2016 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, March 18-20

[giantfan10]

So on lap 35 after pitting Vettel comes out 12 seconds behind Hamilton and catches him in 16 laps.Just like he should have with a faster albeit more fragile tire. and then turbulent air raises its ugly head. How is that an indication of some mastery of the medium tire?. Hamilton fitting the mediums was a last ditch attempt at making something happen since he was stuck in traffic... the safety car and red flag saved him.

Here's a nice way to see the lap charts of the race:
http://davidor.github.io/formula1-lap-charts/#/

So, mind you that Hamilton went on the Mediums on lap 16, which was before the red flag came out on lap 18. Which meant Hamilton did 39 laps on those Mediums. Vettel came in for his last stop on lap 35, when he was leading. He eventually did 22 laps on those Softs. I still had the feeling Vettel couldn't overtake the Merc on the straights, unless Hamilton had a really bad drive off corner on to the main straight and like you've said, by the time he's closing in on the Merc, the performance of the Softs were off and the turbulent air made everything worse to attempt an overtake.

Like I said I don't think Melbourne is a circuit we can't compare the performance of the teams. It's in the nature of the circuit that it's pretty difficult to follow cars and overtake. If this was Bahrain I think Vettel would have passed Hamilton with ease. Although I'm not so sure if we can recall back in 2014.

seems like DRS was a waste of time on this circuit . Hamilton had drs quite a few times behind verstapen and couldnt pass ditto for rosberg behind Vettel and a long list of other cars.

[dans79]

seems like DRS was a waste of time on this circuit . Hamilton had drs quite a few times behind verstapen and couldnt pass ditto for rosberg behind Vettel and a long list of other cars.

Imo, it's turn 15 that makes DRS next to useless. Almost every track that has a hard breaking ,slow speed turn shortly before the DRS strait makes it very hard to pass. The trailing driver, has to back off some so they don't lock up the inner front wheel, and thus looses time. So, either the lead driver has to screw up, or the trailing driver has to have a huge pace advantage.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

So on lap 35 after pitting Vettel comes out 12 seconds behind Hamilton and catches him in 16 laps.Just like he should have with a faster albeit more fragile tire. and then turbulent air raises its ugly head. How is that an indication of some mastery of the medium tire?. Hamilton fitting the mediums was a last ditch attempt at making something happen since he was stuck in traffic... the safety car and red flag saved him.

Here's a nice way to see the lap charts of the race:
http://davidor.github.io/formula1-lap-charts/#/

So, mind you that Hamilton went on the Mediums on lap 16, which was before the red flag came out on lap 18. Which meant Hamilton did 39 laps on those Mediums. Vettel came in for his last stop on lap 35, when he was leading. He eventually did 22 laps on those Softs. I still had the feeling Vettel couldn't overtake the Merc on the straights, unless Hamilton had a really bad drive off corner on to the main straight and like you've said, by the time he's closing in on the Merc, the performance of the Softs were off and the turbulent air made everything worse to attempt an overtake.

Like I said I don't think Melbourne is a circuit we can't compare the performance of the teams. It's in the nature of the circuit that it's pretty difficult to follow cars and overtake. If this was Bahrain I think Vettel would have passed Hamilton with ease. Although I'm not so sure if we can recall back in 2014.

If it was "Bahrain" gap between Lewis and Vettel would have been much larger. Why? Just like you said, Vettel would have passed Lewis, before that Lewis would have passed the Toro Rosso behind which he lost loads of time.

When Vettel pitted on Lap 35, Lewis had done 19 laps on those set of mediums and was doing 1:31.xxx and kept doing 1:31.xxx until the end. Very very strong performance on the mediums for 37 laps.

When Vettel came out with new Softs, he started with 1.30.xxx for couple of laps and then went into 1:31.xxx for few laps and again started doing 1:30.xxx, until the end. It took vettel 15 laps to come within 1 second of Lewis (mind you, lewis made a mistake on 51 that allowed vettel to come closer and at that time, Lewis was ahead by 2.5 seconds and Vettel was half a second faster, meaning without Lewis' mistake he would have taken another 3 laps to come into within 1 second ).

The performance difference between Medium and Soft (both new), in qualifying is 1 - 1.2 second. In race though, it comes down to around 0.8 seconds. What we saw in the race was, a 19 laps old Medium on Mercedes was, on average, just 0.8 seconds slower than the New soft on Ferrari. And while Mercedes was doing constant time, Ferrari was slowly losing time. Isn't that a performance indicator?

After the Race, Toto was telling that their tyre expert told the Mediums will go off, 5 laps before the end! It didn't!

There was also a situation with Nico's break caliper, which was going very high on temperature, but they couldn't inform him because of new rules and let him on destiny's lap. After going to the maximum, the temperature stabilized and then started coming down. Nico was very lucky OR may be the equipment is indeed quite strong.

[Vasconia]

He acted all spoiled on the radio, but he really had the speed. First of all he got pitted after Sainz when he was in front of him. Then the pit crew were not ready, in which he lost a lot of time. But then he managed to close the gap to Sainz. Then it was known that Sainz had ignored the team order. When Verstappen spun, he was still able to close the gap yet again to Sainz. Well, if you ignore team orders then you really have to proof that you have a reason to ignore it and that was by passing the cars in front of you, which Sainz hasn't done.

Red bull used to do that with Ricciardo and Kvyat. Afterwards on the last lap they reversed their positions.

Well, first time that Sainz has ignored the team orders though I think he overtook Palmer just one lap after the limit impossed by the team. How many times has Verstappen ignored the team orders when Sainz has accepted them?

Moreover, a team should support both drivers so radio messages like "you have to push" "if you dont overtake in 1 lap you will let your position to your teanmate" dont sound very encouraging. Man, drivers hate the "you have to push" message, ask Hakkinen or Raikkonen.

[Vasconia]

Palmer showed how ham-fisted Maldonado was when in company of others cars. Good close racing with others. Good stuff all round by the midfield.

He has impressed me. Great pace and a very good defense to be his first race. Nice work.

[Vasconia]

The different tyre choices is a good idea and makes the races more interesting. It was a relief after the disaster of Saturday´s qualy, thanks God that they will go back to the old system.

1. Mercedes is the strongest team but Ferrari could be bettern on Sundays rather than on Saturdays. The magic botton of Mercedes is still working!.

2. We need Ferrari doing more starts like this one, the race was 100 times better because of this.

3. The Renault teams have improved but not enough.

4. McLaren has improved but I really want to see a normal qualy and a track with long straights to check if the car is really decent.

5. Toro Rosso is perhaps the third team righ now but Max needs to calm down and Carlos not to make silly mistakes.

6. Palmer and Haas have impressed me.

7. Bahrein is too far!!!

[Roman]

Even though those "would've, could've" games are kind of moot, they are still fun as long as they do not turn into fanboy battles!

So for the Ros-Ham-Vet scenario:

The moment Ham pitted in lap 16, Vet had already passed him after his first pitstop, therefore already was in front more than one stop and on faster tires. Therefore withouth SC and red flag, HAM would probably have finished behind him. Similar with Ros: He was right behind Ham the moment Ham went into the pits (didnt pass him yet I believe, but I might be wrong as it was very early in the morning). So he basically was also one stop in front of Ham at that moment and on faster tires. I think it's safe to say he would have finished in front of Ham, too. (It would have been interesting to see where Ham would have ended up compared to Kimi without SC and Kimis DNF.)

Then the SC came out and Vet's and Ros' advantage was almost nullified. Big gain for Ham who was now on 7th with one pitstop less compared to the others. Could he have been able to turn this advantage into a win? Hard to say. He "lost" almost an entire pitstop during the first stint and was not able to pass slower cars in front of him. Therefore it is entirely possible that Vet and Ros would have been able to gain enough time vis-a-vis ham to finish in front of him as well. But that one is very hard to call.

Then the Red Flag came out. That allowed all cars to change tires again which then was a disadvantage for Ham compared to the moment the SC came out. Bc the others could go to Medium which they did (except Vet).

So to conclude: Ham did benefit from the accident. However he would have benefitted more if the SC would have stayed out and the race would not have been red flagged.

[Vasconia]

I have seen so much discussion about Hamilton´s luck in this race.

Well, traditionally an incident is something good for a driver who is behind and has had a bad start, like Hamilton. And this wasnt a exception.

1. The gap between him and Vet/Ros disappeared.
2. He tried a more aggressive strategy with harder tyres in oder to make a one stop less., which works better in the difference has been reduced or eliminated.

Its quite clear that the accident helped him a lot. Anyway his pace was very good.

[hemichromis]

- Verstappen has potential but needs to calm down even though he has been treated fairly indecent by Sainz and the team, starting with getting undercut whilst being the leading car [ remember the war that caused within AMG Mercedes... ] and then the team not being able to respond to Max entering the pitlane. that cost him his race. His frustrations publicly on the radio were a huge letdown and bad for his name. Just pass or accept and calm the hell down. If he had kept his cool instead of burn the team down i'm fairly positive the team would have radio-ed in more clear to sainz to swap or come in. he shoot himself in the foot.

He acted all spoiled on the radio, but he really had the speed. First of all he got pitted after Sainz when he was in front of him. Then the pit crew were not ready, in which he lost a lot of time. But then he managed to close the gap to Sainz. Then it was known that Sainz had ignored the team order. When Verstappen spun, he was still able to close the gap yet again to Sainz. Well, if you ignore team orders then you really have to proof that you have a reason to ignore it and that was by passing the cars in front of you, which Sainz hasn't done.

Red bull used to do that with Ricciardo and Kvyat. Afterwards on the last lap they reversed their positions.

Singapore 2015;

Team asks Verstappen to let Sainz through as Sainz was faster.
Verstappen' response: NO!

Why would Sainz yield this year?

[ME4ME]

There was no fault on Sainz part. I think Verstappen understands Sainz position and would have done the same. Verstappens problem is with the team for a) Not pitting him when he wanted. b) Letting Sainz do the undercut on him. c) Mess up his pitstop.

He was furious, but he had good reason to. He had 1.4 sec/lap in hand all the time, which showed itself when he spun and then had to catch back up to Sainz (who himself was being held up). The situation was somewhat similar to Alonso at Abu Dhabi 2010. When you're held up with such pace in hand, frustration is going to take over inevitably.

[AnthonyG]

There was no fault on Sainz part. I think Verstappen understands Sainz position and would have done the same. Verstappens problem is with the team for a) Not pitting him when he wanted. b) Letting Sainz do the undercut on him. c) Mess up his pitstop.

He was furious, but he had good reason to. He had 1.4 sec/lap in hand all the time, which showed itself when he spun and then had to catch back up to Sainz (who himself was being held up). The situation was somewhat similar to Alonso at Abu Dhabi 2010. When you're held up with such pace in hand, frustration is going to take over inevitably.

A driver can decide when to pit, if Sainz comes in (from what I remember he did so because his tyres were gone), what will the team do? Refuse to pit him because Verstappen will come in a lap later?

If he had that in hand, he'd gone past.

[Andres125sx]

It´s funny to read people saying Max was faster than Carlos, when Carlos was stuck behind traffic the whole race....

Almost as funny as hearing Max crying.... After past season with him ignoring TOs despite Carlos let him pass more than once, now he really expected Carlos to let him pass again? Really? Carlos can be too honest, but he´s not that stupid.

Now STR has a problem they caused theirselves, Max think the whole team is here to serve him. They should have punished him past season after ignoring TOs, but they didn´t and now Max think he can do whatever he wants. That´s what happens when you pamper a teenager.

[Starscreamer]

It´s funny to read people saying Max was faster than Carlos, when Carlos was stuck behind traffic the whole race....

Almost as funny as hearing Max crying.... After past season with him ignoring TOs despite Carlos let him pass more than once, now he really expected Carlos to let him pass again? Really? Carlos can be too honest, but he´s not that stupid.

Now STR has a problem they caused theirselves, Max think the whole team is here to serve him. They should have punished him past season after ignoring TOs, but they didn´t and now Max think he can do whatever he wants. That´s what happens when you pamper a teenager.

Unfortunately I can not give you a minus for your childish reaction :-"

[Andres125sx]

He acted all spoiled on the radio, but he really had the speed. First of all he got pitted after Sainz when he was in front of him.

If I´m not mistaken with a different pit-stop, Sky said neither him or Hamilton (stuck behind him) could stop at that point or they would have gone out of pits just behing a Force India

Then the pit crew were not ready, in which he lost a lot of time. But then he managed to close the gap to Sainz. Then it was known that Sainz had ignored the team order. When Verstappen spun, he was still able to close the gap yet again to Sainz.

who was stuck behind traffic on both situations, so it´s not that Max was genuinely faster than Sainz, but thanks to some mistakes he run on clean air while Carlos, without mistakes, was constantly stuck behind slower cars

Well, if you ignore team orders then you really have to proof that you have a reason to ignore it and that was by passing the cars in front of you, which Sainz hasn't done.

Sorry but he did, he passed Palmer.

And you must have forgotten what happened past season, it was the other way around, Max didn´t pass, and reffused to obey TOs to let Carlos pass. You must be really biased to ask Carlos let him pass again after those precedents

[Andres125sx]

It´s funny to read people saying Max was faster than Carlos, when Carlos was stuck behind traffic the whole race....

Almost as funny as hearing Max crying.... After past season with him ignoring TOs despite Carlos let him pass more than once, now he really expected Carlos to let him pass again? Really? Carlos can be too honest, but he´s not that stupid.

Now STR has a problem they caused theirselves, Max think the whole team is here to serve him. They should have punished him past season after ignoring TOs, but they didn´t and now Max think he can do whatever he wants. That´s what happens when you pamper a teenager.

Unfortunately I can not give you a minus for your childish reaction :-"

Sorry but you´re mistaken, I´m not Max Verstappen