Hungarian Grand Prix 2016, Budapest - Race 11/21

[drunkenmaster]

No different to what Lewis said in Mexico last year.

Except Hamilton was close enough to pass for a long portion of the race and attempted to. Rosberg never got within reach of an attempt to pass.

If you spend a dozen or more laps under a second and some of them within a few tenths and at least look for a move at the end of straights or into certain corners but can't find the gap due to the track it's a perfectly valid thing to say. When you spend 95% of the race over 1.5 seconds from the guy in front, you fail to close the gap at any time yourself and only gain for a lap at a time to under 1 second due to traffic or a lock up and even in that situation the guy ahead pulled away ridiculously easily... it's not valid to say the track prevented you from overtaking.

Rosberg was stupidly close after some traffic and then Hamilton's slight lock up, he was around 3/10ths down with a couple corners to the start finish yet didn't come close to having a go even then.

Vettel could just as easily claim he couldn't pass Hamilton because of the track, he also never once looked to overtake Hamilton.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Devil's advocate...

Did Rosberg knowingly hold back because he didn't have the race pace? Theoretically, he may have suspected that the track was hard to overtake at and thought he could afford to sit back in 2nd. This way he would also be saving his engine and playing the long game (as Hamilton has less engines available anyway).

Perhaps it's giving him the benefit of the doubt, but it would be smart to save the engine when you have a numbers advantage and not much to gain (relatively speaking).

 

[Deathwish]

Rosberg was a good 35+ seconds behind Alonso (Hamilton was the car behind Alonso) so the team had plenty of time to advise him on the situation on track and presumably told him that Alonso had recovered in time too.

Drivers/Teams should not override the safety (required at that time) that is displayed by marshalls and/or the FIA.

 

[Steampunk]

Devil's advocate...

Did Rosberg knowingly hold back because he didn't have the race pace? Theoretically, he may have suspected that the track was hard to overtake at and thought he could afford to sit back in 2nd. This way he would also be saving his engine and playing the long game (as Hamilton has less engines available anyway).

Perhaps it's giving him the benefit of the doubt, but it would be smart to save the engine when you have a numbers advantage and not much to gain (relatively speaking).

Rosberg has more engines and Hamilton will have to take a penalty. Why hold back when you have the advantage of more engines, and allow Hamilton to gain extra points to offset the race where he's going to take an engine penalty? If anyone was preserving their engine, it was Hamilton, because he's lost so many this year.

Rosberg is not that clever, but if he thought he could win the world championship be getting all second/third places, then he would, because his wheel-to-wheel racing is a real weak point without the dominant car to flatter him.

 

[Skeeter]

Exactly. It was in Rosbergs best interest to push Hamilton regardless of if he ever managed to pass.

As it was he seemed to just give up after 3 corners. That is not what makes a WDC.

 

[The_Abyss]

Dullest race of the year. Most interesting point was the Merc drivers bickering about yellow flags and the continued failure of the FIA and stewards to do anything useful.

 

[Merlin5]

Speaking about Susie Wolff, Steve Jones asked both her and Coulthard who they each think would win or be on pole, (I can't recall if it was qualis or the race day) and they both gave their prediction after which Steve Jones said "so there you have it from the man!" or words to that effect, leaving Susie Wolff smiling as she does and no doubt feeling totally ignored, lol.

 

[dannyjo22]

The aggression I got in return for suggesting that after a few races that people on here wrote Hamilton off to early, well look at this now. Top of the championship. Hamilton must be the happiest driver on he grid that they re-signed rosberg.

Utterly horrific that such a bang average racer has so many wins.

 

[CaptainRAVE]

The aggression I got in return for suggesting that after a few races that people on here wrote Hamilton off to early, well look at this now. Top of the championship. Hamilton must be the happiest driver on he grid that they re-signed rosberg.

Utterly horrific that such a bang average racer has so many wins.

It did look like it was all over - it still might be, Hamilton has penalties incoming and with a bit more bad luck it could be enough to swing it in Rosber's favour.

I agree though - Rosberg should not have as many wins and I hope he doesn't get the championship. Changeable conditions e.g. Monaco and Silverstone really show him up tbh.

 

[Skeeter]

Our assumption was also based on Ferrari not turning into a wowful distant 3rd place team.

 

[Flibster]

When Hamilton needs a new engine, I'd do what McLaren did last year a couple of times.

New engine for FP1 - 10 place penalty.
New engine for FP2 - 10 place penalty.
New engine for FP3 onwards - 10 place penalty.

3 complete engines for the remaining races and one terrible qualifying position. Do it somewhere like Monza and he's got an above reasonable chance of moving forward.

 

[MooMoo444]

Seems a bit abusive of the rules, surprised if you're able to still do that, but yes - 2nd should be doable at Monza even starting last.

 

[Skeeter]

Hamilton has already suggested exactly this to the team. He wants to take 2 complete Power Units (a new one of each of the 6 components). Taking a new complete PU automatically means a pitlane or back of grid start (can't remember which) but penalties don't roll over so taking 2 is no worse than taking 1.

Edit: back of grid start. http://classic.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/125338/.

It prevents him getting any late upgrades though.

 

[SKILL]

Yeah, got to be the way to go, perhaps no late upgrades but they won't make a massive difference (certainly not the same as getting another grid penalty).

All he really has to do is survive Germany, either Spa or (preferably) Monza would be ok to start from the back of the grid and get top 5 fairly comfortably if not 2nd, pain taken for little points loss (depending on Germany perhaps still in the lead) and job done.

 

[Flibster]

After the British GP (most recent info I have at the moment) Hamilton had used:

3 Internal Combustion Engines
5 Turbo Chargers
5 MGU-H
3 MGU-K
3 Energy Stores
3 Control Electronics.

Compared to Rosberg's car:

3 Internal Combustion Engines
3 Turbo Chargers
3 MGU-H
2 MGU-K
2 Energy Stores
2 Control Electronics

 

[The_Abyss]

Hamilton has already suggested exactly this to the team. He wants to take 2 complete Power Units (a new one of each of the 6 components). Taking a new complete PU automatically means a pitlane or back of grid start (can't remember which) but penalties don't roll over so taking 2 is no worse than taking 1.

Edit: back of grid start. http://classic.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/125338/.

It prevents him getting any late upgrades though.

I don't mean to diminish Hamilton's strategic capacity for planning a whole race season but I'm pretty sure that the team might just have thought of the same approach, along with a few others....

 

[SKILL]

After the British GP (most recent info I have at the moment) Hamilton had used:

3 Internal Combustion Engines
5 Turbo Chargers
5 MGU-H
3 MGU-K
3 Energy Stores
3 Control Electronics.

Compared to Rosberg's car:

3 Internal Combustion Engines
3 Turbo Chargers
3 MGU-H
2 MGU-K
2 Energy Stores
2 Control Electronics

iirc the rules are a 10 place penalty for the first '6th' item, then 5 place for other 6th items, 10 place for the first 7th and 5 for other 7th items?

If so could he take 2x Turbo's and 2x MGU-H's in a single race, for a ~30 place penalty (or 3x of each for all the difference it makes at that point) whilst keeping everything else on the 3rd or 4th allowing upgrades if applicable?

 

[KiNgPiN83]

iirc the rules are a 10 place penalty for the first '6th' item, then 5 place for other 6th items, 10 place for the first 7th and 5 for other 7th items?

If so could he take 2x Turbo's and 2x MGU-H's in a single race, for a ~30 place penalty (or 3x of each for all the difference it makes at that point) whilst keeping everything else on the 3rd or 4th allowing upgrades if applicable?

I'm sure i read somewhere though that if you go over the penalty place count, i.e. 22 grid places then then whatever left over is then anything from a race time penalty to drive through during the race? i.e. Get a 30 place penalty, qualify 1st, drop to the back then the 8 or so remaining places you cant drop are turned into a penalty?

It was done to stop people just abusing it. i.e. Honda last year building a new engine every race...

 

[Skeeter]

I don't mean to diminish Hamilton's strategic capacity for planning a whole race season but I'm pretty sure that the team might just have thought of the same approach, along with a few others....

Have you read the articles? Hamilton has suggested it, while Toto is playing it down and trying to find ways to avoid doing it.

 

[Syla5]

The reasons why they are hoping to go as long as possible with what they have is so that they can still develop and deploy tokens in the year.

If Hamilton unlocks 2 new PU's ahead of any upgrades it means he either has to unlock further PU's so that they can deploy the upgrades or it locks in Rosberg as well to the same spec of engine...at least for inter team balance it will.

Then it becomes a really tough choice for the team management, if Hamilton has unlocked PU's before token deployment do they deploy tokens and let just Rosberg benefit, and give Hamilton the tough choice of having to start from the back again to unlock the developments!

I personally feel that the drivers should not be punished with issues caused by the constructors and constructors championship points penalties should be put in place for all such issues.
PU over the limit 10% of your points. Gearbox change out of cycle due to failure 2%. Unauthorised Radio Comms 5%.

How many times have we seen good racing or the potential of good races been impacted by fear of driver punishment - Hamilton in Baku for example. If the team knew the penalty would be 5% CCP's they may well have instantly told him the solution and then think about how much more interesting that race would have been! 14 extra laps of Hamilton charging up and even possibly challenging for the lead if he had got past Vettel and Perez.

While we are at it, gearbox change penalties that are due to damage caused in an accident should not suffer a penalty at all! No one in their right mind is going to crash on purpose just to change a gearbox out of cycle.