2017 Canadian Grand Prix, Montreal, 9-11 June

[Mandrake]

- What "chop"? Is that the current spin after another Ferrari drivers meltdown? What about evil DRS, did it help Vettel or did it make race less interesting ?

- There was not much wrong with Verstappen's start (rare occurrence ), he was in front early enough and took wide enough quicker line, Vettel was A. slow B. kept going into middle nowhere, C. two cars overtook him. He should blame only himself, bad start and clumsy reaction to it.

- Sky experts tried to spin it into Verstappen's fault (selling Ham - Vett fiction ofc) but then again they couldn't figure out the simplest case of Sainz turning twice for no reason (running their usual RB infomercial). Three places is nothing for that, especially after Bahrain.

Evil DRS caused Ocon to not get by Perez PErez was too fast to be dropped out of DRS range but too slow to actually overtake. I reckon Ocon could have had a real shot with a lot fresher tires he should have had an advantage in acceleration out of the hairpin and be closer to RIC.

In essence, this train of 2 DRSing FIs caused Vettel to not become 3rd

If you look at the start, both Hamilton and Vettel had okay starts with Bottas having a slightly better and Verstappen having a mega start. Vettel was forced to fend off Bottas on his inside who I was even afraid might be crashing into the pack in T1 (did he not even lock his tires at one point?) Hamilton was braking rather early (of course he can do whatever he wants being in the lead) which left Vettel with no Option but to reduce speed as well and be overtaken by both Bottas and Verstappen. Verstappen then also turning in on Vettel as evident by clipping his Front Wing (It's a racing incident due to it happening at the start, nevertheless he did not make a clean move, no point denying that). All in all, Hamilton was only just front of Verstappen into turn 2, so he lost out massively at the start compared to Verstappen.

[Mandrake]

So, a number of Web publications went wrong in assessing the Merc's tyre situation. The one publication that was used as a reference on the race thread before the practice began, was from AMUS.

A member here posted this.

Amus expects Merc to struggle here aswell. They need fast corners to get and hold the tires in the window. Canada with its stop&go nature makes it hard. Some of the deficit might be compensated by The engine / PU.

What puzzled me when the bold predictions were being made about Mercedes struggling on tyres, is a simple fact that people were missing that this a totally different circuit to Monaco and ignoring the evidence of previous race of Spain where Merc was faster through the slower S3 sector.

There could yet again be places where Merc might struggle again if they do not fully understand the issues. Toto admits that they don't know the "Holy grail" of tyre issues. But to blindly and boldly concur that Merc is going to struggle was quite amateurish, instead of waiting to see what unfolds.

I was using a simple logic to see if Merc are going to be good or not on tyres and that was, if they were going to take a lap longer than Ferraris to put temperature in tyres, they are in trouble. If they just take as many laps are Ferrari are taking to get the tyres upto temperature and coming closer to Ferrari's lap times, then they are in good shape. Practice times confirmed my feeling and I sort of expected a close fight for pole and race win.

Mercedes was indeed quick in the twisty part of Spain (S3), but that in itself means little. They were quick in S3 because the rest of the track (lots of high speed corners and DF) allowed them to get the tires into the right operating window where they performed best (and the Mercedes is obviously a quick car, even through corners that demand mechanical grip and are tight and twisty). This of course has a positive effect on the sectors where mechanical grip is important (S3). Monaco ended up being a problem because Mercedes struggled to equally get all tires into the right temperature range. Either they were under, or they were over. The result was little grip.

When AMuS made their analysis, it was just after Monaco. The team confirmed that the problem lies within understanding on how to get the tires into the right temperature range and keep them there. Especially the US. The article you are mentioning took into account that Canada is very much a street circuit, has long straights (which makes it difficult to retain temperatures in the tires) and corners that rely on mechanical grip which again makes it more difficult to get heat into them vs a track where the tires are under constant load through long highspeed corners.

So the reasoning in the article was sound. It wasn't factual, it was an analysis raising doubts over if the Mercedes would be well suited or would struggle again. Mercedes invested a lot of time and effort into understanding the problem and some of that research and led to changes made during FP1, FP2 all the way to Q2 on how they would attempt to heat the tires. Arguably, Hamilton got the sweet spot, Bottas struggled. So it's not as if the problem is solved and the circuit ended up suiting Mercedes. It's far from solved, but they may be on the right track.

Very good observations Phil. The effort that Merc spent into analysing the issues plus the modifications to the cars (brake vents for better tire heat management) adressed exactly the issues the AMuS article brought up. To a point where one car, Hamilton was able to hit the tire window and perform to the car's designated performance. If it was actually enough the beat the Ferraris on race pace we will never find out.

The next races it will still be interesting to see if the measures undertaken solved the issues completely. Without fast flowing corners with huge load on the tires, they need to make their braking stick to keep heat in the tires. Something which will also be more difficult should they fall behind another car...

[aral]

Can we please have less of the verbal tit-for-tat between two posters. (You know who you are!)
Try staying on topic

[siskue2005]

Ham is well know for having bad and good races for no reason. I still believe there was nothing wrong in Monaco

If you look at bottas he got the same performance out of the car in every race apart from Russia. Bottas was consistent at Williams. I suspect the car is behind the Ferrari and just ahead of red bull on race pace If everything equal.

Ham is most likely overdriving the car which has allowed him to be fastest or quite slow in comparison to bottas. The car is bad on overall pace not a tyre issue the tyre issue is caused by not being as fast as Ferrari and having to overdrive sometimes it works sometimes it won't

Sent from my HUAWEI VNS-L31 using Tapatalk

When r u going to join Merc and win championships?
They r looking for someone who can solve their tyre issues. LOL

if they are actually so bad on tyres why is it only 1 driver at a time moaning. why is the car so fast still compared to everyone else if the tyre issue was such a issue surely more than 1 team would be beating them. only sabuer are moaning about the tyres like Mercedes. they are miles ahead of the other merc teams and they are also not moaning about tyre issues. its simple they don't actually have tyre issues they have just got a caught by the comp for the first time in years.

sometimes people just need to look and think.
the merc is not as good interms of aero as the ferrari, they run top engine modes in q3 to go as fast as possible. in race pace they suffer lap time as they cannot use the same mode to make up the speed. the ferrari doesn't have the engine power but gets away with race pace due to the aero

the merc suffers more so in dirty air and has done for years many times they have quickly caught a red bull and then the pace disappears. in Canada Ham was out infront unchallenged for the whole race drove quickly and had no issues with its tyres.

Really only sauber and merc moaning about tyre issues?

http://www.thecheckeredflag.co.uk/2017/ ... -grosjean/

[iotar__]

Really only sauber and merc moaning about tyre issues?
http://www.thecheckeredflag.co.uk/2017/ ... -grosjean/

- There's moaning about tyres (Monaco) and moaning about tyres (Canada). Haas is not Mercedes either. Monaco had close to nothing to do with Canada, if you're buying Mercedes PR BS that diligent work on Monaco set up (max df track, warm up tyres) transferred to mid-low df, engine, stop and go Canada caused miracle underdog win then I don't know what to say.

- After replay: the start was no one's but Vettel's fault. Watch it, he had this hesitant moment when he slowed down, trying to position himself behind Ham covering inside and forcing Bottas to slow down thus allowing Verstappen outside line and position in front.

- He then tried to cover outside (too late) leaving both Ver and especially Bottas no option but to overtake him. It would be more dangerous if they hadn't. No bad luck about it.

[giantfan10]

Really only sauber and merc moaning about tyre issues?
http://www.thecheckeredflag.co.uk/2017/ ... -grosjean/

- There's moaning about tyres (Monaco) and moaning about tyres (Canada). Haas is not Mercedes either. Monaco had close to nothing to do with Canada, if you're buying Mercedes PR BS that diligent work on Monaco set up (max df track, warm up tyres) transferred to mid-low df, engine, stop and go Canada caused miracle underdog win then I don't know what to say.

- After replay: the start was no one's but Vettel's fault. Watch it, he had this hesitant moment when he slowed down, trying to position himself behind Ham covering inside and forcing Bottas to slow down thus allowing Verstappen outside line and position in front.

- He then tried to cover outside (too late) leaving both Ver and especially Bottas no option but to overtake him. It would be more dangerous if they hadn't. No bad luck about it.

His explanation is that Hamilton was early on the brakes and that left him no choice but to be early on the brakes too... makes the most sense to me because both bottas and max went by him under braking when they both had the space to brake later... vettel did not with hamilton braking that early.
More evidence that hamilton broke way early was the fact that max had a slim chance to get by him at turn 2.

I am in no way buying mercedes spin job about 24/7 work days... just rewind to after qualifying and thats where the truth lies. they have no clue why hamiltons car worked with the tires and botass' didnt but since hamilton with no pressure whatsoever from behind had an easy win we have the current narrative where its all good : )

[PlatinumZealot]

Very good observations Phil. The effort that Merc spent into analysing the issues plus the modifications to the cars (brake vents for better tire heat management) adressed exactly the issues the AMuS article brought up. To a point where one car, Hamilton was able to hit the tire window and perform to the car's designated performance. If it was actually enough the beat the Ferraris on race pace we will never find out.

The next races it will still be interesting to see if the measures undertaken solved the issues completely. Without fast flowing corners with huge load on the tires, they need to make their braking stick to keep heat in the tires. Something which will also be more difficult should they fall behind another car...

Yes. There is a Hamilton quote flying around about how he now understands exactly what is needed, in combination with the upgrades to heat the tyres up in one lap. He said it is not ideal of course, but until Mercedes fine the definite solution, he will continue using his tricks.

It went under the Radar of most, but I think Valterri got bit by the Ulatrasolft gremlin in the second run in Q3 and the race. His performance was much below par.

[ferkan]

People are still mad Vettel made the most of this salvage operation. They expected Hamilton would gain easy points on him after the verstappen chop, but sadly for them it didn't turn out that way, so now they're looking for any possible excuse to nullify by far the best overtake of the race, from pretty much the only man on the track who was interested in passing some cars.

No, it's because some of us can see how close the pass came to ending up like this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cgc7PMv4-_I

Good thing some of you are worried about non DRS passing.

"And remember, pass at pit straight and where its safe to do so. Sticking with dangerous passing into the corners and actually doing it, will result in hefty criticism until next race"

BTW

Merc was (at least in Hams case) definitely better car here in Canada. Ferrari in Q3 looked very nervous, its pretty impressive how Vettel was only 0.130 on his best sectors compared to Lewis, as Lewis Merc drove like a train while Vettel was fighting with his car all over Q3.

[Schuttelberg]

Really only sauber and merc moaning about tyre issues?
http://www.thecheckeredflag.co.uk/2017/ ... -grosjean/

- There's moaning about tyres (Monaco) and moaning about tyres (Canada). Haas is not Mercedes either. Monaco had close to nothing to do with Canada, if you're buying Mercedes PR BS that diligent work on Monaco set up (max df track, warm up tyres) transferred to mid-low df, engine, stop and go Canada caused miracle underdog win then I don't know what to say.

- After replay: the start was no one's but Vettel's fault.

I agree 100%. I'm aghast he wasn't given a penalty for it!

[ENGINE TUNER]

Really only sauber and merc moaning about tyre issues?
http://www.thecheckeredflag.co.uk/2017/ ... -grosjean/

- There's moaning about tyres (Monaco) and moaning about tyres (Canada). Haas is not Mercedes either. Monaco had close to nothing to do with Canada, if you're buying Mercedes PR BS that diligent work on Monaco set up (max df track, warm up tyres) transferred to mid-low df, engine, stop and go Canada caused miracle underdog win then I don't know what to say.

- After replay: the start was no one's but Vettel's fault.

I agree 100%. I'm aghast he wasn't given a penalty for it!

disagree the start accident was %100 Verstappen's fault

[ringo]

I think that Ferrari has an incredible amount of mechanical grip tbh. How it overtook the FI's without a bargeboard and if I'm not mistaken, with that broken front wing it still managed a decent gap towards Ricciardo. Kinda unreal to think, when Lewis last season had to deal with damage in Bahrain and Shanghai and lost a huge amount of performance on his car.

Answer: RAW POWER under the engine cover. I don't see why people refuse to accept that this ferrari engine is a monster, and is the most powerful engine this year.

[Jordan44]

Ham is well know for having bad and good races for no reason. I still believe there was nothing wrong in Monaco

If you look at bottas he got the same performance out of the car in every race apart from Russia. Bottas was consistent at Williams. I suspect the car is behind the Ferrari and just ahead of red bull on race pace If everything equal.

Ham is most likely overdriving the car which has allowed him to be fastest or quite slow in comparison to bottas. The car is bad on overall pace not a tyre issue the tyre issue is caused by not being as fast as Ferrari and having to overdrive sometimes it works sometimes it won't

Sent from my HUAWEI VNS-L31 using Tapatalk

When r u going to join Merc and win championships?
They r looking for someone who can solve their tyre issues. LOL

if they are actually so bad on tyres why is it only 1 driver at a time moaning. why is the car so fast still compared to everyone else if the tyre issue was such a issue surely more than 1 team would be beating them. only sabuer are moaning about the tyres like Mercedes. they are miles ahead of the other merc teams and they are also not moaning about tyre issues. its simple they don't actually have tyre issues they have just got a caught by the comp for the first time in years.

sometimes people just need to look and think.
the merc is not as good interms of aero as the ferrari, they run top engine modes in q3 to go as fast as possible. in race pace they suffer lap time as they cannot use the same mode to make up the speed. the ferrari doesn't have the engine power but gets away with race pace due to the aero

the merc suffers more so in dirty air and has done for years many times they have quickly caught a red bull and then the pace disappears. in Canada Ham was out infront unchallenged for the whole race drove quickly and had no issues with its tyres.

It isn't. Bottas has complained about strange feelings from the car in pretty much all of the races this year. This tyre issue isn't just appearing in qualifying. Hamilton has had issues getting the tyres into the window in qualifying, Bottas appears to have the issue in the race. After Monaco the team were astounded that Hamilton suffered absolutely minimal Ultrasoft degregation when in traffic, but Bottas suffered extreme degradation in clean air.

The problem is that the front tyres are misbehaving. Merc have said the rears come up to temperature as expected, but the fronts are not. This weekend they altered the brake ducts to try and resolve this. I suspect what happened in Monaco was that the minor differences in setup between Hamilton and Bottas made Hamilton extremely effective in the race and Bottas effective in qualifying. At the moment they cannot get the tyres to react consistently in all situations.

AMuS data shows that the Ferrari engine is now on par with the Mercedes. So the next sentence is rubbish. It's frankly astonishing people still want to discredit the Mercedes chassis.

Also, Hamilton is known for having good and bad races for no reason? Since when... that is news to me... and I've seen his entire career.

[Juzh]

I think that Ferrari has an incredible amount of mechanical grip tbh. How it overtook the FI's without a bargeboard and if I'm not mistaken, with that broken front wing it still managed a decent gap towards Ricciardo. Kinda unreal to think, when Lewis last season had to deal with damage in Bahrain and Shanghai and lost a huge amount of performance on his car.

Answer: RAW POWER under the engine cover. I don't see why people refuse to accept that this ferrari engine is a monster, and is the most powerful engine this year.

=D> =D> =D>
Just as in spain and russia, right?

[wickedz50]

I think that Ferrari has an incredible amount of mechanical grip tbh. How it overtook the FI's without a bargeboard and if I'm not mistaken, with that broken front wing it still managed a decent gap towards Ricciardo. Kinda unreal to think, when Lewis last season had to deal with damage in Bahrain and Shanghai and lost a huge amount of performance on his car.

Answer: RAW POWER under the engine cover. I don't see why people refuse to accept that this ferrari engine is a monster, and is the most powerful engine this year.

=D> =D> =D>
Just as in spain and russia, right?

The Ferrari engine power will be tested in Baku and we can conclude if its a monster or not. The epic qualy lap from Lewis under whatever engine mode clearly shows that how big a monster the Merc PU is.

[Phil]

There was a comparison between Vettel and Hamilton Q3 lap of Montreal and it showed quite clearly that on every stretch of straight, Vettel was in fact closing the gap to Hamilton. Vettel lost the time in the corners, not the straights. That's where he gained on Hamilton...

Not saying it's down to engine power, but there are lots of reasons to believe that the Ferrari PU is in fact right on par with the Mercedes PU this year. Measuring PU performance is probably quite complex this year. Peak power is one factor, torque another (which engine produces more power at a lower rev point) and then of course also the ability to do that while being more efficient. Then you have the kinetic part - how much of that energy can be recovered and how long can it be sustained?