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

[ringo]

Mercedes need to start thinking for Lewis as #1 like how rb do that for Max. They would not have let Bottas pit first if they were maximizing Hamilton's chances. They keep relying on him to do these magical drives desbite the strategical setbacks.
Bottas need to be #2 starting next race. They dont have the luxury to be giving him equal chances. the WCC is alreadty gone. They need to salvage the WDC.
What i observe and am confident about however is that Hamilton is still the most relentless over the race distance. The other drivers seem more impervious to the tyre conditions. Whether this is experience or trickery; who knows, But he has that going for him to still keep him in the fight.

[Mr.S]

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

I think Monaco was clear there will be an overcut. Here,I think when Ricciardo pitted & got so much more quicker, it was clearly evident. And I think others pitted after that & everyone gained 2-3s atleast. Given how low the gap is & 0 chances of an overcut, I don't think anyone would risk an undercut. Another interesting thing is that the Hards didn't work well & certainly offered no more durability than the Mediums. Norris' stretched his Mediums & he turned out a good race. Same with Perez. After a while, the Mediums degraded less than expected. The green track was possibly a reason why people struggled more in the 1st stint. But with a 1 stopper, people who went long in the 1st stint did better. Norris, how on earth he went this long & stayed ahead of Riccardo when both were on the Hards which is supposed to durable is beyond me.

Pirellis's tyre thing is very difficult to predict.

[Sieper]

Mercedes need to start thinking for Lewis as #1 like how rb do that for Max. They would not have let Bottas pit first if they were maximizing Hamilton's chances. They keep relying on him to do these magical drives desbite the strategical setbacks.
Bottas need to be #2 starting next race. They dont have the luxury to be giving him equal chances. the WCC is alreadty gone. They need to salvage the WDC.
What i observe and am confident about however is that Hamilton is still the most relentless over the race distance. The other drivers seem more impervious to the tyre conditions. Whether this is experience or trickery; who knows, But he has that going for him to still keep him in the fight.

They thought a 1-2 was in the cards. And can you blame them. I thought so too, but that undercut 3 seconds?! That decided it. Plus not answering the second stop. But it looked very long like Merc was going to finish P1 anyway.

[Mr.S]

Mercedes need to start thinking for Lewis as #1 like how rb do that for Max. They would not have let Bottas pit first if they were maximizing Hamilton's chances. They keep relying on him to do these magical drives desbite the strategical setbacks.
Bottas need to be #2 starting next race. They dont have the luxury to be giving him equal chances. the WCC is alreadty gone. They need to salvage the WDC.
What i observe and am confident about however is that Hamilton is still the most relentless over the race distance. The other drivers seem more impervious to the tyre conditions. Whether this is experience or trickery; who knows, But he has that going for him to still keep him in the fight.

Opinions are subjective but this one seems incredibly biased my friend. Bottas was shouting for a 2 stopper, stopped much earlier & could have had a charge like Verstappen but was kept on to hold off Max so that Lewis can win.

And he was pitted first to undercut Verstappen & hold him up for the rest of the race for Lewis to win. Where Mercedes got it wrong is that they had no idea the undercut would lead to 3s more. And Lewis' in-lap was also pretty mediocre/poor. Mercedes/Lewis said they didn't realize the under-cut would be this powerful. Probably RB & Max didn't as well otherwise they probably would have pitted sooner but they had to respond to Bottas. 1 more lap & they would have lost Max's place to Bottas. But Bottas was a clear #2 & has been. He is always available to give a tow to Lewis like he did in Baku & he will be there in Monza to give a tow

[Zynerji]

IMHO, for Merc to salvage 2021 and The Streak, they must replace Bottas with Russell immediately. Its not about Hamilton/Verstappen in the WCC anymore, its Perez/Bottas, and Merc need to pick up those 3rd place points 100% of the time, and Valterri simply is not getting that job done.

[Just_a_fan]

I guess it suits people to up the drama and claim that Red Bull / Max have pulled something out of thin air. But the reality is that the Red Bull was marginally the quicker car around this track.

Maybe you believe this narrative because you support LH, as the race pace of Mercedes was very notably quicker and even on QLF, Max was on pole simply because he´s very likely faster than the other 2

The car determines the pace of the car. The driver gets as close to the car's ultimate pace as he can. No driver can be faster than his car. Simply impossible. That's been the case since Farina took the first F1 title back in the day (and before then too of course).

So if Max took pole then his car was faster. Sure, his opponents might have messed up, but it didn't look like it, did it?

[Just_a_fan]

Great race. Max won in the slower car.

Er, no he didn't.

[TimW]

Wolf and Horner on interview on Sky: According to Wolf they maybe had a bit of a margin on RB. They were forced to pit Bottas early because of vibrations(flat spot). Both did not expect the undercut to be this powerful. RB were worried about a repeat Barcelona.

[langedweil]

This was some good catching-up read !


Great tactical play ...
Absolutely wonderful there is no more dominance, and that every race seems to be decided by drivers and team-tactics!
With next-to-equal cars it seems to prove that the easyness of the Merc wins over the last 7 years was mainly based on utter dominance. Now that appears to be done and dusted, we'll have a great ride for the renainder of the year

[Sieper]

Great race. Max won in the slower car.

Er, no he didn't.

Wolf disagrees. As do I. But that is just an advantage. As long as you are quicker you will mostly collect more points. Not today but it can’t be like that every race. And mostly hasn’t been (outside of Baku and Monaco). It is very close though. Yes guys!

[epo]

I guess it suits people to up the drama and claim that Red Bull / Max have pulled something out of thin air. But the reality is that the Red Bull was marginally the quicker car around this track.

Maybe you believe this narrative because you support LH, as the race pace of Mercedes was very notably quicker and even on QLF, Max was on pole simply because he´s very likely faster than the other 2

The car determines the pace of the car. The driver gets as close to the car's ultimate pace as he can. No driver can be faster than his car. Simply impossible. That's been the case since Farina took the first F1 title back in the day (and before then too of course).

So if Max took pole then his car was faster. Sure, his opponents might have messed up, but it didn't look like it, did it?

Qualifying and race pace are two different stories, for example see Ferrari. Your engine can be fast but for a race it can be using more fuel so less efficient so heavier. Please stop posting stuff that’s not true.

[ringo]

Three redbull wins in a row... on pace...
That is not by chance.

[Redragon]

IMHO, for Merc to salvage 2021 and The Streak, they must replace Bottas with Russell immediately. Its not about Hamilton/Verstappen in the WCC anymore, its Perez/Bottas, and Merc need to pick up those 3rd place points 100% of the time, and Valterri simply is not getting that job done.

Bottas read the race before everyone else, even the engeneers, he called for the 2 stops race the first one. Maybe if the team would have listen to him would have got more points today. He was unlucky on Monaco so I don't think he is the problem yet of why the team are not getting as many points.

[tpe]

Looks like Merc wanted to use him as a movable block for MV.
It didn't work out.

[El Scorchio]

I guess it suits people to up the drama and claim that Red Bull / Max have pulled something out of thin air. But the reality is that the Red Bull was marginally the quicker car around this track.

Maybe you believe this narrative because you support LH, as the race pace of Mercedes was very notably quicker and even on QLF, Max was on pole simply because he´s very likely faster than the other 2

The car determines the pace of the car. The driver gets as close to the car's ultimate pace as he can. No driver can be faster than his car. Simply impossible. That's been the case since Farina took the first F1 title back in the day (and before then too of course).

So if Max took pole then his car was faster. Sure, his opponents might have messed up, but it didn't look like it, did it?

And this is the big problem with perspective, or lack of.

In Spain, Hamilton gets a marginal pole, is second after the first lap and following, then takes an extra stop to hunt down Verstappen and win the race and loads of people are proclaiming Mercedes was clearly faster. The exact opposite happens in this race, only the gap to pole from second was somewhat bigger, and the same people claim Mercedes was clearly faster in this race as well…