2021 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix - Imola, Apr 16 - 18

[214270]

Yes there is nothing foolish about losing your front wing trying to spin the rear around with your rear wheels in a gravel trap.

Sorry moderators, couldn't resist.

Of course there isn't. When you haven't got room to rotate your car enough to avoid a barrier, you need some extra rotation. The best way to acheive this is by spinning the rear wheels while applying as much steering lock as you can. Stopping in a proper grael trap is not really an option.

The only issue is that in gravel this does not work.......

Enlighten us. What should he have done instead?

[TimW]

Reverse?

[nzjrs]

Right now I would say the Hamilton camp are happier than the Max camp.

You could be very wrong about that! After Hamilton finally doesn't drive a dominant car after all these years,
it is a relief to race him with an equal car. So the Max camp is happy. Is the Hamilton camp that too?

Well I think after testing, it looked like RedBull domination certainly for the early part of the 2021 season, but it actually looks like Mercedes have the better race car. So right now I would say Mercedes will be happier than RedBull.

I don't think sensible people saw testing and thought "red bull dominance", I think they saw "the end of Mercedes dominance".

[Phil]

Presumably and as was evident, it's not a straight forward process to put the car into reverse. The quick route would have been the spin, which obviously didn't work and added substantial damage to the car (front wing). Given how close the driver sits to the ground and how limited his view is, I'm not entire surely he realized he was still on the gravel with his rear wheels. That enlightenment only came once the spin did not work. What followed was really quite logical and in the end saved his change for a podium.

[Sieper]

What saved his chance for the podium was the red flag. Otherwise (at full race speed) he would have been back in contention, but way down the order. But yes, itbwas the first step, to get back on the circuit and be moving again.

[214270]

Reverse?

Forward gear or reverse gear, if the driven wheels are in the gravel there’s a high chance you’ll beach.

[NathanOlder]

What saved his chance for the podium was the red flag. Otherwise (at full race speed) he would have been back in contention, but way down the order. But yes, itbwas the first step, to get back on the circuit and be moving again.

Yes the red flag helped him out massively, without that he wouldn't have been on the podium. But he also did a great job getting that car from the barrier to the pit lane. Many drivers would have reversed back a bit, and then tried to go forward again and beached the floor of the car on the tarmac with the rear wheels in the gravel. Game over 0 points.

If you took George Russell out the race , we wouldn't have had a red flag, but we would also would have been looking at a high chance of Lewis winning the race without George and his red flag

[NathanOlder]

Reverse?

He almost stopped before he got on to the tarmac, but that would have stopped with the rear wheels in the gravel. Just before he stopped he realised this and had to keep moving, although he hit the wall, crucially he had 3 wheels and maybe even 4 wheels on the tarmac to be able to start moving again.
Everyone knows you should never purposely stop in a gravel trap in a race car.

[dxpetrov]

You could be very wrong about that! After Hamilton finally doesn't drive a dominant car after all these years,
it is a relief to race him with an equal car. So the Max camp is happy. Is the Hamilton camp that too?

Well I think after testing, it looked like RedBull domination certainly for the early part of the 2021 season, but it actually looks like Mercedes have the better race car. So right now I would say Mercedes will be happier than RedBull.

I don't think sensible people saw testing and thought "red bull dominance", I think they saw "the end of Mercedes dominance".

Having better tyre management and being faster towards the end of the stints doesn't make one car faster.
It can be counteracted by a proactive strategy of a team who had a faster car at the beginning of stints, as they hold a track position.
It was clearly shown in Bahrain, when the team that had better tyre management was in fact a slower team, and was only helped to get the win by a mistake during the overtaking attempt made by the faster car.

[Marble]

Interesting info including telemetries and evolutions here :

https://blog.autoplus.fr/moncet/2021/04 ... ebriefing/

(Translation to english -> https://translate.google.com/translate? ... riefing%2F )

[hUirEYExbN]

Does anyone know how long it has been manditory to have a reverse gear ? When did the FIA add this rule ? 90's ?

In 1988 the F1 annex of the regulations said "All automobiles must have a reverse gear which must be in working order when the car starts the event and which can be operated by the driver when seated normally in the car."

The section wasn't present in 1972's F1 annex, but may have been in a general section I don't have.

According to here: https://www.f1technical.net/articles/24 Reverse was present in 1968, but I'm not sure if that is a rule or just a note about them being present (why would they be present if not mandated?)

[Sieper]

What saved his chance for the podium was the red flag. Otherwise (at full race speed) he would have been back in contention, but way down the order. But yes, itbwas the first step, to get back on the circuit and be moving again.

Yes the red flag helped him out massively, without that he wouldn't have been on the podium. But he also did a great job getting that car from the barrier to the pit lane. Many drivers would have reversed back a bit, and then tried to go forward again and beached the floor of the car on the tarmac with the rear wheels in the gravel. Game over 0 points.

If you took George Russell out the race , we wouldn't have had a red flag, but we would also would have been looking at a high chance of Lewis winning the race without George and his red flag

Yup, pretty soon we will have (hopefully) a new battle on our hands in Portugal to see the pace.

Max was 6 seconds ahead of Lewis before he had to overtake Stroll Bottas Russell and Kimi. It was down to 2 seconds already when Hamilton reached Russell. They cost Max 4. Russell perhaps could take the inside line, but he would have lost position to Kimi. He did actually put his right wheel on the white line, he tried to make as much room as he could. (Perhaps) he should have just used the normal line and let Lewis through o the next straight but imho he was trying to help Lewis there. Not in the best way, but still.

Also, say Lewis did need the same time and he would be 6 seconds down, max was on new yellow, Lewis on scrubbed. 1 lap less only in race. Imho it wasn’t a given but for sure (if indeed all goes as hoped) we should see more in Portugal. I agree Merc seems to already have clawed back a lot!

[e30ernest]

From the replay it looks like Lewis already went inside (and therefore on the wet stuff) before the braking point because Russel was on the racing line. Russell could have given more room there if he wanted to.

I'm not blaming Russell though. That was 100% Lewis' mistake IMO.

[NathanOlder]

Does anyone know how long it has been manditory to have a reverse gear ? When did the FIA add this rule ? 90's ?

In 1988 the F1 annex of the regulations said "All automobiles must have a reverse gear which must be in working order when the car starts the event and which can be operated by the driver when seated normally in the car."

The section wasn't present in 1972's F1 annex, but may have been in a general section I don't have.

According to here: https://www.f1technical.net/articles/24 Reverse was present in 1968, but I'm not sure if that is a rule or just a note about them being present (why would they be present if not mandated?)

Thank you for this, I appreciate it.

[basti313]

Russell could have given more room there if he wanted to.

Where? How?
If I am not mistaken, Russel was on the absolute edge of the track. No idea how you can give more room there on the outside.

Furthermore the position of Russel did not play a big role, it was simply too wet on the inside. You can see that Ham simply slides across the corner due to the wet tires.

There is only one solution...wait for the straight. Any move to the wet side in this corner would have ended with one or two cars in the gravel. If Rus would have done the stunt to go on the wet side, the most probable outcome is sliding into Lewis.