It reminded me of the wet races like Silverstone and Montreal where they were waiting for the rain to either start or stop before showing their pace. Once Lando fell back to P4 I think they were pacing themselves waiting for the cars ahead to pit before using their tyres so they could get the delta to attack Max at the end. They seem to pretty much always do this whether it's their preferred race management or because they have to because of a characteristic of the car on heavy fuel (Oscar did say he had graining that eventually cleared up), I don't always find it easy to tell.Emag wrote: ↑22 Oct 2024, 16:52They lost out massively in the first 15 laps of the first stint, way more than usual, because they are usually slow on the first couple of laps even on races where they have been great. But it has never taken that many laps to get the car in the optimal operating window and also the deficit on the building up phase has never been as big as it was in Austin (~1 second per lap).
And this is something that I have noticed specifically with Lando going back all the way to 2020 where he saves tyres and then attacks near the end when others are struggling with their tyres more, usually with a lot of success. But if it's intentional I'm not sure it has really paid off for them this year as there have been several "close but no cigar" situations at the end of the race.
