2014 Spanish Grand Prix - Barcelona

[thomin]

A couple of thoughts:

1) I really enjoyed this race. Obviously as a Mercedes fan it's easier to enjoy a dominating performance this time around. Still, this was a real tactical race which I do enjoy. Barcelona isn't an all out action filled track, but that's fine. Sometimes, I do enjoy the race car chess sort of thing. And we did get a couple of nice fights towards the end which is a bonus.

2) Regarding the inner-Mercedes battle, I think Nico was brought in one lap too late for his second stop, which may very well cost him the victory, as he lost at least a second during that lap on top of having one lap less to catch Lewis. I was really angry at the time when I saw Nico passing the pit lane on his infrared camera. As it happened, Nico had basically one shot to overtake Lewis and a bad one at that. Had he come in earlier, he may well have had three.

3) The dominance of Mercedes really should scare everyone else. The cards are in the open now. Not only can Mercedes dominate at will at an aero track like Barcelona, but since Nico and Lewis were battling each other throughout the race, this should also give a realistic picture of their pace. And it's 50s clear of Red Bull.

4) Also interesting was Ferrari's decision to split strategies, particularly the fact that Alonso got the three stopper. Normally, I would think that the car ahead (in this case Kimi) would get that strategy while the trailing one would get the more conservative alternative. So I wonder if this was Ferrari politics at work or if Kimi decided that he wanted to go for the two stopper. Given Kimi's history, he may well have opted for that strategy.

5) Then there's the fact that the Mercedes customers are really losing relative pace. One would expect the opposite. As they learn more about the engine, they should be able to take advantage of it more and more the way the Mercedes works team does. But the opposite seems to happen. Bottas was the odd man out this time around and even he was soundly beaten by Red Bull (30s to Ricciardo!). Other than that, Lotus and Ferrari also seem to have overtaken the Mercedes customer teams...at least on a track like Barcelona. Of course the Mercedes customers should do better on high speed tracks. I mean I kinda expected this result form Force India for example who traditionally have had problems on aero tracks while excelling at high speed venues. But McLaren's pace (or rather lack thereof) in particular was sobering.

6) Brilliant drive by Vettel. He finally seems to get a handle on his car. Obviously this track would have suited the Red Bull compared to the previous ones, but it was still impressive for him to drive up all the way on fourth. Too bad that we didn't see how he would stack up next to Ricciardo due to his bad luck on Friday and Saturday. Ricciardo still looked slightly more comfortable in my mind, but I think it has become clear that Vettel is getting there. I think before long we will see him consistently beating his teammate once again.

7) Kimi seems to get on better and better with his drive as well. He beat Alonso for the second time in qualifying and he put up a great race on an inferior strategy. Again I think that before the season is over, Kimi will make Alonso's life a lot more difficult.

And of course a word on Lotus needs to be said. Finally the team seems to be able to access the fundamental pace that is built into their car. Good on them. That should spice things up going forward.

[zonk]

Kimi new line: I don't know

[NathanOlder]

You mean battles up and down the field, including for the lead of the race are boring? Dude, you're watching the wrong sport.

WHAT battles? New tires vs. old? OMG, i almost peed my pants watching drivers with new tires pass the ones with old. SO thrilling... NOT!

So in your opinion , this season is worse that recent seasons ?

[GrizzleBoy]

Oh my god did you see kimi raikkonens interview on sky?

"Did you want to pit first?"

*kimi gestures frustration and walks off camera"

[Traction]

Extremely happy for Seb! Fantastic pace and some really good moves to bring him from 15th to 4rth. Really hoping that he his finally coming to terms with the technical changes from 2013 to 2014 and that he is adapting his package to suit his driving style. Driver of the day IMO.

Well done to Merc...total domination.

[ringo]

I notice he took a step back in the crowd when lewis came up to hug the team. Probably doesn't want to seen embracing the english driver in the german team. hahah. Don't want to potentially damage the marketing product.

German team? In name only. The car is designed and built in Brackley, UK by a mostly British workforce. The engine is built in the UK too.

Ahhh, but from a casual fans perspective, the W05 hybrid is a Mercedes Benz, which is a german car.
That's how marketing works. Just like how that redbull has "infiniti DNA" or vice versa.


Hamilton disagrees:

"I wasn't fast enough really today," said Hamilton. "Nico was quicker. I had to rely on my engineers to tell me where I could find time and what the gap was."

I think fast enough to him is getting a 18 second gap. He's made that clear in interviews leading up to the race. He wants to be fast enough to avoid battles. Looking at the tyre compounds he was on a conservative strategy and there should be now reason for him to win if he was on the slower tyre in the end.
He's usually hard on himself, and saying Nico was faster today also has some mind games to it. He's giving Nico some form of consolation.

His body language on the podium suggests he's telling the truth above.

I see it that by his own standards, he wasn't fast enough. Meaning he wasn't 20 seconds up the road from Nico.

[thomin]

I was a bit suspicious of Hamilton's slow pitstops however.
Either the guys are more nervous with the lead car or Dieter put in a request to have Rosberg win this one.

I notice he took a step back in the crowd when lewis came up to hug the team. Probably doesn't want to seen embracing the english driver in the german team. hahah. Don't want to potentially damage the marketing product.

Anyhow, i find that the harder tyre is best put on on the second stint. Mercedes should realize by now that the tyres are very close this year, and you actually put the lead driver on the backfoot when you make him use the harder tyre last.

Hamilton wasn't the slower driver today, he simply was at a disadvantage in terms of tyres. It really seems as if Mercedes are setting up these battles... but to give Rosberg a fighting chance.

This was also plain as day with Ferrari, Kimi was put in massa role in secret when they pit Alonso first.

It's really interesting how differently one can see these things. As I just wrote, I had the exact opposite impression, that by leaving Nico out for too long, the team didn't want the drivers to get too close to one another.

Also, I think it was clear that Nico was in fact the quicker driver as he could go Hamilton's pace on the hard tires while closing in on the soft. Though that is most likely not so much a testament of their respective raw pace but rather down to their setup, which of course is part of the needed skill set.

But the fact that Hamilton used up less of his fuel might also have played a role there. Maybe he started with less though.

Overall, I think this is a very evenly matched team with Hamilton for now having a slight edge in terms of race craft. Though in reality, after winning the start, this race was Hamilton's to lose.

[notsofast]

When I saw that "Winner: Rosberg" graphic, I felt like I was Truman, watching that stage light fall out of the sky.

[ringo]

Hamilton probably used less of the fuel from instructions given. Both had some kind of gap to the other to attain at the end of the second stint. The tyres seemed to have behaved diffferenly than expected. The mediums not being as fast as they should and the hards not being as slow as they should.
I noticed when Hamilton came in, he was saying that the medium was good for more laps. That would suggest that the tyre was underutilized. So it is hard to draw conclusions about pace in this race.
Also of note is in the end Rosbergs advantage on the softer tyre wasn't as clear as in bahrain. It seemed he was taking too much out of them in the first few laps of the last stint.

Any, it all seemed to have a hint of orchestration. Lets see if the other races are similar going forward.

[NathanOlder]

So the top 3 teams head to heads after this are like this.

Race & Qualifying

Hamilton 8.2 Rosberg
Ricciardo 8.2 Vettel
Alonso 8.2 Raikkonen

(i think that's correct)

[thomin]

Hamilton probably used less of the fuel from instructions given. Both had some kind of gap to the other to attain at the end of the second stint. The tyres seemed to have behaved diffferenly than expected. The mediums not being as fast as they should and the hards not being as slow as they should.
I noticed when Hamilton came in, he was saying that the medium was good for more laps. That would suggest that the tyre was underutilized. So it is hard to draw conclusions about pace in this race.

That might be it, though it was Lewis who in his last stint had troubles with his tires, so he may really have had to nurse them more.

As for the timing of his pitstop, I figured that they would have kept him out for longer but Nico obviously would have switched to the quicker option tire as soon as possible and since Lewis was ahead, he (or rather his garage) had the right of the first stop, so they brought him in slightly early in order to prevent Rosberg from undercutting him.

Also of note is in the end Rosbergs advantage on the softer tyre wasn't as clear as in bahrain. It seemed he was taking too much out of them in the first few laps of the last stint.

Any, it all seemed to have a hint of orchestration. Lets see if the other races are similar going forward.

Rosberg said just after the race that you lose a lot of grip driving behind another car in those long curves in Barcelona which made it difficult for him to close in on Hamilton, which sounds reasonable. So I don't think he used up his tires too early. Though of course one would use them up quicker when losing grip behind another car, but I don't think that was a factor yet.

[iotar__]

It's nice that Rosberg and Hamilton are playing along:
- l.H: "Nico did fantastically and I struggled to keep him behind but I managed to" How? At no point in the race he was close enough to attack you. Closer to walk in the part than to struggle.
- N.R. "I think one more to be honest, I could have given him a go. I wasn't close enough, but one more I would have been," One more lap? More like 5+ and 0,7+ faster car at least, ask Alonso. Not to mention that this "I needed x more laps" is usually a lie. If races were longer strategies would have looked differently for both car.

If you lose time following behind, drop 1,5s nurse tyres/fuel, attack before stops. Fine, on the similar strategy the outcome would have been probably identical, it's Barcelona - but why pretend it was thrilling or close race with tyres shuffling?

[Waywardism]

There are a few things I find odd about Lewis' low fuel use.

You would expect that towards the end of the race, that he'd be able to turn it up to maximum power to easily fend off any challenge from Rosberg. That doesn't seem to be happening so far. With him not using as much fuel his car would be heavier towards the end, Rosberg seemed to be to gain pace on Lewis as the race progressed and maybe that could be the reason why. I see 3 possibilities here:

1. They start Lewis with less fuel in the car because he's more efficient. Explaining why he doesn't use more at the end to defend. Leaving the fact that Nico was getting relatively faster as the race went on worringly unexplained.
2. They start on the same fuel and Lewis is heavier at the end. Explaining why Nico gets quicker there. Leaving huge question marks over why isn't Lewis burning off enough fuel during the race.
3. That fuel graphic is wrong and should be ignored.

Is anyone else thinking along the same lines over this?

[beelsebob]

I'm confident that the answer is that Lewis started with less. This would explain why Nico got relatively faster towards the end, as Lewis started with a light car (and hence an advantage), burning less narrows that advantage over time.

[markn93]

I'm confident that the answer is that Lewis started with less. This would explain why Nico got relatively faster towards the end, as Lewis started with a light car (and hence an advantage), burning less narrows that advantage over time.

Yup, I'm convinced of the same. Helps him get a better start and maintain track position, I'm certain it was a conscious decision.