2016 Monaco Grand Prix - Monte Carlo, Thu 26 – Sun 29 May

[i70q7m7ghw]

I just watched the Monaco race again I DVR'd it. So I was able to watch it again and I can't belive Sergio Perez now has 6 podiums and still not a highly rated driver despite his young age he's been in the sport for 6 years and he ended his year at McLaren being faster then Button and last year he ended being faster then Nico. Now this season so far he is starting to be faster then Hulk.

He was 3 seconds faster during most of the race then Daniel and Hamilton which is how he was able to go from 8th to 3rd.
In the yellow colored compound.


I say Ferrari needs to take back it's Academy Driver he would make a good partner for Vettel.

I'm sure Vettel is better but Sergio being young he could learn alot and drive as a great second driver I mean it's not like Kimi is doing any good anymore. Vettel is considereably better then Kimi and Perez is a solid young driver better then most and he won't make stupid mistakes.

Monaco is a great track and to be driving a car like the Force India in a slower compound and be 3 seconds faster for most of the race then anyone else.....

Well that's just impressive I'm a Hulk/Perez fan and I'm glad Force India has both my drivers....
Haha for the Record I'm not a Force India Fan they just have the both drivers I like.

Perez reminds me of Fisichella and Heidfeld who always over performed in mid-field cars but then struggled when they moved up to a top team. They also had moments of brilliance, but on the whole were mediocre. Perez has been in F1 long enough now that most teams have seen that, which is why he's not being considered by any top teams. Unfortunately he's simply not WDC material.

[Andres125sx]

Driver that managed to destroy everything for himself:

Verstappen. I sincerely hope now he's had a podium he's not heading the same direction as his father. Jos was a magnificient driver but ended off-track way too much.
His Monaco weekend was a mess, he was in the barriers way too much. The practice incident was forgivable, his qually crash was just plain stupid, it was marginal, but
he was way too agressive, me thinks he was too shark hungry for making a name for himself @ monaco. Race started great, drove spectaculary through the field,
overtaking like a boss (like his father 'Jos the Boss') but again screwing up at the same corner as in practice is just plain stupid at that point in the race. it was dry, zero excuse to slam into the barriers that way. Should've kept his calm, as it was unlikely he was able to get much further up the field.

To be fair, it was not dry, there was a dry line, but as Alonso said after the race, it was a 1m wide track because if they put a wheel out of that dry line, the crash is inevitable.

Actually Vettel did exactly same mistake as Max later in the race, but he was lucky enogh (or he had evaluated the risk a lot better) to do it with the track completely dry, not only the racing line, so he was able to recover and avoid the crash after going out of the line

[Jolle]

It seems you are blaming verstappen for bagging a Red Bull seat. It was his performances in lesser machinery against a highly rated team mate that put him in contention, directly contradicting you.

Sorry but that´s not true, Carlos Sainz has never been considered a top class driver. Actually everybody was conviced Max would anihilate Carlos. He didn´t. Actually only a higher rate of mechanical problems for the spanish togheter with STR favouring Max allowed the dutch to score more points. For example, his best result (5th in Hungary) was only after STR favoured him when Carlos was in front of him. STR called Max first so he did an undercut to Carlos.

So reality is he never outlined a driver who was never considered a top class driver.

I must say I´m glad about RBR move, because now I can solve my doubt. Is Max as good as some think what would mean Carlos is a lot better than I thought? Or Max is overrated and neither of them is that good?

Thanks to RBR now we can compare both of them with Ric and Kvyat and solve it

To put a bit more fuel on your frustration:
For 2015, it wasn't RedBulls intention to put Carlos in the STR. Vettel's move to Ferrari and the promotion of Kvyat made that happen. So far, it ended badly for Kvyat, he should have had more time in the STR.

So, what's now for Carlos? Third year in STR? And then? Hoping Riccardo leaves? (Max has a contract for the next few years).

At this moment he's more likely to follow Vernge and Buemi.

[turbof1]

Wow, we really can't go through a weekend with racing incidents, without members bickering around.

Locking the thread until I can get a firm handle on this.

[turbof1]

Reopened. Play nice, kids.

[WaikeCU]

I was thinking Hamilton's outlap on those US was horrendous, it's where he should have lost the lead to Ricciardo, if Ricciardo had a faultless stop on those SS. I wonder if Ricciardo would have had similar issues going out on SS that aren't fully up to temperatures and cooling down on those wet patches on track. Hamilton meanwhile would already have heat on those US when Ricciardo is rejoining the track.

[GrandAxe]

It has been suggested (in a BBC article) that Mercedes changed the cars' setups to make them more "pointy" to try to catch the RedBull's pace a bit. Rosberg didn't feel quite so confident in the car after that and so could not go quite quickly enough to keep the tyres and brakes at the correct temperatures. The result of that was an immediate loss of lap time.

Rosberg is an analytical driver who likes to build the pace in the car from data; once he is confident in what the car will do he can unleash his own speed. Hamilton is more of a "seat of the pants" driver. In Monaco, on Sunday, the "feel" driver had the advantage because of the changes made to the cars. It appears to be as simple as that.

The word "analytical" really shouldn't go with the word "driver" in a high speed sport like F1.

Intelligence is the tool by which we adapt and control our environment, those who have it are quicker to provide the right responses to changes in their environment.
So the use of words and phrases like "feel" and "seat of the pants" to describe the drivers with the gift of processing information far faster than the others is quite unfair.

Ricciardo has also been described (not by you) as one of the "seat of the pants" drivers who did well in a race suited to that type. But is that really right? On the formation lap for instance, Ricciardo did something no one else attempted even though the track was wet; he kept sawing quite sharply at the wheel to test the limits of how far the car would wag on the wet tarmac. That was intelligence on display and it saw him through.
In another display of intelligence, Lewis used very different race lines from Rosberg's, a technique that saw him drive much faster than Rosberg in the sister car, with Lewis eventually winning the race.

The ability to process information faster than the average person should not be called "seat of the pants". It is intelligence.

[lebesset]

forgive me if this question has been posted way back
with rosberg so slow that he had a trulli train containing non top team cars behind him , why did it take mercedes so long to tell him to let hamilton past ? by that time ricci was 13 seconds ahead ....a gift !
if I remember correctly hamilton closed the gap by almost 2 seconds a lap when released

[Andres125sx]

It seems you are blaming verstappen for bagging a Red Bull seat. It was his performances in lesser machinery against a highly rated team mate that put him in contention, directly contradicting you.

Sorry but that´s not true, Carlos Sainz has never been considered a top class driver. Actually everybody was conviced Max would anihilate Carlos. He didn´t. Actually only a higher rate of mechanical problems for the spanish togheter with STR favouring Max allowed the dutch to score more points. For example, his best result (5th in Hungary) was only after STR favoured him when Carlos was in front of him. STR called Max first so he did an undercut to Carlos.

So reality is he never outlined a driver who was never considered a top class driver.

I must say I´m glad about RBR move, because now I can solve my doubt. Is Max as good as some think what would mean Carlos is a lot better than I thought? Or Max is overrated and neither of them is that good?

Thanks to RBR now we can compare both of them with Ric and Kvyat and solve it

To put a bit more fuel on your frustration.

Please don´t be fooled by manoah2u, I have no frustrations at all at the respect, IMO Carlos is lucky enough o be driving a F1 car.

This said, I think he´s performing better than most people (or at least myself) expected. But that´s quite far from thinking he deserve a RBR seat, or I´m frustrated because of some other driver promotion.


I´ve praised Max when he deserve it, like in Spain, when I highlighted how impressive was his race holding back Kimi. I´ve also stated more than once that IMO he´s faster than Carlos. But same as I praise him when deserved, I also criticize him when deserved, even if some people can´t cope with deserved criticism to his favourite....

[Andres125sx]

I still can´t fully understand how Lewis managed to make his wet tires last that long. Track was completely dry at many parts, that should have destroyed his wet tires.

Obviously RBR made a huge mistake and gifted victory to Mercedes, but as usual, that was only because Mercedes and Lewis did a great job. If Lewis would have pitted one more time like the rest instead of going directly from wets to slicks, RBR would have win the race even with that terrible pitstop.

[kasio]

forgive me if this question has been posted way back
with rosberg so slow that he had a trulli train containing non top team cars behind him , why did it take mercedes so long to tell him to let hamilton past ? by that time ricci was 13 seconds ahead ....a gift !
if I remember correctly hamilton closed the gap by almost 2 seconds a lap when released

2 seconds in 10 laps...

[ChrisDanger]

if I remember correctly hamilton closed the gap by almost 2 seconds a lap when released

Memory is pretty unreliable. Anyway, it's more about managing pace than possible outright pace (at least when it's not very wet). See for example Ricciardo's pace on laps 25-27 after a slow few laps.

[Phil]

@kasio: That is not quite correct.

Lap 15, the gap was RIC - 13.133s - ROS (14.0s RIC - HAM).
Lap 16, the switch happened and gap was RIC - HAM 13.4s
Lap 22, the gap was RIC - HAM 11.278s
Lap 23, Ricciardo came in and Hamilton took the lead. At that point, Hamilton was still gaining lap time, his times getting quicker and quicker.

So that's 2.7s gap in 7 laps.

More impressively: the gap between HAM and ROS increased in 3 laps (Rosberg pitted on 20) to 10.3s.

[Andres125sx]

I´ve just read Carlos Sainz could have been the third on the podium if his team wouldn´t fail on both pit-stops, as he was in front of Perez, just to lose the position after a very slow first pitstop wich put him behind the mexican, and also a very slow second pitstop wich put him behind Alonso and Vettel too

This is what F1 offical web has published:

Toro Rosso

Kvyat started with an electrical issue and after a couple of trips through the pit lane, was a lap down immediately. Trying to regain lost ground, he tried a clumsy overtake on Magnussen which resulted in a collision and his eventual retirement. Sainz by contrast had a quieter day, losing positions during the pit stops but still scoring solid points.

Carlos Sainz, 8th

“I’m not that happy finishing in P8 if I say the truth, because I felt that today there were some big points on the table for us and we lost the opportunity of making them ours. From my side, I kept the car away from the walls and was fast on all three compounds, so I’m happy with that, but it’s disappointing to have lost positions during our pit-stops… We definitely need to analyse why this happened, as we threw away many points because of this. Anyway, P8 means 4 points, which is not that bad – I would’ve been happy with this if you had told me before coming to Monaco, but after starting from P6 and seeing how chaotic the race was, I’m sure we could’ve done better. I have to say that this was my first time ever driving in the wet through the streets of Monaco and it’s the most difficult thing I’ve done in my life!”

edit:
Franz Tost, Team Principal

“It’s very disappointing to finish Carlos’ race only in P8, when we know we have a package which has the performance to be at least within the top five. The main reason for this result was the first pit-stop, during which we lost two seconds and where Perez, Vettel and Hulkenberg passed us. Therefore, Carlos ended up behind this train of cars and couldn’t use all the potential of the car, but he did a solid race and showed a really good performance.

I lost the count about how many points STR poor pitstops has cost them...

[notsofast]

I wonder if anyone can share any insights with respect to the following.

1. As far as I remember, the 3-stop strategy was calculated and announced to be faster than the 2-stop strategy in Barcelona. Pirelli even said so during the pitwalk. It seemed perfectly reasonable to me that VET and RIC, as the respective #1 drivers of their teams, were put on the faster strategy. In hindsight, it turned out that the 2-stop strategy was faster. But VET and RIC were complaining as if they were somehow robbed or mistreated.

2. At Monaco, HAM was in the lead and pitted first. Normally, whoever pits first gets an advantage because of the undercut. I heard no announcements beforehand that an overcut would be better at Monaco. So, it seemed perfectly reasonable to me for HAM to stay in the lead ahead of RIC, regardless of RIC's pitstop situation. If anything, I was surprised the gap was so small. But RIC is complaining again that he was somehow robbed of a win.

I am not looking for any fanboi arguments. I'm simply trying to understand why it is reasonable for RIC to be so upset in both races. Sure, I see how he would be disappointed. I would be too. But I don't see why he should feel that he was somehow robbed. What am I missing? What information was available BEFORE these two events that would suggest that a 2-stopper was better in Barcelona and that letting HAM pit first in Monaco was the right thing to do for RIC's chances to win those races?