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

[hkbruin]

Are mercedes planning to bring any updates?

Redbull are so much better they can take wing off the car to be faster on the straight, faster in the corners (just with a little understeer) and still have good tyre deg.
The w12 is good only in 2 second stint on the harder compound. That is just 1/2 or 1/3 of the race. That is not enough. They cannot be depending on Hamilton to overtake max on the track or defend for dear life; while having slower pitstops and poor strategy.

For this race.. Ferrari doing poorly on race pace. Mclaren doing a great job of securing the 3rd place. Torro Rosso could have been. 3rd with Kyvaat in the other seat or albon.

I wouldn't be surprise to see Kyvaat back after summer brake. If Tsunoda doesn't improve and keep crashing on Q day

No way on earth that Kyvat will be back, if anything they’ll stick Albon in there before anybody else. I don’t see that happening as Yuki is a Honda protege and won’t be pulled. The Japanese won’t embarrass their own like that.

[grubschumi13]

Great race. Max won in the slower car.

[JordanMugen]

Max very lucky to escape without a penalty today.

Penalty for what?

[Spacepace]

Max very lucky to escape without a penalty today. And very lucky Mercedes messed up their stops because driving wise I would say both Mercedes drivers did better. Cracks definitely showing in his arsenal too. He burnt out his tryes more. Championship is still on if Lewis can get a clean shot without Mercbtrippingnover themselves.

Mess up the strategy of the pit stops, i am guessing you refer to. Because both pit stops from Mercedes were faster than redbull at least Hamilton which was o.200 faster than verstapen but still Verstapen undercut Hamilton with his great outlap on the first pit stop

He's referring to leaving Hamilton out for an extra lap allowing Verstappen to have an undercut. Pitting Bottas for whatever the reason was, Merc should've known that would trigger Verstappen to pit. Your only choice at this point is to bring Hamilton in the lap after Bottas to cover off Verstappen and Bottas respectively. Mercedes were hoping Bottas would get past Verstappen after the stop. Then pit Hamilton so it would be a 1-2. That didn't happen. They underestimated the undercut today probably from being short sighted by thinking a 1 stop was possible. But that strategy was probably cooked up thinking Verstappen would have been leading. They need to make better calls on the fly. Hindsight is 20 20. But I know I and a few other's watching were thinking they'd be pitting Hamilton immediately after Bottas. The other mistake was not getting the undercut on the second stop and being forced to go back to strategy A and go long. It looked amateurish and was due in result of relying on data instead of instincts

[Viper2789]

Great race today - you roll the dice and accept the outcome.

[Mr.S]

Ultimately, Max finished less than 3s ahead of Hamilton & Perez finished 5s off Bottas. RB is 0.05 to 0.1s quicker than Mercedes as per race pace. That is nothing. Perez managed his tyres betetr & Max gained 3s off the undercut. There is virtually no difference between Mercedes & RB on race pace. RB can have 2-3 tenths in qualy but on race it becomes 0.05 to 0.1s at best. So circuit to circuit, temperature wise, tyre choice, car set-up & driving skills will cause more than 0.1/lap to vary & will decide this. One thing which is very clear is that RB does very well with softer compounds like the C4-C5 range (ones used in Monaco & Baku) while Mercedes look stronger with the C1-C2 range (Spain & Portugal types). We saw RB didn't have much or anything on Mercedes with the Mediums or Hards. So tyre compound choice will make a huge difference race to race when the gap is 0.1s or there about.

Alpine is another can doing well in C1-C2 Range. Look @ today Alonso's 2nd stint or Spain/Portugal. They fall off the cliff with softer rubber & have more degradation & less pace. Ferrari apart from doing good in slow corners also does well with softer tyres like the RB. Alpine & Ferrari are like reverse of each other. Alpine is possibly the most erratic car in terms of responding to tyre choice.

I don't think RB had more degradation that Mercedes but RB can get the softer tyres C4-C5 to warm up better in qualifying than Mercedes which gives them a couple of tenths probably. Great drive by Verstappen.

[Redragon]

Are mercedes planning to bring any updates?

Redbull are so much better they can take wing off the car to be faster on the straight, faster in the corners (just with a little understeer) and still have good tyre deg.
The w12 is good only in 2 second stint on the harder compound. That is just 1/2 or 1/3 of the race. That is not enough. They cannot be depending on Hamilton to overtake max on the track or defend for dear life; while having slower pitstops and poor strategy.

For this race.. Ferrari doing poorly on race pace. Mclaren doing a great job of securing the 3rd place. Torro Rosso could have been. 3rd with Kyvaat in the other seat or albon.

I wouldn't be surprise to see Kyvaat back after summer brake. If Tsunoda doesn't improve and keep crashing on Q day

No way on earth that Kyvat will be back, if anything they’ll stick Albon in there before anybody else. I don’t see that happening as Yuki is a Honda protege and won’t be pulled. The Japanese won’t embarrass their own like that.

crazy things have been seen at redbull and toro rosso line up before. Kyvat points would have been guranteed and at the end is all about money on a new budget cut formula.

[Edax]

Max very lucky to escape without a penalty today. And very lucky Mercedes messed up their stops because driving wise I would say both Mercedes drivers did better. Cracks definitely showing in his arsenal too. He burnt out his tryes more. Championship is still on if Lewis can get a clean shot without Mercbtrippingnover themselves.

Mess up the strategy of the pit stops, i am guessing you refer to. Because both pit stops from Mercedes were faster than redbull at least Hamilton which was o.200 faster than verstapen but still Verstapen undercut Hamilton with his great outlap on the first pit stop

Ves outlap was great, but Hamilton also messed up his inlap. Think that mistake in 14 may have cost him a second or more. Otherwise Ves would not have ended up in front.

[Mr.S]

For Austria No. 1 -

Pirelli have gone for C2 to C4 (Same as this race)

For Austria No. 2 -

Pirelli have gone for C3 to C5 (Monaco/Baku Selection - Should help RB)

And then for Silverstone C3 to C5 (Same as Spain/Portugal - With which Mercedes won both races).

The 2nd Austrian GP has much softer tyres & could be interesting & another 2 stopper. The 1st will probably be a 1 stopper !

[TimW]

I was surprised that Red Bulls strategy worked out. Given that Max could not stay in Hamilton's drs window in the first stint, and Hamilton did stay in Max' drs in the second, I thought Mercedes had the edge in speed.

[sosic2121]

Max very lucky to escape without a penalty today. And very lucky Mercedes messed up their stops because driving wise I would say both Mercedes drivers did better. Cracks definitely showing in his arsenal too. He burnt out his tryes more. Championship is still on if Lewis can get a clean shot without Mercbtrippingnover themselves.

Mess up the strategy of the pit stops, i am guessing you refer to. Because both pit stops from Mercedes were faster than redbull at least Hamilton which was o.200 faster than verstapen but still Verstapen undercut Hamilton with his great outlap on the first pit stop

Hamilton's faster pit-stop time was irrelevant at that point.
1) Mercedes are crap on tyre warm-up. Valterri could barely undercut Max, and to make things worse,
2) Max had the power of undercut on Lewis.

So basically a double-whammy. They screwed up.

And, if you were them, what would you do?

[Mr.S]

Max very lucky to escape without a penalty today. And very lucky Mercedes messed up their stops because driving wise I would say both Mercedes drivers did better. Cracks definitely showing in his arsenal too. He burnt out his tryes more. Championship is still on if Lewis can get a clean shot without Mercbtrippingnover themselves.

Mess up the strategy of the pit stops, i am guessing you refer to. Because both pit stops from Mercedes were faster than redbull at least Hamilton which was o.200 faster than verstapen but still Verstapen undercut Hamilton with his great outlap on the first pit stop

He's referring to leaving Hamilton out for an extra lap allowing Verstappen to have an undercut. Pitting Bottas for whatever the reason was, Merc should've known that would trigger Verstappen to pit. Your only choice at this point is to bring Hamilton in the lap after Bottas to cover off Verstappen and Bottas respectively. Mercedes were hoping Bottas would get past Verstappen after the stop. Then pit Hamilton so it would be a 1-2. That didn't happen. They underestimated the undercut today probably from being short sighted by thinking a 1 stop was possible. But that strategy was probably cooked up thinking Verstappen would have been leading. They need to make better calls on the fly. Hindsight is 20 20. But I know I and a few other's watching were thinking they'd be pitting Hamilton immediately after Bottas. The other mistake was not getting the undercut on the second stop and being forced to go back to strategy A and go long. It looked amateurish and was due in result of relying on data instead of instincts

Bottas made 3s on his 1st lap with the Hard Tyres. The sector times were coming & Mercedes should absolutely have pitted Hamilton. In the end, Hamilton lost by only 3s.

They could have went with a Bottas 2 stop strategy, the lap after Max. Bottas pitted earliest. His tyres were 7 laps older & he was vulnerable to Perez who is known for good tyre management. They could have asked Bottas to hunt RB. It is likely that Mercedes would have had less degradation than RB on Medium/Hard anyways. They kept Bottas out so that he can hold off Max for 2-3 laps to help Lewis win. Bottas himself asked for a 2 stopper & he stopped quite early. All this is Hindsight.

[Sieper]

They had, slim margins. But what a race. Oh my. I am exhausted. Really, it was so tense. Hamilton and Verstappen, what a fight. Mercedes today left a bit on the table imho. So it will remain very close.

[Spacepace]

Mess up the strategy of the pit stops, i am guessing you refer to. Because both pit stops from Mercedes were faster than redbull at least Hamilton which was o.200 faster than verstapen but still Verstapen undercut Hamilton with his great outlap on the first pit stop

He's referring to leaving Hamilton out for an extra lap allowing Verstappen to have an undercut. Pitting Bottas for whatever the reason was, Merc should've known that would trigger Verstappen to pit. Your only choice at this point is to bring Hamilton in the lap after Bottas to cover off Verstappen and Bottas respectively. Mercedes were hoping Bottas would get past Verstappen after the stop. Then pit Hamilton so it would be a 1-2. That didn't happen. They underestimated the undercut today probably from being short sighted by thinking a 1 stop was possible. But that strategy was probably cooked up thinking Verstappen would have been leading. They need to make better calls on the fly. Hindsight is 20 20. But I know I and a few other's watching were thinking they'd be pitting Hamilton immediately after Bottas. The other mistake was not getting the undercut on the second stop and being forced to go back to strategy A and go long. It looked amateurish and was due in result of relying on data instead of instincts

Bottas made 3s on his 1st lap with the Hard Tyres. The sector times were coming & Mercedes should absolutely have pitted Hamilton. In the end, Hamilton lost by only 3s.

They could have went with a Bottas 2 stop strategy, the lap after Max. Bottas pitted earliest. His tyres were 7 laps older & he was vulnerable to Perez who is known for good tyre management. They could have asked Bottas to hunt RB. It is likely that Mercedes would have had less degradation than RB on Medium/Hard anyways. They kept Bottas out so that he can hold off Max for 2-3 laps to help Lewis win. Bottas himself asked for a 2 stopper & he stopped quite early. All this is Hindsight.

Yeah that is how I see it as well. Like I said I think Merc were looking at data instead of reacting to what was unfolding on track. Bottas was setting fast sectors comparable to Hamilton and Verstappen. I don't understand how the commentators pick up on these things faster than the strategists. Are they looking at data and projections? If so I would imagine that it creates a big disconnect and you easily get lost in the data

[nzjrs]

I was surprised that Red Bulls strategy worked out. Given that Max could not stay in Hamilton's drs window in the first stint, and Hamilton did stay in Max' drs in the second, I thought Mercedes had the edge in speed.

Agree. Perez interview commented that the greener track with the low-df package was not easy for RB. As it rubbered in it seems they could find some more speed.

I think without the green track today, MB would have won.