Sieper wrote: ↑03 Dec 2019, 18:19
godlameroso wrote: ↑03 Dec 2019, 02:08
Sector 3 is not slow corners though, they're middle speed corners and require maximum downforce. Also RBR hadn't solved their low speed issues until after Barcelona. From the onboards Verstappen lost out in turns 1 2 and 3 but made it up in the chicane and hairpin, Hamilton gained a split hair's worth of time down the straights, lost a bit of time again in the chicane, but made it up back down the second straight. Hamilton gained again coming out of the chicane sequence but lost some time to Verstappen under braking for the slow right hander. After that Hamilton gained a bit of time in the 2 lefts and the final corner where Verstappen made a mistake.
The gap in qualifying was also the gap in average race pace.
But with that it is also hard to say, how much is driver preference for braking late but unsettling the car, turning in early/late, letting go of apex. etc. these are all choices/compromises. f.e. Max has no real benchmark in his teammate here but last year this was one of the 3 circuits were he was discernably slower then Ricciardo (by 1,5 tenths) so Max might not be achieving the optimal result still. Also, indeed there was a small mistake but is that really user error or is what he is trying simply not possible with the car. In fact, after Q2 Max already came on the radio saying the rear was missing grip, you could hear from his voice he already knew the battle (for pole) was lost. GianPiero hoped they could still drop some front DF but Max replied he needed all of that for turn in. In fact, I was super happy seeing him achieve P2 still in run1 in Q3. I thought he would be even more off so perhaps his lap was really 99% of optimal. We are always also just guessing at these kind of things. That is not to say I do not enjoy reading your posts and the efforts you put into the analysis done, It is just hard to make sense of it, we miss too much variables.
Mercedes was just out of reach on that track. There were a few where Mercedes has been untouchable. Melbourne, China, Barcelona, France, Great Britain, Russia, Japan, America and Abu Dhabi Mercedes just had more legs than everyone else. They were simply dominant, what characteristics do those tracks share? Sea level, a wide mixture of corner types, long straights, high speed corners, very bumpy chicanes that can cost you chunks of time. In other words those tracks test every aspect of the chassis, and in those tracks no one could even touch Mercedes. Tracks that push energy management to the maximum, no one can beat Mercedes on those tracks where you have to manage things like tires and energy. Honda is much closer on short tracks that don't put great emphasis on energy recovery. They've gotten better but aren't yet at the same level, they don't even have to beat Mercedes on those tracks specifically. Coming in second or a podium on those tracks and winning the ones you should win at(at least 5 tracks will have that opportunity) would probably be enough to win the WDC.
