2021 French Grand Prix - Le Castellet, June 18 - 20

[max_speed]

Did Pirelli claim that a 1 stop was the ideal/fastest strategy?

If so, it´s just further evidence that Pirelli is the biggest farce in F1. Red Bull shown them up(Pirelli) pretty badly with that strategy. Mercedes was clearly faster than Max, both LH and VB, and Perez was nowhere. On equal conditions, ie, same tyre life, Mercedes was very notably quicker and Mercedes only lost because they fell for Pirelli´s "prediction/estimate".

If I were a LH/Mercedes fan, instead of blaming the team for doing a 1 stopper_ and thus losing the race, despite having a faster car_ I would solely blame Pirelli for the poor job they provide. But, actually, if I were a LH fan, I could not blame Pirelli either because it´s only due to Pirelli that Max didn´t open a massive lead on Baku

It´s so sad that F1 is stuck with this company.

I know lot´s of people love to defend Pirelli saying things like: "they have the capability to do wonderful tyres but only do what they are asked for", but I(and a huge crowd) would really love to have another tyre company supplying tyres for F1

Truly loved the excuse. They should fire army of people crunching data in near real time and throwing strategies in front of strategist to make a judicious call. I guess firing these people will help in saving cost and they should simply do the opposite of what pirelli suggest as an optimal strategy.

[ringo]

You mean pace on far younger tyres?

Mercedes 1 stop would have worked fine if the were the faster car.

Yeah having the ‘faster’ car means you can just ignore tyre deg.

Um kinda.. if the car has the pace tyre deg will still leave you with a gap over your rivals.
Hamilton "tyre whispering" made it look like Mercedes could salvage that race. They really lost it all by not pitting Lewis before Bottas.
Hamilton had no business making those tyres last that long. If he had won, i would be the first to say he didnt deserve to win. He would have stolen a Redbull win.

With Redbull having the car to have now.. Should be interesting to see if Merc can challenge for the constructors and WDC. Redbull doesnt have any weak tracks and the team is working on a higher level.

[epo]

I just don’t understand why they didn’t put Lewis on lap 43, he would have hunted max down no problem

It's not only they he was asked to stop but declined so.

Hamilton said if we're going to pit then we need to do it first.

Both drivers also said on the radio that they had said it would be a two stopper. Vowles said on the radio that it was a strategy call mistake and the loss was their fault.

It's a race stuff happens so you need to change things according to how things are going and both didn't. Next time this strategy maybe wins the game and the next not. Always so easy tp complain afterwards. You should be happy the Mercedes race pace seems really good, better then RB.

[Juzh]

Why didn't mercedes go for fastest lap with bottas? Only reasonable scenario is he would come out in lapped traffic and would have no space to actually go for it? They could only do it on second to last lap to prevent red bull's response with Perez..

I think they were trying to stay within 5s of Perez in case he gets a penalty for the Bottas overtake off-track moment.

Oh I see, makes sense.

[cplchanb]

I just don’t understand why they didn’t put Lewis on lap 43, he would have hunted max down no problem

It's not only they he was asked to stop but declined so.

Hamilton said if we're going to pit then we need to do it first.

Both drivers also said on the radio that they had said it would be a two stopper. Vowles said on the radio that it was a strategy call mistake and the loss was their fault.

they rely too much on their computers and not enough on their drivers. They played with fire and while spain worked this time and at monaco they just binned it

[Just_a_fan]

I think that Max is taking his first title this year. Red Bull are just a touch stronger everywhere now. If Max doesn't win then something strange will have happened.

[Spacepace]

It's not only they he was asked to stop but declined so.

Hamilton said if we're going to pit then we need to do it first.

Both drivers also said on the radio that they had said it would be a two stopper. Vowles said on the radio that it was a strategy call mistake and the loss was their fault.

they rely too much on their computers and not enough on their drivers. They played with fire and while spain worked this time and at monaco they just binned it

100%

[PlatinumZealot]

Merc had the faster race car and they just threw it away on strategy.

Simple as that.

Faster? Not sure about that. They had a bunch of drag on the car so Hamilton seemed closee in the twisty parts but otherwise I think the cars were about even, but giving the edge to redbull for one lap pace / outlap pace. It was Red bull's race to lose at the end of the day.

[Artur Craft]

Today Mercedes was clearly thinking on one driver not as a team.

today?
Bottas has been the team´s "donkey driver" since day one, and I do feel bad for the guy

On a side note, Ferrari seemed nowhere on the race and that was quite embarassing seeing Mclaren, Alonso and Gasly fighting further up front. I think Ferrari have the strongest driver pairing but the car is just too poor considering the context of the team

[Spacepace]

Why are Sky reporting the race as if it was just a difference of 1 stop and 2 stop. Glad Rosberg is there at least to drop some truth

[Restomaniac]

Mercedes 1 stop would have worked fine if the were the faster car.

Yeah having the ‘faster’ car means you can just ignore tyre deg.

Um kinda.. if the car has the pace tyre deg will still leave you with a gap over your rivals.
Hamilton "tyre whispering" made it look like Mercedes could salvage that race. They really lost it all by not pitting Lewis before Bottas.
Hamilton had no business making those tyres last that long. If he had won, i would be the first to say he didnt deserve to win. He would have stolen a Redbull win.

With Redbull having the car to have now.. Should be interesting to see if Merc can challenge for the constructors and WDC. Redbull doesnt have any weak tracks and the team is working on a higher level.

No sorry. I’m not talking about 1 sec a lap faster which is what you seem to be talking about but the idea that a team can just not bother to worry about tyre deg and win is utterly for the birds.

[Mattyw]

Why didn't mercedes go for fastest lap with bottas? Only reasonable scenario is he would come out in lapped traffic and would have no space to actually go for it? They could only do it on second to last lap to prevent red bull's response with Perez..

I think they were trying to stay within 5s of Perez in case he gets a penalty for the Bottas overtake off-track moment.

Oh I see, makes sense.

But it had to be a guaranteed penalty against Perez otherwise with fastest lap Bottas gets a point and Ver doesnt - double blow.

Another error to add to Mercs list today.

[Hoffman900]

Hamilton said if we're going to pit then we need to do it first.

Both drivers also said on the radio that they had said it would be a two stopper. Vowles said on the radio that it was a strategy call mistake and the loss was their fault.

they rely too much on their computers and not enough on their drivers. They played with fire and while spain worked this time and at monaco they just binned it

100%

Agree.

This cost them at Monaco as well.

Engineers doing engineer things... I’ve certainly have had these conversations in my professional life at times “your calculations are wrong, because I’m in the field, and literally what you said wouldn’t happen did”.

[Redragon]

Today Mercedes was clearly thinking on one driver not as a team.

today?
Bottas has been the team´s "donkey driver" since day one, and I do feel bad for the guy

On a side note, Ferrari seemed nowhere on the race and that was quite embarassing seeing Mclaren, Alonso and Gasly fighting further up front. I think Ferrari have the strongest driver pairing but the car is just too poor considering the context of the team

Bottas has been always the second driver but always has worked for the team as it was 1-2 most of the time. Today they bet to protect the first driver and as result they lost as team.

[Artur Craft]

I think Merc is capable of deciding for themselves what the strategy should be, and do.

And I am not a Pirelli apologist by any means.

Mercedes engineers are not tyre experts by any means. Pirelli´s "technicians" should be the most competent voices on the matter, by far. When I see other tyre manufacturers making predictions on Indy, MotoGP, WEC..... it´s almost always spot on.......