Midi wrote: ↑05 Sep 2019, 16:31
Ofcourse you are right over the whole but I do think right now Ferrari and Red Bull can only win at certain types of tracks and if they are 100% faultless on the execution side whereas Mercedes has a much bigger window of operation and even some faults in Quali (Hamilton this year is mostly amazing in races but his quali's have been a bit better in the past) are not preventing them to win.
That is one way to look at it. The other way to look at it, is that Mercedes have been usually the team with the “narrow” operating window and have simply invested more into solving exactly that weakness and successfully turned it into a strength, whereas Ferrari have pretty much gone in the opposite direction.
To be a bit more accurate; Ferrari have opted (consciously or not) for a design and aero approach that resulted in overall less downforce while being more efficient. Mercedes on the other hand have gone the opposite in tackling the 2019 front wing regs, perhaps also because it already suited their car, to go with a design that offers more ultimate downforce but at the expense of increased drag.
It’s hard to argue Mercedes have not produced the ‘stronger’ package for the majority of races this year, but one would also have to admit that with or without that advantage, Ferrari have let a lot of points on the table - in other words - races that they should have won, but didnt:
- Bahrain / Leclerc reliability and Vettel error
- Baku / both drivers with errors
- Canada / Vettel with error
- Austria / Ferrari strategy and forgetting about Verstappen
Adding to the victory in Spa and that could have easily been 5 victories in the 13 races so far. Sure, the fact that both Vettel and Leclerc have made mistakes means that even if those 4 races had gone differently, Hamilton, as consistent and reliably as he is performing, would probably still be leading the WDC, but Mercedes might not seem as dominant as it looks. Certainly not to the degree that it warrants bringing up the tires that supposedly favor Mercedes.