2019 Singapore Grand Prix - Marina Bay, 20-22 September

[DChemTech]

Do you really rate it worse than Paul Ricard?

[dominaze]

Free tyre selection should be made available on street tracks like singapore. Standardised tyre choices inevitably lead to strategies converging. None of the frontrunners will risk some hazardous overtake for they are maximising points on a race by race basis. This is not the case of midfield teams.

[Roman]

Is it possible that a SC is needed in Singapore every time a car stops on track? I expected at least no SC for RAI as I assumed they would have cranes etc at least at the end of the start/finish straight. I was also surprised PER needed a SC as he could have stopped the car more or less anywhere he wanted.

[MtthsMlw]

Is it possible that a SC is needed in Singapore every time a car stops on track? I expected at least no SC for RAI as I assumed they would have cranes etc at least at the end of the start/finish straight. I was also surprised PER needed a SC as he could have stopped the car more or less anywhere he wanted.

Crashgate 2.0?!?!?

[auv]

Is it possible that a SC is needed in Singapore every time a car stops on track? I expected at least no SC for RAI as I assumed they would have cranes etc at least at the end of the start/finish straight. I was also surprised PER needed a SC as he could have stopped the car more or less anywhere he wanted.

Yes, SC was unnessecary. VSC mode or even double yellows were pretty much enough.

[Roman]

Is it possible that a SC is needed in Singapore every time a car stops on track? I expected at least no SC for RAI as I assumed they would have cranes etc at least at the end of the start/finish straight. I was also surprised PER needed a SC as he could have stopped the car more or less anywhere he wanted.

Crashgate 2.0?!?!?

Funny enough on French TV they mentioned (I think, my French is basic so I could have misunderstood) that Stroll was far behind the field when PER stopped so that he might have provoked a SC. I do not know if that is true though at all.

[Bill_Kar]

Is it possible that a SC is needed in Singapore every time a car stops on track? I expected at least no SC for RAI as I assumed they would have cranes etc at least at the end of the start/finish straight. I was also surprised PER needed a SC as he could have stopped the car more or less anywhere he wanted.

Crashgate 2.0?!?!?

It was borderline suspicious. At least it seemed like it.
I thought they even told him to park it somewhere comfortable and he just killed it mid straight. As someone said, I understand their frustration at the time but you should respect the fans and the other drivers as well.

[iotar__]

Albon only 0,6 s slower (0,4 in front of McL) and Verstappen 0,6 s off pole. Was that supposed to be a RB track? Never mind, in internet lands of fiction MV was a candidate for pole in Spa. Spa...

MERCEDES TEAM ORDERS UPDATE:
9-0 HAMILTON VS TEAM MATES.

[santos]

Albon only 0,6 s slower (0,4 in front of McL) and Verstappen 0,6 s off pole. Was that supposed to be a RB track? Never mind, in internet lands of fiction MV was a candidate for pole in Spa. Spa...

MERCEDES TEAM ORDERS UPDATE:
9-0 HAMILTON VS TEAM MATES.

A team will always try to achive the best result FOR THE TEAM. If they didn't asked Bottas to slow down, instead of a 4-5, they probably would get a 4-6 places. Undercut was very powerful at this track.

[wesley123]

Frankly enough this race shows that they were practically just competing for fun for the rest of the season, no one in their right mind would have opted for this strategy knowing a safety car in Singapore is a certainty.

You mean they just threw a bone at Ferrari, just because they liked them

Strategy says enough really. They still easily have the quickest car, yet opt for these strategies, and it was actually said they sacrifice qualy for race pace.

Their strategies have largely revolved around 'let's overtake them at the end' when they clearly have the pace to just run away with the win at the front.

And they can; They already have both titles in the bag

[waynes]

Imola, Magny Cours

now you're talking!

Magny Cours is ace.

anyway, back on topic, glad to see Seb win a race and Ferrari seemingly have a much better car now. Hopefully means better racing for the end of the year

Lando

[LM10]

Before Charles boxed, Lewis said: “Let’s undercut him”

Afterall this would have been the right strategy. Was he genuine, or just luring Charles into an early stop?

I'm not sure this would have been the better strategy. Hamilton would have cleared them both if he stopped the lap after.

The strategy they had would have worked out perfectly, if it wasn't for the three safety cars. In the past x amount of races their tactic has solely been to have a battle at the end with having much better tires.

Frankly enough this race shows that they were practically just competing for fun for the rest of the season, no one in their right mind would have opted for this strategy knowing a safety car in Singapore is a certainty.

What exactly should have Mercedes done instead of waiting for even longer once the opportunity for an undercut was gone? Going for as long as possible is what you should do, if you hope for SC to come.

Their strategy in the past x amount of races might have been to have a battle at the end with better tyres, but surely not at Singapore.
Mercedes went for a race setup? Hamilton couldn't even come close to overtaking Verstappen in the last couple of laps even though Max reported that his tyres were in a bad condition and he was sliding around already.
The difficulty to overtake at Singapore cannot be known more. Really hard to believe that the Mercedes engineers were not more clever than us on this forum.

[Roman]

Albon only 0,6 s slower (0,4 in front of McL) and Verstappen 0,6 s off pole. Was that supposed to be a RB track? Never mind, in internet lands of fiction MV was a candidate for pole in Spa. Spa...

MERCEDES TEAM ORDERS UPDATE:
9-0 HAMILTON VS TEAM MATES.

A team will always try to achive the best result FOR THE TEAM. If they didn't asked Bottas to slow down, instead of a 4-5, they probably would get a 4-6 places. Undercut was very powerful at this track.

While I shouted FER team orders yesterday I now think that the VET undercut was the only possibility for Ferrari to achieve a 1-2. If LEC had stopped first a) Ham would probably have stopped right after to defend a possible VET undercut and b) VET would have been overtaken by VER. Therefore instead of 1-2 they would have ended up with a 1-4. They just underestimated how fast VET could go on his outlap. And they forgot to tell LEC that VET had pitted.

[izzy]

And they forgot to tell LEC that VET had pitted.

That was the wierdest thing. Half way round the lap his RE said "mode box" and Charles didn't know what it meant!

[drunkf1fan]

It seems utterly simple to me.

Lead car getting the pit choice is a standard thing in F1 for every team, and every other team in every other motorsport, it's just the done thing. So if Leclerc pits and Verstappen does same lap, as said Ferrari probably get 1st and 4th, maybe worse.

So you can choose to bring in Vettel first instead to get a 1-2, but if you acknowledge that you are screwing Leclerc's priority choice by doing this, you can just as easily put Leclerc back ahead of Vettel. If Vettel knows that his options are being pit first and giving position back to Leclerc of being pit second and being 4th or worse... is that hard to sell to him, surely not?

Mercedes pit Bottas first, then protected Ham's lead over him (because it was easy to do so) because that is only fair. They could have pit Hamilton (who was asking for the undercut so clearly wanted to pit first) and Bottas could easily have lost out.

As for iotar saying it's 9-0, apparently he forgets that in Australia Hamilton was pit immediately after Vettel to protect/block Vettel from getting ahead of Hamilton or closing on the pit window of Bottas who was leading. Exactly the same way merc often pit Bottas straight away and ahead of Hamilton in the lead in the same situation.

The one time I can remember Merc prioritising Hamilton over Bottas when Hamilton wasn't in the lead in the first place was Russia last season when the fight was still quite tight with Ferrari and Ferrari could have improved and won more in the remaining races (much as they won and improved in Singapore). Bottas also wasn't even close to a title fight last season at that point. Merc will prioritise the leader and if they don't then they'll still protect the leader within reason. It's simply that Bottas is exceptionally rarely in the lead and the few times it's about protecting a championship lead and fight Bottas hasn't been in that fight so they are rarely protecting Bottas but when he has been in the lead and a championship leader/fight isn't established, they prioritised Bottas without hesitation.