makecry wrote: ↑04 Mar 2019, 04:43
No the question was, do we know or do we have the data that would tell us how would the times be on 2 stop vs 3 stop. As in was a 3 stop faster or a 2 stop. Were we the only team that even did a 3 stop, if so , why?
McLaren started the race sim on dev tires. If there is a difference between them and real C3, there is little point in running a prolonged stint on a tire that won't be used in 2019. That could be the reason for the early pitstop. Seeing that those tires had a really heavy dropoff in just a handful of laps, it's possible those tires were old or in some other way unsuited for the stint.
I'd say that the value of 3 stopper vs 2 stopper is vastly overblown in this situation. McLaren did not benefit in any way from it because first stint was really slow and short (so did not help them with pace) and other two stints were only marginally shorter because the first stint was not that long.
Only possible issue is that McLaren destroys C3 (or dev) tires very quickly and with F1 forcing you to use two tire compounds, it forces McLaren to run a short, slow stint on C3 to be able to use C2 in the rest of the race. I sincerely doubt this is the case.