2014 Monaco Grand Prix

[Juzh]

Who said Merc were pushing the whole race ? There is more chance Ric was pushing his car harder than either Merc. The Mercs were battling each other but it doesnt mean that both cars were turned up to the full. Both Mercedes were never in danger of using their fuel usage per lap, not like they did in Bahrain after the safety car.
On the basis of gap to the front between Merc & Red Bull

Austr was 24s
Malay was 24s
Bahra was 24s (even with safety car)
China was 27s
Spain was 49s

So my simple maths tell me Merc are getting further infront. Ricciardo spent 15 laps behind Bottas as was 20 seconds behind at the time he stopped. Even if you say Ricciardo was on Rosbergs tail at the first stop, he still lost 29 seconds, and this with him pushing harder than the Merc boys as he needed to clear Bottas and gap him after. In Spain the gap between 2nd and 3rd was alot bigger than before. So I just cant see the Red Bull being closer than 1 seconds to the Mercs.

Ric was on a sub-optimal strategy as a result of him pitting early to jump bottas. He did 31 laps on scrubbed mediums as a result to bring himself in optimal window for final pit stop. Of course he was losing lots of time during that stint.
It didn't seem to me mercs were saving themselves up. Ham and ros were on the limit pretty much all the time as they didn't want either to get too far away, and you can be sure towards the end they threw caution to the wind. Ham was on the radio almost 24/7 about over and understeer, while rosberg was locking up brakes left and right, indicating they weren't exactly puddling around.
Vettel actually gained 5 or 6 seconds on them during his final stint before even though he was stuck behind rai for a short time and only started to fall back once he got caught up with bottas.

I still think gap is misleading. Mind you, that's not saying much as red bull seems to get themselves involved in some kind of mess almost every weekned.

[NathanOlder]

True. The same ahas to be said about the Mercs on strategy. 1 driver was definitely on a slower strategy, as 2 different strategies just means your guaranteed to get 1 wrong. And it appeared Nico was faster the whole race he just sat a few seconds back from Lewis to conserve tyres. One could argue Nico spent the who race stuck behind Lewis. So only 49 seconds to Ricciardo was a little misleading. Nico may have been a few tenths quicker every lap, so over 10 seconds behind where he could have been. We will never know so all I can do is take the 49 seconds and compare it to previous laps. And the gap just got bigger.

[Harsha]

Who said Merc were pushing the whole race ? There is more chance Ric was pushing his car harder than either Merc. The Mercs were battling each other but it doesnt mean that both cars were turned up to the full. Both Mercedes were never in danger of using their fuel usage per lap, not like they did in Bahrain after the safety car.
On the basis of gap to the front between Merc & Red Bull

Austr was 24s
Malay was 24s
Bahra was 24s (even with safety car)
China was 27s
Spain was 49s

So my simple maths tell me Merc are getting further infront. Ricciardo spent 15 laps behind Bottas as was 20 seconds behind at the time he stopped. Even if you say Ricciardo was on Rosbergs tail at the first stop, he still lost 29 seconds, and this with him pushing harder than the Merc boys as he needed to clear Bottas and gap him after. In Spain the gap between 2nd and 3rd was alot bigger than before. So I just cant see the Red Bull being closer than 1 seconds to the Mercs.

A Simple logic why you want to push when you have no threat behind and nothing to gain ahead, Mercs are crusing ahead and so does daniel, I think The Gap between P2 and P3 is quite big due to the long 2nd stint of DR if not the gap wil be equal to what we saw all the time.

[Richard]

Anyway, I truly hope for not yet-another boredom fest. Last year while on air and translating simultaneously Mark Webber on the post-race conference - his expression of how bored he was was priceless.

What did you say?

[zioture]

Brembo Brake Facts Monaco

The hardest braking point on the Circuit de Monaco lies ahead of turn 10. After the tunnel, the driver has to decelerate by 217 km/h over just 115 metres. To do that he needs just 2.66 seconds. 1,624 kilowatts of power are released in the process. The driver's exposed to forces of 4.53 g, while he pushes with 110 kg onto the brake.

[Kiril Varbanov]

Anyway, I truly hope for not yet-another boredom fest. Last year while on air and translating simultaneously Mark Webber on the post-race conference - his expression of how bored he was was priceless.

What did you say?

Let me elaborate, in case this wasn't a tongue-in-cheek expression.

Last year, 2013, I was on TV air, commenting the race, as usual. The race itself was extremely boring.
That was visible from the faces of the guys post-race, especially Mark Webber. The press conference of the top 3 is translated to my native language, simultaneously. Media wanted him to sound ecstatic, but he wasn't.
So, I'm just saying that Mark was nursing the tires all the time. He wanted to push, but simply had no space and was told to back off Vettel (build a 2 seconds gap) to make the tires work til the end.

[turbof1]

There was some action going on. Perez for instance, and Raikkonen at the end. For Monaco it was a good race.

Of course for Webber it was a boredom fest; no pressure from behind, no oppertunities in front.

[Kiril Varbanov]

There was some action going on. Perez for instance, and Raikkonen at the end. For Monaco it was a good race.

Of course for Webber it was a boredom fest; no pressure from behind, no oppertunities in front.

I agree, but that's a low standard, and we shouldn't be OK with that. Hence the expression of disagreement. That's of course an opinion on the extreme side, and I realize that, but that's it. I cannot agree that the 'pinnacle of the motorsport' should offer such modest action, unless we count the flashy yachts and the supermodels. But they don't race. Actually, some people wanted to race and that resulted in a red flag. There was no physical space...

Again, an awesome place, great track for a single lap, but no overtakes, just strategy calls. I hope to be proven wrong this year. But now since we've got some action-packed races, I cannot take the just the tea without the biscuits.

[turbof1]

There was some action going on. Perez for instance, and Raikkonen at the end. For Monaco it was a good race.

Of course for Webber it was a boredom fest; no pressure from behind, no oppertunities in front.

I agree, but that's a low standard, and we shouldn't be OK with that. Hence the expression of disagreement. That's of course an opinion on the extreme side, and I realize that, but that's it. I cannot agree that the 'pinnacle of the motorsport' should offer such modest action, unless we count the flashy yachts and the supermodels. But they don't race. Actually, some people wanted to race and that resulted in a red flag. There was no physical space...

Again, an awesome place, great track for a single lap, but no overtakes, just strategy calls. I hope to be proven wrong this year. But now since we've got some action-packed races, I cannot take the just the tea without the biscuits.

I can agree with that - by monaco standards it was good, but by normal racing standards it was boring.

[PhillipM]

Watch for Williams, we haven't seen much of it yet but that chassis has incredible mechanical traction.

[lonewolf]

For the sake of his own sanity Nico has to win this race, and I think he just might. Though I'd love to see Lewis make it 5 in a row.

I expect Williams, Force India and Toro Rosso to struggle here. Red Bull to be very strong, not strong enough to challenge for a win, but with the nature of the track it could well be the first time a Merc gets beaten in a race in 2014, especially if we have a wet qualy or race.

Force India's have been usually strong in Monaco.. Any reasons you have to say that they will struggle here?

[Harsha]

Force India's have been usually strong in Monaco.. Any reasons you have to say that they will struggle here?

Their Longer gears and lack of DF but lets see how they fare

[Godius]

Force India and Mercedes run basically the same gear ratio due to the usage of the same Mercedes gearbox. I've read an article a few days ago where Nico Rosberg stated that the longer gear ratio will help the car in Monaco especially in terms of accelerating more gentle out of corners rather than having a penalty, he said that there was more than enough torque available in every gear. I can't seem to find that article right now but I will post it when it appears during my browsing.

[Harsha]

Force India and Mercedes run basically the same gear ratio due to the usage of the same Mercedes gearbox. I've read an article a few days ago where Nico Rosberg stated that the longer gear ratio will help the car in Monaco especially in terms of accelerating more gentle out of corners rather than having a penalty, he said that there was more than enough torque available in every gear. I can't seem to find that article right now but I will post it when it appears during my browsing.

But the difference is that Merc has loads of Downforce which SFI doesn't have , Lets see how they fare in Monaco

[turbof1]

Monaco is low speed though. Teams run max downforce in order to squeeze every bit of grip out of it, but due speed being very low in most corners you aren't getting much extra benefit from it and thus mechanical grip becomes very important.

If it's true that force india and/or williams have excellent mechanical grip, then they'll do well here.