Nico Rosberg has won the Bahrain Grand Prix, leading the race virtually from start to finish. The German made an impeccable start to get ahead of Hamilton, and eventually finished in front of Raikkonen in the sole remaining Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton
You can see on the left that this is after first runs in Q3 and yet, looking at the bottom right, you see Ham has fastest S3 time. That seems to me that going wide in the final corner was either a. an advantage or b. certainly not a disadvantage that should have resulted from an error.
I don't care and I don't want to see someone knocked out of Q3 - the 'proper' qualifying format would have given him the other run anyway, during which he went faster - but just haven't seen anyone picking up on this yet.
I can't access the live timing replay at the moment, but the FIA Qualifying Session Best Sector Times shows Hamilton's fastest S3 time as 22.449, as seen in the graphic. Since he went purple in his second Q3 run he must have beaten the S3 time of his first Q3 run. So this S3 of 22.449 must be from Q1 or Q2, i.e. not the lap he ran wide.
looking at those times, Lewis was quicker in Q3 over Q2 in Sectors 1 & 2 by 3 tenths each time, yet the final sector he was slower. Obviously the first run in Q3 made him take Sector 3 a little easier. Do we think Lewis could have gone a few tenths quicker if he went full attack ? Its rare that a Q2 sector will end up fastest of the day unless weather plays a part.
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Maybe in Q2, sector 3 was so good because he compromised S2 a little? Adding up sector times from different laps doesnt always work.
I.e. one might compromise a line of a corner in order to gain a higher topspeed for a part that is in the next sector, but the compromise one did the previous sector will suffer because of it.
Not for nothing, Rosberg's Championship is the only thing that lends credibility to Hamilton's recent success. Otherwise, he'd just be the guy who's had the best car. — bhall II #Team44 supporter
Expecting Ferrari to split strategies between their drivers at the first stop to determine which tyre (medium or soft) is best, and try getting it right with at least 1 driver.
