f1isgood wrote: ↑30 Nov 2024, 21:05
Okay, on a serious note, I am really surprised by what the team cooked in the last few hours. This amount of performance shift is insane.
I was lulled into thinking like this after the Q in spa, where Max was on pole by an insane margin (0.5+ s, iirc). That too was a case of terrible FP setup, then some homework and revamping of the car before Q. Helmut Marko even said the changes were for race pace. Then we saw what happened in the race, it was terrible.
On the evidence of that, I would take this pole with a pinch of salt, and will believe that Redbull fixed their car, only on race pace data.
Btw, Christian Horner mentioned that they fixed the car for T1, T4 and T16 , but the fastest lap data shows that T16 is still not great, in comparison with the other three teams - Max is slower 8-12kph through the corner - the most important corner of the race, leading into the straight, which is the only overtaking place here.
As the wonderful chart above this post shows, T14 and T15 are super critical for Max, if he has to absorb the losses from T16 and not lose much through the straight.
it would seem to outweigh late run track rubbering effect/evolution in this case.
