2020 British Grand Prix - Silverstone, 31-02 July / August

[El Scorchio]

As soon as they saw Verstappen pitting, they should have pitted Hamilton assuming there was the opportunity? It was a couple of laps before the end, right?

Got to feel sorry for Bottas

Max pitted on the penultimate lap so no.

Yeah I wasn't sure either- it all went a bit nuts!

[Sieper]

As soon as they saw Verstappen pitting, they should have pitted Hamilton assuming there was the opportunity? It was a couple of laps before the end, right?

Got to feel sorry for Bottas

They might have had a short window, less than a lap, I'd need to rewatch it to see exactly what lap Verstappen pitted and where Hamilton was on track.

Pre last Ofcourse. Otherwise mercedes could have still answered.

[El Scorchio]

Got to feel sorry for Bottas

Yeah, he's now 30 points behind Lewis and only 6 in front of Max.

Its not great for the championship

[NathanOlder]

Really foolish of Mercedes not to box Lewis

They couldn't - Max would have stayed out, winning the race.

They could have pit Lewis at the start of the last lap. So they could have pit Lewis

[dans79]

Really foolish of Mercedes not to box Lewis

They couldn't - Max would have stayed out, winning the race.

They could have pit Lewis at the start of the last lap. So they could have pit Lewis

What suspicious though, is Lewis reported no issue with the left front all race that I saw.

I fully expect we're going to hear something from pirelli in short order.

[i70q7m7ghw]

They could have pit Lewis at the start of the last lap. So they could have pit Lewis

Possibly, but it was a super short space of time to make that call, less than a 60 seconds window, it's easy to look back now and make the obvious call.

[NathanOlder]

Has a safety car ever crashed or spun off?

I don't think so, but Grand Prix cars have crashed into the safety and medical car.

Yeah idk about f1 but I’ve seen a c-8 corvette in another racing series crash into the wall...

Yeah, Indycar last year, I think the first race of the season. The corvette dropped it on the exit and spun into the wall.

[El Scorchio]

Really foolish of Mercedes not to box Lewis

They couldn't - Max would have stayed out, winning the race.

They could have pit Lewis at the start of the last lap. So they could have pit Lewis

I'm quite surprised they didn't then, given what happened to Bottas and how risk averse they are.
I'm sure one of the strategists must have come up with 'If Verstappen pits then we must do too'.

[timbo]

Botta's was pushing fastest laps all the way so not too surprised it happened, this is why teams usually hold position and chill but Mercedes let them race all the way.

On a separate note Rosberg finished the 2016 Austrian GP with a damaged car and no front wing, hes result stood.

I wonder if team is allowed to fit the missing parts to the car before weighting? Surely the car will be underweight without the front wing? So in the case of Hamilton today, are they allowed to fit a new tire?

[214270]

Albon looks spent mentally

[sosic2121]

Magnussen should get a 5s penalty. </sarcasm>

+1

[i70q7m7ghw]

I'm quite surprised they didn't then, given what happened to Bottas and how risk averse they are.
I'm sure one of the strategists must have come up with 'If Verstappen pits then we must do too'.

How can they do that when Verstappen is behind?

[djones]

Albon looks spent mentally

Yeah, and it was the same for Bottas too I thought.

[dans79]

Albon looks spent mentally

Yeah, and it was the same for Bottas too I thought.

well his championship hopes this season are pretty much over, short of a DNF or a severe problem for Lewis.

[Juzh]

Silverstone brings quite a bit more load in the tires due to the amount of fast corners

I dont think so, Hungary is also a high demand track. Cars certainly do not have "too much downforce", since they have less peak DF than they did last year. In quali most high speed corners were up to 10 kmh slower than last year.

How many high speed corners does Hungary have?

It's got enough medium speed corners coming at you all the time, there's almost no brake at all. They're not super high speed such as in silverstone, but cars ran maximum downforce so tyre contact pressure would be similarly high I'd say.

And why would cars have less peak downforce than last year? That makes no logical sense considering the rules didn't change.

Seem like nobody bothered telling red bull that. Mishaps can happen.

And as to why they were slower in high speed corners; They ran less wing.

Ok, yes this played a part, but end result is the same, car is slower in high speed corner, thus tyres are stressed less.

TBH this was the first time in a long time we've seen pirellis go bad like this and its not like it never happened with bridgestones. I'm far from pirelli apologist but in this particular race thermal degradation on hard tyre seemed so low people simply ran tyres down to zero rubber, that's why they were doing green and purple laps so far into stints. I believe this is what most people want instead of cheese tyres able to only do few laps at reasonable speed, such as we had at some times in the past.
This was in most part induced by SC forcing everyone into pits a few laps before ideal.