search wrote: ↑27 Oct 2022, 19:45
AR3-GP wrote: ↑24 Oct 2022, 22:10
search wrote: ↑24 Oct 2022, 16:22
possible, yeah, but the medium looked considerably quicker to me, and he was in front for 14 laps, mainly in clean air. I think it's reasonable to believe that Hamilton would have been 5s further ahead at least
Verstappen was already considerably quicker when both cars had the medium tire in the first stint. Hamilton's medium tires fell off badly which triggered Mercedes to pit on the first pit stop. It's likely the same would have happened on the final stint.
Just watched the COTA "Weekend Debrief" on F1TV, and they have run a simulation, according to which Hamilton on mediums would have won:
https://i.imgur.com/GZ37Pj1.png
no idea how it works, or how accurate these things usually are, though.
Vowles said in their debrief that their simulations say they wouldn't win with mediums and if anything verstappen would've overtaken them earlier.
Given at the beginning of the race Mercedes pitted off the medium at lap 12, and already had bad degradation at that point, it's reasonable to assume their performance on the mediums wasn't as good as the hards. They were keen to get off them, and their own sims say they would have lost on mediums
No point entertaining fantasy tbf