Bahrain Grand Prix 2014, Sakhir - Race 3/19

I don't think its a case of RB not letting Vet/Web race its just that Webber was almost never quick enough to match the pace of Vettel. On the few circuits (maybe 2 out of 10) where Webber was perhaps quick enough to race with Seb he'd usually put in a terrible qualifying performance or get an embarrassingly bad start (or both) while Seb cruised off in to the distance at the front.
 
Also lets be honest the safety car made the race. Rosberg would unlikely have been near Hamilton to have that much entertainment at the end. Maybe would have had some of the intra team battles down the order but hard to say. Guess we can thank loldanardo for that and the fact that both merc drivers went full on for the final stint.
 
SS-89 said:
Easy to forget what an advantage it is to know it's your teammate behind you and knowing what fuel mix/ecu modes he's using and when he is going to burn ERS. I imagine if nico was driving for another team it would have been a lot harder for hamilton to keep Nico behind. Regardless great driving.
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Considering most of the time it was simply a question of being maxed out where appropriate it doesn't much matter. If it was anyone behind the team would have under pressure gone to that strat 6 mode and dropped to strat 3 when out of energy to keep it topped up. Everyone down the grid will be doing a few laps of conserving and a few laps of extra usage of the energy.

Likewise earlier in the race it was just both cars being told to slow down the same amount engine wise. Had say he had ALonso behind and Alonso started dropping a couple tenths a lap, then their strategy would have indicated to save fuel for later in the race as well.

I can't see much if any difference. Number of messages vs number and location of overtakes, pretty standard driver communication.

Only really interesting thing was doing their best to burn off extra fuel under the safety car as they already had enough to go flat out to the end so burn a couple extra kg's of fuel and maybe gain the tenth extra a lap he needed.
 
SS-89 said:
Easy to forget what an advantage it is to know it's your teammate behind you and knowing what fuel mix/ecu modes he's using and when he is going to burn ERS. I imagine if nico was driving for another team it would have been a lot harder for hamilton to keep Nico behind. Regardless great driving.
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You could play that both ways. Also Nico has been saying that he has been reading up
on how Lewis does his quali laps. Now Lewis has found out(from the last race) he is doing it too. This makes awesome racing as we have already seen.

Well done Merc for giving back to us our racing drivers ;)
 
Bahrain Test, Day One timesheet:
1. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1:35.697, 121 laps.
2. Nico Hulkenberg, Force India, 1:36.064, 69 laps.
3. Fernando Alonso, Ferrari, 1:36.626, 69 laps.
4. Kevin Magnussen, McLaren, 1:36.634, 102 laps.
5. Valtteri Bottas, Williams, 1:37.305, 28 laps.
6. Max Chilton, Marussia, 1:37.678, 60 laps.
7. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull, 1:38.326, 91 laps.
8. Sergey Sirotkin, Sauber, 1:39.023, 76 laps.
9. Robin Frijns, Caterham, 1:40.027, 63 laps.
10. Pastor Maldonado, Lotus, 1:40.183, 16 laps.
11. Daniil Kvyat, Toro Rosso, 1:40.452, 67 laps.
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http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/1...ercedes-pick-up-where-they-left-off-at-sakhir
 
Interesting that Alonso is doing both test days for Ferrari. Would have thought Kimi needed more time in the car. According to Whitmarsh (interview back when kimi returned to F1) Kimi is one of the best drivers he's worked with in testing/development.

Of course according to Alonso he brought 0.6 to McLaren. lol
 
SS-89 said:
So apparently ferrari are bringing a second generation PU to China...god knows what that means in real terms but I'm hoping they're a damn sight more competitive...I can dream no? :p
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I'm presuming that teams can change at least some of the software for the engines as it's improved for several teams over time already. But effectively everything mechanical and all parts of the engines themselves are locked in and have been since, before the third test or just after it, I forget which. So second generation PU sounds like utter bull.

More likely they are going to use their second Power unit at China, either deciding the first is done or that they'll use the life left in that for a later race or possible just practice sessions.

Ferrari seem fairly reliable in terms of engine since the start of testing so I doubt they have any recourse to make big changes on the ground of reliability.

It could be a massive software update they are talking about, because the smarter/better control of the engine the more efficiency you can get out of it by more intelligent usage of the electrical power, the more you can then push the engine with the saved fuel. Software updates/getting settings right for peak efficiency is one of the key ways I think Merc are SO good. Brilliant combination of efficiency, harvesting energy, using the energy in the best way possible to increase efficiency. They can push the engine harder because they are saving more fuel.
 
To be fair to the FIA, do we really want 7 years of Mercedes engines being massively dominant over the rest? I expect they will allow a few developments through for the Renault and Ferrari engines in order to level the playing field a bit. Sure it is unfair to Mercedes, and they will complain, but in the long run its better for the sport as a whole.
 
englishpremier said:
Changes can be made on cost and efficiency grounds too, not just reliability.
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As far as I know it's reliability cost and safety, not efficiency. Efficiency is completely intertwined with performance.

Effectively if they can produce a part cheaper that is fine, but if it's cheaper and improves the power is shouldn't get approved... we'll see if it does.

Ultimately I can't see any way a team would dub an engine a "second generation" unit, we're talking about basically very minor changes in function except for reliability reasons and unfortunately reliability hasn't really been an issue even for Renault cars so I can't see how they could justify a reliability upgrade either.

Ultimately the only parts they can potentially get added for extra performance will need to be significant reliability upgrades that happen to increase performance. Safety is to cover huge huge screw ups, like bits that explode off very dangerously and obviously need changing. Cost, it's almost certainly going to be easiest to see when something changed for cost will make the engine perform better. In reality there aren't going to be many things they can do cheaper that also perform better. Using worse but cheaper materials is unlikely to make the engine better.

Reliability is really the only rule that you can potentially sneak performance upgrades through.
 
deuse said:
They have to ask the FIA first, and if they did everyone would know and then Merc would do the same.


My mate in the US reckons that if all the teams ran Merc engines the racing would be epic?
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They do have to ask for the FIA and other teams/manufacturers get to see the plans/proposed change, but copying seems unlikely given the differences between the engines and the cost associated with changing something if you've gone down a completely different direction.

It's been that way since the v8s came in to force and we haven't heard about engine technology being copied, even when Renault were behind (yet again).

As was said by Anthony Davidson, during the last Sky FP, part of the reason the Honda engine struggled in the later years was that they were too honest. i.e they only brought updates to improve reliability, where as the other manufacturers were improving power and efficiency too.
 
I only got to watch highlights of the qualis and the race yesterday as was busy all weekend. That race was unbelievably exciting after the safety car went off! Was on the edge of my seat and so nervous for Lewis, but he just kept managing to fend off Nico, gawd knows how but brilliantly done! :eek: Action packed and possibly the best wheel to wheel racing we'll see for the rest of the season.

McLaren failing to do anything useful again this season. Pity. Also, not sure if it's perhaps time for Jensen to retire? I don't want him to, but I'm not convinced he has that hunger anymore. I always sense he's a bit too laid back about racing, I think he needs to get angry and fire himself up. :p Could be completely wrong of course.
 
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