Chinese Grand Prix 2015, Shanghai - Race 3/19

Rosberg blew his mercedes career with that stupid move in spa. He lost the championship as a result and is now truly the second driver in the team now. The ban on driver coaching really hurt him too. What are the stats now - I remember reading recently that in the last race meets between rosberg and hamilton it is something like 10 wins to hamilton and only 2 to rosberg? I think that was before this race.
 
Normal service has been resumed then. One point I would like to point out was how woeful Crofty and Brundle were today in the commentary, hyping up several small points bigger than what they actually were. Hamilton/Vettel at the pits before the race and how Ferrari were going to be better on both sets of tyres during the race.

One day the UK will get a natural sound feed minus a commentary overly, we can all hope. :(
 
drunkenmaster said:
the Fangio quote is good
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I don't think it was a Fangio quote, but attributed to him by others (the renowned Denis Jenkinson I think it was) and caught on with other drivers - Stirling Moss being one.

I guess lots of drivers said it over the years though, particularly those years where anything on the car could break and in an era where you'd attend multiple funerals a year for your peers.



Kulealshi said:
One day the UK will get a natural sound feed minus a commentary overly, we can all hope. :(
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I think wee had it with F1 Digital+.
 
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Kulealshi said:
Normal service has been resumed then. One point I would like to point out was how woeful Crofty and Brundle were today in the commentary, hyping up several small points bigger than what they actually were. Hamilton/Vettel at the pits before the race and how Ferrari were going to be better on both sets of tyres during the race.

One day the UK will get a natural sound feed minus a commentary overly, we can all hope. :(
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The Ferrari fawning has been painful in the past couple of weeks, even worse was the "Mercedes still have tire deg problems, it was just hidden last year because of their performance advantage". It was beyond stupid and so many people were saying it.

If one car can do say 15 laps at 1:32 lap times then needs to pit, but Merc both do 1:30 second laps and manage to do 17 laps before pitting, they absolutely have better tire deg. Tire deg is dependant on the speed you're doing, going faster and longer = better tire deg, going faster but having to pit earlier = probably similar tire deg, going same speed but pitting earlier = worse tire deg.

Even in Malaysia Merc never showed actually worse tire deg, just less good than normal. In practice Ferrari did longer stints... but Merc were a second faster per lap. They could obviously go longer if they were going slower.
The biggest mistake teams have made for the past 2-3 years is effectively trying a long stint strategy, which means going slower per lap... but then being forced to do the extra pitstop. You basically decide to go 1-2 seconds slower a lap for 15-20 laps then having to pit anyway, rather than going that 1-2 seconds faster the entire stint.

The extreme temps brought Merc MUCH closer to Ferrari, but the strategy tipped them over the edge. Without extreme conditions the better tire wear and faster speed re-established itself.

Ferrari have still improved massively over last season, and they are much closer, and track dependant and condition dependant there will be other races they get damn close, maybe even win. Merc will also make more strategy mistakes(as most teams will) and there will be more chances. I think Ferrari's gains have been overstated, the car was pretty meh last year. The engine drastically improved, they are maybe where you'd say Merc were in 2013 with the car, a huge step forward but need time to develop a good base car into something really special.
 
drunkenmaster said:
The Ferrari fawning has been painful in the past couple of weeks, even worse was the "Mercedes still have tire deg problems, it was just hidden last year because of their performance advantage". It was beyond stupid and so many people were saying it.

If one car can do say 15 laps at 1:32 lap times then needs to pit, but Merc both do 1:30 second laps and manage to do 17 laps before pitting, they absolutely have better tire deg. Tire deg is dependant on the speed you're doing, going faster and longer = better tire deg, going faster but having to pit earlier = probably similar tire deg, going same speed but pitting earlier = worse tire deg.

Even in Malaysia Merc never showed actually worse tire deg, just less good than normal. In practice Ferrari did longer stints... but Merc were a second faster per lap. They could obviously go longer if they were going slower.
The biggest mistake teams have made for the past 2-3 years is effectively trying a long stint strategy, which means going slower per lap... but then being forced to do the extra pitstop. You basically decide to go 1-2 seconds slower a lap for 15-20 laps then having to pit anyway, rather than going that 1-2 seconds faster the entire stint.

The extreme temps brought Merc MUCH closer to Ferrari, but the strategy tipped them over the edge. Without extreme conditions the better tire wear and faster speed re-established itself.

Ferrari have still improved massively over last season, and they are much closer, and track dependant and condition dependant there will be other races they get damn close, maybe even win. Merc will also make more strategy mistakes(as most teams will) and there will be more chances. I think Ferrari's gains have been overstated, the car was pretty meh last year. The engine drastically improved, they are maybe where you'd say Merc were in 2013 with the car, a huge step forward but need time to develop a good base car into something really special.
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Agreed, remember mercedes had very little setup time in Malaysia due to car trouble. Their setup was less than optimum putting them much closer to Ferrari in terms of tyre deg. I guess the difference this year versus last year, is that last year mercedes would still have won the race, even with their strategy error. There is still a sizeable gap though - mercedes will still say that Ferrari are a threat, it is in their interest not to look to dominant so that it keeps the FIA off their back.
 
Yup, pretty much, when Merc screw up now there is someone close enough to take advantage. Their screw ups last year didn't really cost anything except when it took the car completely out of the race.. in which case the gap to the guy behind is irrelevant, 2 seconds or 2 minutes, out of the race it's over. Williams while 2nd for a lot of last year, were 2nd because everyone else was ****, not because they were good nor very close to Mercedes. This year Ferrari have closed enough to be an issue for sure.

Though, it's easy to forget(particularly for Rosberg) that he attempted to screw up Hamilton's qualifying at Malaysia only last race with deliberate blocking on his lap, which when asked about he bs'd his way through. Had Vettel taken pole(and he was closer than Rosberg was this week) it would have been detrimental to the team and entirely on purpose.

Rosberg both complains when Hamilton has done something he perceives as bad, complains when Hamilton has done nothing, and complains or lies when he's blatantly cheated... which he has done multiple times.

But again I want to restate, how is it Hamilton can read the race and decide to back up into Rosberg to hurt his tires.... but Rosberg decides to sit in Hamilton's dirty air complaining rather than backing up into Vettel and hurting his tires on purpose. Vettel is his closest title rival, why isn't his first thought about how to compromise Vettel, why is his first thought how Hamilton should sacrifice his race to help Rosbergs... what planet is he living on? For a supposedly smart guy, he both didn't come up with that idea on his own and even when he realised what Hamilton was doing... he didn't think to do the same to Vettel.

5 races these engines have to go, Ferrari have been epically reliable for years and continue to look reliable. Why should Hamilton drive faster when Rosberg can go slower and just back into Vettel and hurt Vettel's race.

The optimum team strategy is for both cars to go as slow as possible and hurt the guys behind them. This will be the toughest five races the engine will go through this year because of heat and being earlier/less reliable engines. They also won't play around with engines. Last year you might run a new engine for Malaysia then go back to the first one after. This year because of the points, taking a new engine locks that engine into the existing spec. So Merc/Ferrari don't want to take a new engine till they've added new upgrades... that way they get the upgrades on as many engines as possible. Another reason to take as much care of this first engine as possible.

Renault/Honda are now screwed on that front. They'll just have to(presuming they sort out the engines) take a new upgraded engine in a race they feel they'll suck in, run it crazy low power then have as many good non penalty including races with it as possible. Neither has a chance of finishing the season on 4 engines.
 
The stratergy derp at the last race greatly inflated Ferrari's status and they looked closer then they should have this race as Hamilton was just chilling out front without a care in the world.
 
Just seen the Rosberg interview. Why does Louis have to speed up for him?

Why doesn't he just try and pass him like Hamilton said if he was going so slow.

He's a no.2 driver and should know his place by now. He will never be better than Hamilton and coming up with excuses won't change anything.
 
EVH said:
I think Lewis sums it up perfectly when he said "if Nico wanted to get by he could have tried, but he didn't".

Nico could have put the pressure on Lewis and forced him to speed up, but I think deep down he knew Ferrari had better tyre preservation on the long runs.
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Ferrari in no way had better tire deg. Throughout the long runs Merc were faster and showed around the same drop off. Hamilton and Vettel both did 16 lap stints(on 3-5 lap old softs, ie they had a qualifying run on them) Hamilton was a second a lap faster to start and both lost a second a lap in tire deg over the stint.

Faster + same stint length = better tire deg. At no stage, in no run and at no time in the race did Ferrari show better tire deg or they would have both stayed out longer, both gone mediums middle stint and both tried an ultra fast last stint.

One race in basically what 22 races or something since the beginning of last year has Merc had a little trouble with tires, it was when there 65c lap temps, even then the better tire deg was pretty much nonsense last race as well. Again in the long runs in practice Vettel went longer in Malaysia, but Hamilton was significantly faster every lap. The ONLY reason the slightly extra tire life but while being slower every lap worked out there was because Ferrari could in those conditions eek out a 2 stop where Merc needed to three stop.

One race doesn't change a general trend, particularly in completely not normal conditions. Merc have superior tire wear to everyone on the grid.
 
lucarocks92 said:
Just seen the Rosberg interview. Why does Louis have to speed up for him?

Why doesn't he just try and pass him like Hamilton said if he was going so slow.

He's a no.2 driver and should know his place by now. He will never be better than Hamilton and coming up with excuses won't change anything.
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Someone will say "because he would have destroyed his tires". His tires were destroyed so badly that, iirc Rosberg did an entire one lap less than Hamilton, well maybe two as he pitted first in the first stint didn't he. Destroyed is like the current way people talk. Tire wear is definitely a bit worse when stuck behind someone, destroyed, in two laps... no, hurt, sure.

Again, nothing stopped Rosberg slowing and pushing Vettel backwards as well. This would have been optimum for the team, Rosberg would be further from Hamilton, better tires for him, Vettel would be closer to Rosberg, worse tires for Vettel. Rosberg engine would be under less pressure and with slightly lower temps which means engine much more likely to last through 5 or maybe even more races.

Hamilton wasn't scared of backing up to a car a team mate in the same car, but who he knew he could out drive. Why was Rosberg scared to back up into a genuinely slower car who couldn't fight even if he really wanted to?

Hamilton did the smart thing for himself, the team, the engine and his tires. Rosberg just refused to do the same thing and back up into Vettel.

dftUNuk.png

This image was from qualifying, but was almost identical to post race and pretty much summed up the whole weekend. Hamilton unable to suppress the smile, Rosberg unable to prevent the angry face, Vettel amused by it all :p

If Vettel looked over and didn't really notice the overalls, he might swear it was Webber over there.
 
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drunkenmaster said:
Someone will say "because he would have destroyed his tires". His tires were destroyed so badly that, iirc Rosberg did an entire one lap less than Hamilton, well maybe two as he pitted first in the first stint didn't he. Destroyed is like the current way people talk. Tire wear is definitely a bit worse when stuck behind someone, destroyed, in two laps... no, hurt, sure.

Again, nothing stopped Rosberg slowing and pushing Vettel backwards as well. This would have been optimum for the team, Rosberg would be further from Hamilton, better tires for him, Vettel would be closer to Rosberg, worse tires for Vettel. Rosberg engine would be under less pressure and with slightly lower temps which means engine much more likely to last through 5 or maybe even more races.

Hamilton wasn't scared of backing up to a car a team mate in the same car, but who he knew he could out drive. Why was Rosberg scared to back up into a genuinely slower car who couldn't fight even if he really wanted to?

Hamilton did the smart thing for himself, the team, the engine and his tires. Rosberg just refused to do the same thing and back up into Vettel.
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Ye he just looked lost out there like he was stuck in limbo.

Maybe the no help from the team radio has shown how inferior he is to Hamilton now.
 
I love that picture above! Have only just seen the press conference myself. Hamiltons response was absolutely spot on and their faces say it all. Rosberg seems unable to drive without any kind of coaching. Rosberg is going on about his race - his 'race' is to beat Hamilton fair and square, he seems unable to do that and then gets upset. You can see him trying to compromise hamilton again when he gets the chance. I am glad he didn't win the championship - I never thought I would say it, but Vettel really is golden in comparison.
 
Ok race imo, not the best but hey not the worst.

Lmfao at all this butt hurt coming from Nico, I actually love it. If he keeps going the way he is I can see him having some kind of break down! Every racer and pretty much every fan doesn't see the issue, We want to see them race not drive about looking after each other.

I actually really hope Vettle reels him in and starts to cause him to really loose his ****
 
Nico obviously has never heard the phrase 'never let them see you bleed' what does he think all this crying in public is doing to Hamiltons confidence, he's feeding off it and loving it as he knows his tactics are having the desired effect!

Think this will be the last season the two of them are together. With Hamilton signing a new deal and Rosberg beginning to clearly look like a number 2 driver who believes he's a number 1 driver it's going to become untenable.
 
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