2015 Hungarian Grand Prix - 24-26 July

[Andres125sx]

Or Rosberg's if he wins the start or gets the right tyres for the last stint.

I am a bit disappointed with the way we planned the pitstops,” Sainz said. “I had a good start, but got stuck behind a Williams.
“When I tried to overtake him I asked to go for the undercut, but they didn’t give it to me.
“I don’t know why, but they gave it to Max who was behind me.
“McLaren did the same with Fernando [Alonso], even though I was also in front of him.
“Then for the last stint I was right behind Fernando when he pitted for the option [tyre] for the last part of the race, but I didn’t, while knowing the option is so much quicker."

Self explanatory and so beautiful. This is your Red Bull's F1 and Marko's "Verstappen's perfect race". Interesting part: no option tyre, in their defence it's bloody hard to prepare them.

New Senna need some help from the team to beat his team mate

The sad part is now thanks to that 4th place he got so many points in advantage compared to Carlos they already have the perfect excuse to continue favouring him for the rest of the season



About Rosberg-Ricciardo incident, IMO it was Ric fault. He didn´t have the position so he´s who should have done what necessary to avoid the contact (releasing throttle). If he would have earned the position and was parallel it would have been different, but not the case, Rosberg was clearly in front of him

[George-Jung]

New Senna need some help from the team to beat his team mate

The sad part is now thanks to that 4th place he got so many points in advantage compared to Carlos they already have the perfect excuse to continue favouring him for the rest of the season

Ahhh I see, you're from Spain..

Verstappen was faster than Sainz during this race, therefor it was In the team's interest to favor Verstappen.
As we now know, they made the right decision.

Verstappen also felt he was being held up by Sainz, but the team had no reason to issue similar orders. However, exhibiting the kind of pragmatism that is possible in a ‘training camp’ type team structure such as Toro Rosso, they gave Verstappen the first pit stop.
When Sainz pitted he lost a further three seconds as he was held to avoid an unsafe release and so not only did he fall behind Verstappen, he also lost track position to Alonso.
This is tough to take for Sainz, who has had a very impressive start to his F1 career, but it was the right thing to do as analysis of the lap times shows that Verstappen was faster on the day and it led to Toro Rosso getting 12 points for his fourth place, points they badly needed and which will be worth literally millions to them at the end of the year.

Source: jamesallenonf1

[BanMeToo]

When Hamilton broke late and smoked his tires, Ricciardo crowded him and caused a collision. When Ricciardo broke late and smoked his tires Rosberg broke and let him pass and avoided the collion (imagine if Rosberg had not breaked massively but took his turn normally), only to be struck from behind by a Ricciardo going for a gap that wasn't there after the turn was over. Ricciardo deserved a penalty for one of these situations at least (Rosberg one). You guys can't have it both ways. And you know I hate Rosbeg (since Monaco), but Ricciardo is clearly in the wrong. You can see cars slot in ahead of other cars like this many times and the car clearly behind accepts this and breaks a little. Ric did not and he crashed on Ros. End of story. Do i need to make a montage of cars doing just that at the end of a turn? If you're 95% behind the car in front it's time to let him take his line and slot in behind him, not to clip his tire.

Yep pretty much this. Maybe Rosberg could have have taken to the racing line a little bit more slowly but that's it.

Also Hamilton should have got a 5 sec penalty rather than a drive through with Ricciardo. It was totally Hamilton's fault, yes, but we were on a restart and incidents very similar to that have been totally ignored by the stewards in the past, a 'racing incident'. Like what happened to Grosjean in Austin last year (if memory serves me)

[AnthonyG]

I've just seen the race... It was an interesting race but the guys I was rooting for got the short end of it.

The weirdest thing for me was, though, Nico's decision to get the prime tires for the last stint. that made zero sense to me. Everyone was dying to go on the softs as much as they could but he volunteered to have the harder compound. That had to be a mistake.

Read up a bit trough the news and a lot will be explained,

[Vasconia]

New Senna need some help from the team to beat his team mate

The sad part is now thanks to that 4th place he got so many points in advantage compared to Carlos they already have the perfect excuse to continue favouring him for the rest of the season

Ahhh I see, you're from Spain..

Verstappen was faster than Sainz during this race, therefor it was In the team's interest to favor Verstappen.
As we now know, they made the right decision.

Verstappen also felt he was being held up by Sainz, but the team had no reason to issue similar orders. However, exhibiting the kind of pragmatism that is possible in a ‘training camp’ type team structure such as Toro Rosso, they gave Verstappen the first pit stop.
When Sainz pitted he lost a further three seconds as he was held to avoid an unsafe release and so not only did he fall behind Verstappen, he also lost track position to Alonso.
This is tough to take for Sainz, who has had a very impressive start to his F1 career, but it was the right thing to do as analysis of the lap times shows that Verstappen was faster on the day and it led to Toro Rosso getting 12 points for his fourth place, points they badly needed and which will be worth literally millions to them at the end of the year.

Source: jamesallenonf1

I would like to see if they do the same when Sainz is "faster", I doubt it.

We could discuss about if he was really faster because Sainz was being held up too.

New Senna? why not? some people say that Senna actually received some help from Honda to beat Prost. But this is something to discuss in a different post.

[ChrisF1]

Rosberg-Ricciardo is no different to these imo - ignore the dive up the inside, the collision was nothing to do with that:





Skip to 1:16



Now, on the basis that Ricciardo is wrong, Stevens, Kobayashi and Button are all wrong and should have braked.

[Andres125sx]

New Senna need some help from the team to beat his team mate

The sad part is now thanks to that 4th place he got so many points in advantage compared to Carlos they already have the perfect excuse to continue favouring him for the rest of the season

Ahhh I see, you're from Spain..

Verstappen was faster than Sainz during this race, therefor it was In the team's interest to favor Verstappen.
As we now know, they made the right decision.

Verstappen also felt he was being held up by Sainz, but the team had no reason to issue similar orders. However, exhibiting the kind of pragmatism that is possible in a ‘training camp’ type team structure such as Toro Rosso, they gave Verstappen the first pit stop.
When Sainz pitted he lost a further three seconds as he was held to avoid an unsafe release and so not only did he fall behind Verstappen, he also lost track position to Alonso.
This is tough to take for Sainz, who has had a very impressive start to his F1 career, but it was the right thing to do as analysis of the lap times shows that Verstappen was faster on the day and it led to Toro Rosso getting 12 points for his fourth place, points they badly needed and which will be worth literally millions to them at the end of the year.

Source: jamesallenonf1

Yes I´m from Spain, so I watched Carlos race with a lot more attention than you and James Allen... Who didn´t realice an obvious fact, like yourself

Sainz, after a flawless start when he overtook 3-4 cars including his team mate, was held behind a Williams, so he (obviously) couldn´t overtake a car that fast. That´s the reason his times were slower, nothing more and nothing less, he was in traffic while his team mate was in clean air or at least he found traffic not that fast (McLaren) so he was able to overtake and catch up Sainz. Those laps wich Max needed to compensate the poor start (compared to Carlos) where the only laps he was faster, because he was in clean air while Carlos was held behind a Williams.

Then the team, instead of allowing an undercut to the car in front so Carlos could overtake the Williams, did an undercut to the car behind so Max could overtake the car in front... It´s obvious for anyone who watched the race and paid attention to STR cars. After that Carlos was in traffic for the whole race thanks to his own team, so no, it didn´t prove to be right, it proved to be a strategy to favour Max Verstappen, as simple as that.

[Phil]

" At this point, it wasnt clear that the actual safety car would come out and bunch the field up. At this point, Ros was 10 seconds ahead of Hamilton - the gap to Raikoennen massive."
That was your justification for why wasn't stupid for Rosberg to forgo soft tires and worry only about covering Hamilton...

Please tell me what i'm reading wrong, because i read you saying it made sense for Rosberg to forget the Ferrari's and worry about Hamilton exclusively.

You're reading it slightly out of context. Let me rephrase it, a bit differently.

The optimal strategy for Rosberg would have been: OPO. For that to work, the goal was to have a longer stint on the prime tire, then go short and fast on the option for the last stint. Pitting under a safety car, even a virtual safety car, is beneficial, so when there is one, you do it, because the time penalty is smaller. The problem however was that the [virtual] safety car phase came too early for the 'ideal' OPO strategy to work. Assuming the safety car phase would end in 2-3 laps (it was only a virtual safety car at that point), they changed it too OPP because the prime would get to the end easily. If they had known the safety car would be deployed and the race only continue at the earliest lap 47, OPO would have worked and would have been the right tire to be on. I'm not even going to talk about Raikoennen at this point, as by then, it was already clear he had ERS issues and that he would fall behind.

This has no bearing on the talk we're having now about the relative performance of both Ferraris and Mercedes.

We know Vettel was faster than Rosberg the entire race, stint 1, obviously stint 2, and even stint 3.
Yes even stint 3, although much closer than on the previous stints, on tires that push the balance towards a Mercedes a bit, Rosberg couldn't stay in Vettel's DRS zone and was dropping back.

No he wasn't.

From the fia site: http://www.fia.com/events/fia-formula-1 ... ormation-9

Gaps between Vettel and Rosberg:
Lap 47: Gap 1.677 (with Kimi in between)
Lap 48: Gap 1.247 (with Kimi in between)
Lap 49: Gap 1.266
Lap 50: Gap 1.221
Lap 51: Gap 1.417
Lap 52: Gap 1.239
Lap 53: Gap 0.888
Lap 54: Gap 1.078
Lap 55: Gap 1.290
Lap 56: Gap 1.370
Lap 57: Gap 1.444 (Gap to Ricciardo under 2 seconds)
Lap 58: Gap 1.274
Lap 59: Gap 1.288
Lap 60: Gap 1.231
Lap 61: Gap 1.310
Lap 62: Gap 1.018
Lap 63: Gap 1.425
Lap 64: Collision Ric & Ros

Seems very consistent to me, despite Ricciardo continuously closing up to Rosberg. In fact not less consistent than when Hamilton was following Ricciardo midway through the race, couldn't get by, but eventually pulled it off and started to drive off in to distance. The dirty air is masking the performance that the Mercedes clearly had, even in Rosbergs hands when both were on the prime tire.

Anyway - this is what James Allen posted on his blog:

For Mercedes, the Hungarian GP was still potentially winnable at this stage; as Hamilton was the fastest car on track when running in clean air.

First stint:
Vettel started doing mid 1.28s, which improved to low 1.28s. Hamilton in traffic was doing 1.30s. When in clear air, Hamilton was doing 1.27.7 - 1.27.9 (lap 16, lap 17, lap 18), while Vettel at that point was doing 1.27.9, 1.28.2, 1.28.7. On average losing 5 tenths per lap. At this point, Ferrari couldn't be sure what Mercedes was doing.

Another example:
When Vettel pitted for options for his medium stint (lap 22), he was doing 1.27.3s on new tires. That gradually increased to high 1.27s. When Hamilton was in clear air (lap 29 +), he was doing low 1.27s on, at that point, older tires (he came in lap 20) and ones that were likely compromised by having to drive in dirty air and overtake aggressively. At that point, Vettel had no reason not to push or use the tires according to their advantage.

We can disagree to agree on the premise that you think Ferrari didn't run their maximum pace, but neither did Mercedes (in the hands of Rosberg). And Hamiltons pace was compromised due to dirty air etc, but despite that, when he was in clear air, he showed a pace (on old compromised tires) that was faster than both Ferraris.

[Juzh]

In the first stint vettel did his fastest lap on 16th lap. In the second stint he did it on 4th lap. That's some pretty obvious pace managing if you ask me. There was more pace in that ferrari no question about it. Hamilton also lost more time after he cooked his tires than he had gained up before (after passing ric), so there's a good reason why ferrari didn't go flat out.
Yes, hamilton probably had few tenths up on them in clear air, but that's about it.

[iotar__]

Before driving into Ricciardo Hamilton made two clear defensive moves on the straight:





but luckily for him (or maybe it was no luck) FIA can't count to two from time to time - so it's another ignored penalty. Just in case someone is counting luck this season between Merc drivers. [There are no stewards of course only tourists accepting every recommendation.]

[MercedesAMGSpy]

New Senna need some help from the team to beat his team mate

The sad part is now thanks to that 4th place he got so many points in advantage compared to Carlos they already have the perfect excuse to continue favouring him for the rest of the season

Ahhh I see, you're from Spain..

Verstappen was faster than Sainz during this race, therefor it was In the team's interest to favor Verstappen.
As we now know, they made the right decision.

Verstappen also felt he was being held up by Sainz, but the team had no reason to issue similar orders. However, exhibiting the kind of pragmatism that is possible in a ‘training camp’ type team structure such as Toro Rosso, they gave Verstappen the first pit stop.
When Sainz pitted he lost a further three seconds as he was held to avoid an unsafe release and so not only did he fall behind Verstappen, he also lost track position to Alonso.
This is tough to take for Sainz, who has had a very impressive start to his F1 career, but it was the right thing to do as analysis of the lap times shows that Verstappen was faster on the day and it led to Toro Rosso getting 12 points for his fourth place, points they badly needed and which will be worth literally millions to them at the end of the year.

Source: jamesallenonf1

Yes I´m from Spain, so I watched Carlos race with a lot more attention than you and James Allen... Who didn´t realice an obvious fact, like yourself

Sainz, after a flawless start when he overtook 3-4 cars including his team mate, was held behind a Williams, so he (obviously) couldn´t overtake a car that fast. That´s the reason his times were slower, nothing more and nothing less, he was in traffic while his team mate was in clean air or at least he found traffic not that fast (McLaren) so he was able to overtake and catch up Sainz. Those laps wich Max needed to compensate the poor start (compared to Carlos) where the only laps he was faster, because he was in clean air while Carlos was held behind a Williams.

Then the team, instead of allowing an undercut to the car in front so Carlos could overtake the Williams, did an undercut to the car behind so Max could overtake the car in front... It´s obvious for anyone who watched the race and paid attention to STR cars. After that Carlos was in traffic for the whole race thanks to his own team, so no, it didn´t prove to be right, it proved to be a strategy to favour Max Verstappen, as simple as that.

Boohooo evil Marko and Verstappen threatening poor Carlos, but I am not surprised to see this kind of reactions after some Spanish articles about Verstappen paying money and more bullshit.

Verstappen was faster the whole weekend with missing a lot of free practice on friday, maybe Carlos should be more concerned about the fact that a 17y old with only his second year in a car is giving him a run for his money.

[Phil]

Juzh,

Good point. Though just to be clear; I'm not disputing that pace management was going on. My point is rather; they were all doing pace management, because pace management is a core element in todays F1 races and Pirelli tires. When two identical cars of the same team are racing each other 20+ seconds ahead of their nearest competitor, it's easy to see when the leading car is 'managing tires' more than he needs to. This was a point in Canada, when Rosberg was closing on Hamilton a couple of times and he then responded, keeping the gap more or less consistent.

If we are dealing with two teams racing each other, like we did in Hungary, I think it's difficult to apply the same reasoning because both teams don't necessarily know what the other is doing, how their cars match up etc. Only the teams themselves know what their car is capable of. Driving to some delta is crucial so that they don't cut their stints short, but it's usually always preferable to drive with a bit of margin, so that one can push "towards the end of a stint" to either cover someone doing an undercut or if they want to undercut (overcut) someone else.

By lap 19 the gap to Vettel was 10 seconds (6.5 to Kimi). By lap 40, it was 27 seconds. So, no, I agree, no safety car, on optimal OPO strategy for Rosberg, he wouldn't have caught Seb, because he would have had to make up 30 seconds in ~20 laps (49 - 69), which amounts to a pace advantage of 1.5 seconds per lap without even thinking about him getting past Kimi first. Interestingly, we have a Mercedes that we can use as reference that was on soft tires at the end - vs Vettel who was on primes and needed to push because Rosberg was at the verge of being in his DRS zone after the safety car. Hamilton was doing high 1.25s in clear air. All the while, Vettel, who was under pressure by Rosberg in his rear mirrors was doing anything between low 1.27s to high 1.27s. But that isn't Rosberg, so I guess it's a moot point.

So, I concede, Rosberg was nowhere. IMO he was clearly dreaming away or still focused on following the track broadcast screens to see what his team-mate was doing fighting through the field. Did this influence Ferrari in that they managed their pace a bit more than they needed to? Perhaps. So I'll concede that the middle stint isn't very representative to conclude anything. I think the first stint and the last stint to be very representative though, because in those stints, Ferrari was unaware what Mercedes would do and the gaps were not big enough to cover off every eventuality. In the last stint, Vettel was under pressure, so it was crucial for him "to drive off and not let Rosberg get within DRS too comfortably". So he was pushing. And Rosberg was right there and IMO the gaps further up show it that the Ferrari wasn't that comfortable on medium tires. While Rosberg didn't get into the DRS zone (but once), IMO this was more an effect of the track layout and the Mercedes being a bit sensitive to dirty air. And Rosberg didn't seem all that comfortable in his car, not until he started to believe there was a chance to win this race and Hamilton was right on his tail...

Anyway, Hamilton was clearly quicker than Rosberg, by a big margin IMO. And compared to Vettel, in the first stint where I do believe Vettel was pushing in order to create 'that gap', Hamilton was quicker still, when in clear air (he was taking a second off Vettel until he pitted). The last stint is not very representative because Hamilton was on primes but with damaged front wing, then on softs vs Vettel on primes. But it's interesting none-the-less, as a bit of speculation what if Rosberg had been on softs at the end and had there been no safety car.

So, is this so far fetched that the Mercedes was the quicker car? They've been quicker on every track this year, with the exception of Malaysia. Come Spa, I think the gap we're used to is going to be all so evident again.

[Juzh]

Ferrari's relatively slow pace on primes (or rather merc's superior speed) compared to options is well known. I was primarily talking about option runs.

[SilverArrow10]

Those are not defence moves, that is weaving to break the tow, which also not allowed, and Hamilton got hammered for it in 2011, at least be correct with your complaining.

[Andres125sx]

Boohooo evil Marko and Verstappen threatening poor Carlos, but I am not surprised to see this kind of reactions after some Spanish articles about Verstappen paying money and more bullshit.

You must know better than me, since I don´t read spanish media related to F1. Just in case you didn´t get it, you´re wrong.

Verstappen was faster the whole weekend

What GP are you talking about???

FP1: Sainz faster
FP2: Sainz faster
FP3: Sainz faster
Q: Verstappen faster
Race: much better start for Sainz, overtaking Max and 3 more cars


Then the team gift an undercut to Max instead of favouring their car in front...

But it´s the spanish media who write BS... not as much as yourself I´m afraid.

maybe Carlos should be more concerned about the fact that a 17y old with only his second year in a car is giving him a run for his money.

Maybe he should be more concerned about his team and car. His team favouring his team mate, and his car failing to finish the last 3 races in a row