2019 Japanese Grand Prix - Suzuka, Oct 11 - 13

[michl420]

This was the worst executed f1 race i saw ever. Technology make unacceptable desicions. False start tollarence, ok, can happen but should be better (Maybe Video Control is better), but "wave a finish flag" one lap earlier out of nowhere is big stuff. And stewart decisions (Right or wrong), which can be done in 3 minutes should not taken 1 hour. I don´t care what the Drivers think, the Facts can bee seen with 5 cameras and super slow Motion. Charlie would have done better. The race itself was good.

[yelistener]

Here is a map who was fastest through each minisector
https://i.redd.it/ic6jme7p28s31.png

How the heck did Lewis win the straight after 130R? That particular section must've included some of the braking zone before the last chicane because otherwise Ferrari should easily win that section.

And Mercedes didn't win any of the slower corners. Hairpin won by Gasly and the chicane won by Leclerc. Either the wind hit Mercedes harder, or so their so called "Suzuka upgrarde" was too subtle lol

It's counter intuitive, because the stronger-than-usual winds meant that yes, you have max downforce, but the inherent draggy design of Merc means that their drag also shoots up. So they probably were worse off than if there were no typhoon this weekend.

This in no way explains why they lost the "slow corners".

[f1jcw]

I really don’t get this

<blockquote> Wolff confirmed the team was giving serious thought to leaving Hamilton out, but would not have allowed him to use a one-stop strategy to beat Bottas.</blockquote>

But they’ll use strategy of leaving Lewis out longer For no utter purpose

[Sierra117]

How the heck did Lewis win the straight after 130R? That particular section must've included some of the braking zone before the last chicane because otherwise Ferrari should easily win that section.

And Mercedes didn't win any of the slower corners. Hairpin won by Gasly and the chicane won by Leclerc. Either the wind hit Mercedes harder, or so their so called "Suzuka upgrarde" was too subtle lol

It's counter intuitive, because the stronger-than-usual winds meant that yes, you have max downforce, but the inherent draggy design of Merc means that their drag also shoots up. So they probably were worse off than if there were no typhoon this weekend.

This in no way explains why they lost the "slow corners".

From what I understand, the gusts would have left the car unstable enough to minimise their advantage in the slow corners. Or the increased downforce on less DF cars like Ferrari would give them a bigger advantage. Or a combination of both (but probably something else too). Just my take.

[El Scorchio]

- Verstappen got his own medicine from his slide across the corner (TM) move. Not so uncompromising now when he's on the opposite side of dirty driving. Hypocrite: "Where should I go". Ask yourself when you do moves like that to others.

Agree. He badly needs to gain some perspective. It's ridiculous that he will literally scream like a child for a penalty for other people's 'wrongs', yet conversely scream he's done nothing wrong and the rules are stupid when he does exactly the same thing to someone else.

Sooner or later he's got to stop acting like a stroppy teenager if things don't go the way he wants. It casts a big shadow against his ability, and likeability. There are now several drivers younger than him or a very similar age, and they seem to behave in a far more mature fashion. His age can't excuse him for certain behaviour types much longer.

[miguelalvesreis]

Why was the last lap dismissed?

Perez tangled with Gasly and spun out but in the final classification still appears as 9th

And what is that Renault's brake bias preset is about? The mojo for racing point claim!

Enviado do meu SM-T820 através do Tapatalk

[search]

Why was the last lap dismissed?

the (digital) chequered flag was "waved" a lap too early, for whatever reason

[LM10]

It's counter intuitive, because the stronger-than-usual winds meant that yes, you have max downforce, but the inherent draggy design of Merc means that their drag also shoots up. So they probably were worse off than if there were no typhoon this weekend.

This in no way explains why they lost the "slow corners".

From what I understand, the gusts would have left the car unstable enough to minimise their advantage in the slow corners. Or the increased downforce on less DF cars like Ferrari would give them a bigger advantage. Or a combination of both (but probably something else too). Just my take.

Don’t understand how headwind might give less DF cars an advantage. If Mercedes has more DF then headwind should give them even more DF, so they should keep their advantage over others. Sounds like a poor try to explain Mercedes’ lack of pace in qualifying.

[loner]

why Masi seems to take long time making a decision is he kinda hesitating person iam noticing that for some races now ?!!

[Sierra117]

This in no way explains why they lost the "slow corners".

From what I understand, the gusts would have left the car unstable enough to minimise their advantage in the slow corners. Or the increased downforce on less DF cars like Ferrari would give them a bigger advantage. Or a combination of both (but probably something else too). Just my take.

Don’t understand how headwind might give less DF cars an advantage. If Mercedes has more DF then headwind should give them even more DF, so they should keep their advantage over others. Sounds like a poor try to explain Mercedes’ lack of pace in qualifying.

Is this like some fashion of people nowadays to end every comment or argument with a snarky jab like "sounds like a poor try". I don't make "best tries" or "poor tries", nor am I making excuses for their Q pace, so I'd appreciate you not making an assumption as if I'm making excuses for <whichever team being discussed>.

Anyway, headwind is fine, but I just explained my reasoning for the typhoon-induced wind situation, which I believe was also echoed by Damon or someone Karun during the race: Mercedes has more DF than Ferrari, yes? But Mercedes' implementation, in their own words, is df at all costs, meaning they were fine with less efficient designs to produce said df. Meaning they have a lot of drag compared to, say, if they had spent a lot more time (remember they had split their time on two separate ideas during testing). So there are ways to produce df in more efficient manners. They chose df at all costs.

So an increase in the headwind will give them more downforce but will also increase their drag. All the while your engine power is not increasing with the elemental conditions. The PU is responsible for pushing through the drag to make use of the downforce, and we know how much that affects them in normal conditions. Now add gusts that further increase that drag and your PU has to now work even harder to push through unknown amounts of drag. So the net result is that they are actually getting less than ideal levels that their PU cannot deal with.

On the flip side you have Ferrari that usually suffer from lack of DF (relative to Merc) and now they have an update from Singapore that increases this. They also have the most powerful PU that can deal with said drag. But they also have worked on carefully adding this DF with very efficient design compared to Merc's DF at all costs approach. So there you go. Due to their efficiency the gusts may very well have offered more DF to help them out in the slower parts with their PU having enough grunt to pull through drag that would be less than Merc's due to their efficient design.

So it's not that the headwind is bad. It's great. In normal circumstances. This is a unique situation with a typhoon having caused a much more unexpected change. You can keep adding headwind and you'll gaining df but at some point it's going to become a thick cake of air and you're going to have to cut through it and it'll only get worse the faster you go / the more the headwind.

[LM10]

Well it's pretty obvious now what Ferrari is doing. They can't beat Mercedes on race pace so they're heavily skewing their set up towards qualifying, hoping to be able to grab P1 and P2. If they do that they have a chance of using tactics to pull off a win.

You don’t think that’s the only reason they’ve been crushing the rest of the grid since Singapore on pretty much every type of track, do you?
Also, “heavily skewing” a set up towards qualifying won’t make your inferior car win pole out of nowhere. Ferrari was no where near Mercedes until summer break, in both qualifying and race. Mercedes was not racing with Ferrari, they were playing ping pong with them.

Today we’ve seen Ferrari beating Mercedes in their own territory on pure pace. No one would have imagined Ferrari being on par with them, let alone beat them by 2.5 tenths.

[matt_b]

I really don’t get this

<blockquote> Wolff confirmed the team was giving serious thought to leaving Hamilton out, but would not have allowed him to use a one-stop strategy to beat Bottas.</blockquote>

But they’ll use strategy of leaving Lewis out longer For no utter purpose

Bottas and Lewis were both on a 1 stop strategy, they boxed Bottas as a precaution to cover Seb just in case the tyres dropped off dramatically at the end. This put Lewis in the lead and they just boxed him to stop him gaining an advantage from their precautionary pit stop of Bottas. Reminded me a bit like Mexico 2015.

[LM10]

From what I understand, the gusts would have left the car unstable enough to minimise their advantage in the slow corners. Or the increased downforce on less DF cars like Ferrari would give them a bigger advantage. Or a combination of both (but probably something else too). Just my take.

Don’t understand how headwind might give less DF cars an advantage. If Mercedes has more DF then headwind should give them even more DF, so they should keep their advantage over others. Sounds like a poor try to explain Mercedes’ lack of pace in qualifying.

Is this like some fashion of people nowadays to end every comment or argument with a snarky jab like "sounds like a poor try". I don't make "best tries" or "poor tries", nor am I making excuses for their Q pace, so I'd appreciate you not making an assumption as if I'm making excuses for <whichever team being discussed>.

Anyway, headwind is fine, but I just explained my reasoning for the typhoon-induced wind situation, which I believe was also echoed by Damon or someone Karun during the race: Mercedes has more DF than Ferrari, yes? But Mercedes' implementation, in their own words, is df at all costs, meaning they were fine with less efficient designs to produce said df. Meaning they have a lot of drag compared to, say, if they had spent a lot more time (remember they had split their time on two separate ideas during testing). So there are ways to produce df in more efficient manners. They chose df at all costs.

So an increase in the headwind will give them more downforce but will also increase their drag. All the while your engine power is not increasing with the elemental conditions. The PU is responsible for pushing through the drag to make use of the downforce, and we know how much that affects them in normal conditions. Now add gusts that further increase that drag and your PU has to now work even harder to push through unknown amounts of drag. So the net result is that they are actually getting less than ideal levels that their PU cannot deal with.

On the flip side you have Ferrari that usually suffer from lack of DF (relative to Merc) and now they have an update from Singapore that increases this. They also have the most powerful PU that can deal with said drag. But they also have worked on carefully adding this DF with very efficient design compared to Merc's DF at all costs approach. So there you go. Due to their efficiency the gusts may very well have offered more DF to help them out in the slower parts with their PU having enough grunt to pull through drag that would be less than Merc's due to their efficient design.

So it's not that the headwind is bad. It's great. In normal circumstances. This is a unique situation with a typhoon having caused a much more unexpected change. You can keep adding headwind and you'll gaining df but at some point it's going to become a thick cake of air and you're going to have to cut through it and it'll only get worse the faster you go / the more the headwind.

I didn’t mean you when I was talking about the poor try. I was thinking of Damon Hill.

Anyways, thank you for your explanation. But it still doesn’t explain why Ferrari was faster in S1 for example. If you’ve DF at all costs, thus much drag and a weaker PU, then at some point you should be able to get through the Esses without lifting off (I know I’m exaggerating). Mercedes lifted off, like all others, so they had enough power and therefore enough speed through that section.

[littlebigcat]

Slightly off topic but I missed Brundle’s inevitable “that’s a slam dunk false start by Seb”. Noticed he wasn’t in Russia as well :\ is he ok? Just a favourable contract where he can miss a couple of flyaways?

He was doing VLN with his son during Russia

[El Scorchio]

I really don’t get this

<blockquote> Wolff confirmed the team was giving serious thought to leaving Hamilton out, but would not have allowed him to use a one-stop strategy to beat Bottas.</blockquote>

But they’ll use strategy of leaving Lewis out longer For no utter purpose

Bottas and Lewis were both on a 1 stop strategy, they boxed Bottas as a precaution to cover Seb just in case the tyres dropped off dramatically at the end. This put Lewis in the lead and they just boxed him to stop him gaining an advantage from their precautionary pit stop of Bottas. Reminded me a bit like Mexico 2015.

Yes, it was clear the intention was one stop at the start of the race- at least for Hamilton. They even told Bottas over the radio he'd have to pass Hamilton if he wanted to win. The only reason then for switching Hamilton was to get Bottas back in the lead, even if it cost Hamilton the win himself, and second place to boot along with constructor points. They made a poor strategic decision with Bottas and then sacrificed Hamilton, who was on the correct original strategy and would have probably won the race, to make up for it.

I hope Hamilton plays the team game and doesn't kick off too much, with the realisation the title will be his and this didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, but there should be questions asked in private and an investigation into yet another poor in race decision. They've been able to get away with it in recent years due to their superior pace, but it'll start costing them next season if the Ferraris remain strong.