots of information on there but not the information I was after, which was provided by a forum member. Not sure where they found it, however.

[bonjon1979]

As I and others have said, this was only possible because of the positions of the other cars. Second in their team and Ferrari.
We would have expected at least 2 cars to have been in that gap had all things been equal. Mercedes could have called their own car but had Max team mate of a Ferrari or two been there it wound not even have been considered.

I agree 100%.
That's why you need a good 2nd driver...

Maybe Max should have backed up until the gap to the Ferrari's was too small for a stop. Going slower would also have preserved his tyres.

Hamilton was too quick for that, it’s not Monaco where you can hold up a driver and they can’t get past. The merc was quicker in a straight line so max had to thrash it to make sure Hamilton wasn’t too close on the straight with drs

[SiLo]

Yes, but after he left the pit, Max still has almost a minute of the track left and Hamilton has almost the whole lap to catch up. What matters is the gap over the line the next time around.

The gap as they both cross the line the next lap around was 19.2 seconds. That's effectively the gap Max/RBR would be up against when pitting.

If we take the first pitstop the really useful times are the gap the lap before the pitstop and the gap the lap after. The gap across the line while someone is in the pit is already reduced due to pit lane entry, being slower and the stop. So take the first stops, on lap 24 Ham was 1.3 seconds behind and the lap after Max's stop he's 18.9 seconds behind Hamilton, so a roughly 20.2 second delta.

The gap when Ham stops, Max is 16.5 seconds behind the lap before, then 4.9 seconds ahead the lap after, so a little bigger delta. As Hamilton was half a second quicker through the pitlane on his second stop then most of the gap is probably the pitstop being worse or being more careful on entry/exit. Considering Hamilton's outlap was his fastest outlap of the race, the chance of Max making it out ahead of Hamilton was effectively non existent. Sure Ham could make a mistake anywhere but there's a far higher chance of a bad pitstop losing you half a second then Ham making a mistake on grippy tires and losing the probably 2 seconds required.

Realistically even at 20 seconds he probably loses out, but at 19.2 it's a near certainty it fails.

If RBR pitted first there was a slim chance they'd win, but honestly I couldn't see it. Hamilton is too fast, too good at keeping his tires in and he pitted 6 laps later. The real question is if Max pitted first and went for that strategy would Merc have matched the strategy, obviously they'd come out behind but they were before hand, they felt faster and would still feel they'd have better tires end of the stint if they waited a lap or two then pitted.

Honestly I think it was fairly inevitable with that speed on the hards that Ham gets Max if both stay out on the hards. It's vastly less likely Max catches and passes Hamilton if they try the 2 pit and I still think Ham is favoured if he pits a lap later than Max because he showed over the whole race he was faster.

I still think it's impossible to say which car was faster, Hamilton + the Merc was definitely faster, but would Hamilton + the RBR been faster, the same or slower than Max in the Merc, all complete guesswork. But Ham's relentless pace, easing into stints (most of the time), keeping his tires in and maintaining pace to the end are incredibly. Max is also exceptional at this, far beyond Ricciardo, bottas, Vettel. Think say Brazil last year where he's just blowing the Ferrari's, Bottas, Ricciardo away on pace yet pits later as well. Ham and Max are a league ahead of anyone else in the field, but without the same car very hard to know which is faster. I think it might be close enough that one might be faster at his best tracks while the other is faster at their best tracks. I also think that is part of where Hamilton's advantage was yesterday, he's just absolutely and truly ridiculous in Hungary. 2014 was insane, Rosberg being held up by vergne so pits, Ham blows him a way a couple laps later, then has great pace, Rosberg burns out his tires catching and can't pass with way fresher tires, ends up pitting, catches up again, even more completely massive tire difference, still can't make the pass.

I'm pretty sure Horner actually said that by S2 on Hamiltons outlap he had effectively overtaken them.

[djones]

Has it been said in any interviews that Hamilton is setting his car up for the races this season?

It seems strange that his qualifying has been poor, yet race pace generally second to none. This particular race being a perfect example of that.