Poll: Austrian Grand Prix 2018, Spielberg - Race 9/21
- Thread starter Shimmy
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Hamilton will have the Merc approved pirelli tyres for Silverstone next week and they'll stop complaining about it then.
Caporegime
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umm all other drivers had blisters too. so not just merc
No not everyone, Lewis had the worse so hence them crying for their special tyres now at more races.
Man of Honour
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It’ll be dull either way. If they aren’t conserving tyres they are conserving engines.
I gave it a 3. Nothing happened after the first lap. I want to see track battles for position. That didn’t happen.
Yeah Ric taking Kimi and Seb taking Lewis were not for position.....nevermind the countless other track battles for the lower positions.
Tough crowd?
Whilst it was hardly 71 laps of people going wheel to wheel, there were a few decent moves and some good flashes of racing.
With all due respect you are wrong? Do you not remember when Pirelli brought these special Merc tires (as you claim) to Spain? Seb himself backed the decision because he said that the Ferrari would have suffered blisters - https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/...i-tyre-change-decision-despite-struggles.html
The reason Lewis suffered blistering is because he tried to race (God forbid) so ended up taking too much out of his tires at the start of his stint then lost out to Seb who had been nursing his soft tires and not setting any amazing times.
I want a race and not tire management. Had Merc got the VSC call right Lewis would have been in the lead and nursed his tires to the end. I don't have any evidence but believe had Lewis been in the lead he may not have retired. I think him pushing after his pit (I saw him smash the kerbs quite a bit so maybe that cause the fuel pressure problem).
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Man of Honour
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Overtaking a wounded car is not really what we want to see. Hamilton complained quite a few laps earlier that he was down on power.
There was barely any overtaking after the start from the top 6, it was boring.
Soldato
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Three does seem excessively low though. It's little better than those voting extreme 1s and 10s depending on how x or y did.
Hamilton's problem was apparently a loss of fuel pressure. I'd be surprised if it was an intermittent problem and affected his race. Even when he said he felt he was "losing power" he was all over Vettel's gearbox, so it was hardly a dramatic loss if any at all. It was Ricciardo pitting that helped Vettel challenge Hamilton (Hamilton had to check up as Ricciardo pitted).
I was semi-pleased to see blisters, as we've missed that sudden loss of performance. People were tyre saving, but weren't backing away from each other to conserve the tyres, and it made for a fairly enjoyable race generally. We've not had that sort of race for ages.
I voted a six, but could have voted 7. It was a decent race, a close race, and after the threat of Mercedes running off and hiding thanks to their VSC mix up they made an potentially boring race a much more interesting race. Lots of overtaking, but DRS largely did what it was meant to do, let people challenge - much of time they still had to nail them on the brakes too. It was hardly an action-packed frenzy, but it was very watchable.
I don't think you watched the race, or paid attention. Lewis was kangooring (time gap wise) for ages after he complained of random losses of power. It got worse and worse until he retired. His car was quite clearly broken from around or just after his pit stop.
After his second pit stop it was even worse. He started losing time even though he was on fresh supers compared with those on 50 lap old softs!
More and more it is apparent that trying to overtake is not worth it. Unless you can do it in one or 2 laps the damage to the Tyres, Engine and general heat increase just isnt worth it.
Finding more and more rewrd f watching on catchup now. As would not have liked to sit through the whole GP for this one. Being able to cut it down to 20 mins if you want is great
Finding more and more rewrd f watching on catchup now. As would not have liked to sit through the whole GP for this one. Being able to cut it down to 20 mins if you want is great
Yeah it's pretty sad, his car clearly had the pace to win this one. When working he was right on the back of everyone. If his car wasn't losing power, he probably wouldn't have had to push so hard on the tyres to catch up every time. Ironically that probably escalated any issues. Just a symphony of little contributing factors resulting in a total bad day for Merc.
Soldato
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I paid full attention to the race (unlike most other races this season). I just saw bad old Lewis where he "kangaroos" while complaining to be honest. He wasn't losing anything on the straights and Vettel wasn't gaining heaps on any individual straights either - Hamilton had one particularly bad spell where he dropped back (when Raikkonen overtook Ricciardo), probably the point below about the "pack not charging", but other than that I didn't notice anything untoward.
Clearly if Hamilton's car was that bad there would have been constant radio talk and a progressive loss. Looking at the transcripts there were a couple of power-related messages on the radio that weren't broadcast on the world feed (one hesitation out of turn 9, another about the pack not charging fully up (I think that was the time we saw the light flashing a fair bit)) but it was hardly like he was down on power that much. 80% of the transcript was complaints about throwing the race through strategy.
I disagree. I think it was fairly obvious his car was playing up most of the race until its eventual demise.
I'm not liking the current rules affecting the racing so much. It's seems to be too much of a lottery with the virtual safety car (VSC) and I thought the whole point was to neutralise the race. With drivers being allowed to pit during VSC this will continue. Drivers will be penalised through no fault of their own if they happened to be at a certain point in the track. That's not really fair. In other motor sports, safety car is less of an issue but in F1 it's so tactical that it ruins it.
Caporegime
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Ricciardo had it worst, by a mile and RBR have better tire life than Ferrari over the majority of races.
Lewis was screwed by the team, if he came out where Verstappen did and cruised to the end he would have had zero issues with tires. The issue was he was dropped to 4th through entirely the teams fault and also had Vettel right behind him on warmed up tires for multiple laps through the "take them in slowly" phase so he had to push. He was the only driver, well, on the grid who had to push after leaving the pits. Ricciardo didn't have to push except in that he wanted to keep up with Verstappen but Verstappen had vastly superior tire saving picking all the right places to push and all the right places to save, just like his first win in Barcelona.
Comparing this track to Silverstone or elsewhere, it's laughable. Don't forget that people complained about the tires at first because they went to Barcelona and had Hamilton destroy everyone in QUALIFYING, then the race, coming from a track where they weren't ahead before. Yet here without the 'merc tires', Mercedes killed Ferrari in qualifying and Hamilton was cruising out front at a pace Red Bull and Ferrari couldn't match.
The sole reason Hamilton had tire issues was he was the only driver who was forced to push on fresh tires. I think Merc doubled down on a bad choice by not hanging it out on the first set of tires for another 10 laps, 15-20 lap fresher tires is when you hit the point that in the final 20 laps against one stoppers you'll be a second a lap faster. 10 laps just isn't a big enough difference. They panicked, realised they'd come out 5th if they waited longer but ignored the benefit coming out 5th 10 laps later and having vastly superior tires would have. Instead they put him out 4th, he wasn't going to have vastly superior tires, track position was important, he had to push and the tires blistered.
In Barcelona, Vettel had massive tire overheating with the less overheating tires, Ferrari had it worse than anyone and the normal tires would still have been worst for Ferrari.
If the Merc tires are the only reason Merc were faster in Barcelona and France, why did Merc dominate qualifying here? If they overheat tires so much they blister why didn't the tires overheat in qualifying making it impossible to get a full lap before the tires overheated... right, because it wasn't a problem.
Soldato
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The VSC didn't disadvantage anyone though. Certainly the top drivers went passed the pit entrance twice; once when the VSC had just started (Hamilton might have just missed the pit entrance first time around, but all of the top drivers went around again anyway), so they all had a full lap to decide whether or not to pit at the end of that lap, which most of them did obviously. Toto said they had half a lap to decide, but it was more than that.
The Mercedes choice was odd. I'm surprised Mercedes don't have a team deciding that if x happens at any given point, then they should do y (obviously other factors could come into play, but with the resources and hundreds of staff they have it seems odd they don't have a basic plan for any given moment).
The Mercedes choice was odd. I'm surprised Mercedes don't have a team deciding that if x happens at any given point, then they should do y (obviously other factors could come into play, but with the resources and hundreds of staff they have it seems odd they don't have a basic plan for any given moment).