Soldato
Malaysian Grand Prix 2015, Kuala Lumpur - Race 2/19
- Thread starter Shimmy
- Start date
Soldato
Agreed. Great drive today!
To be fair, you only have to look at the gap between Vet and Hammy after the first stop, and how it was closed to realise that this all fell down to strategy and tyres. To still close a 24 second gap shows that Mercedes probably have nothing to worry about.....
I expect to see him in the second merc seat next to hamilton before too long.
Caporegime
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 33,188
He was faster at every point of the race effectively except stuck behind traffic just after the safety car and towards the end of that overly long stupid stint. If they hadn't tried to go long and had been on a two stop(after safety car) strategy Hamilton would certainly have won... Rosberg was going to be more marginal as Rosberg was losing time to Vettel even in the first few laps.
Vettel was also a little faster at the end of the Ham's soft tire stint before his final pitstop but that doesn't matter. Also even with all the strategy mistakes if they'd put him on even the slightly used mediums at the end he'd likely have been on his tail pipe and potentially got by him at the end.
Ferrari have closed their race pace massively, the heat helped them massively but the main reason they won was Merc strategy mistakes. Ferrari have a to a degree, newer car, newer engine with bigger changes and likely more gains to be made from tweaking. I think this race is just an outlier, they are further back in general but they'll close further throughout the season.
Every car has good and bad tracks, when your car is say 1.5 seconds faster per lap in race pace, you'll be ahead still in the cars worst tracks and MILES ahead in their best tracks. When the gap is closer to 0.5 seconds, then the bad races bring the cars behind to the point where they can win.
So it's great that Ferrari have brought an engine that has closed the race pace gap. There will be the tracks Merc are great that Ferrari will be further back and more tracks like this where Ferrari will be right on top of Merc.
Shame Williams haven't really improved over last year at all, they were always bad in both rain and high tire deg tracks so even with a lower downforce track this place didn't suit them at all.
Ferrari had the pace all weekend on long runs, that was evident to see on Friday.
Thoroughly deserved win for Vettel and for Kimi to be 4th having started 11th and suffered from a puncture on the 1st lap.
This is great for F1, Horner should do less talking of the track and more on it.
Thoroughly deserved win for Vettel and for Kimi to be 4th having started 11th and suffered from a puncture on the 1st lap.
This is great for F1, Horner should do less talking of the track and more on it.
Soldato
What a mess Merc made of that lol. Looks like it could be spicey at the front then, should keep things intresting.
Just goes to show if you keep your head down and work hard, you can catch Merc, what's Redbulls excuse?
Just goes to show if you keep your head down and work hard, you can catch Merc, what's Redbulls excuse?
Associate
In my opinion Mercedes threw this away at the first pit stop. I know that is a conservative opinion and a few what if's thrown in but was there any need to pit instantly after the safety car? Were they too confident they could match the Ferrari pace on the mediums with their hards? I think normal service will be resumed come two weeks in Shanghai. I feel they put more effort into their long runs come FP2 as well.
Associate
It also seems with the new breathing techniques, Nico Rosberg has suddenly turned into the German Rubens Barrichello...
Yeah Ferrari have ruined that one.. Lol! Red bull/Renault just need to knuckle down. I also can't help but feel Mercedes were a bit cocky today. So it could get worse for everyone if Mercedes decide to go for it every race. Although to be fair to them it's been a while since they've had these kinds of issues to worry about.
I'm worried for mclaren though, regardless of how good they say their package is they are chasing an ever moving target and need to be increasing their relative pace every race otherwise it could be a couple of years before they are back up there again..
Man of Honour
Hamilton may have had the victory if Mercedes didn't use their tyres up in qualifying needlessly. A shame, as the frown on Rosberg's face would have been stellar.
Soldato
Worth watching on iPlayer? Overslept, lol!
Soldato
I should imagine Sliver is doing the same right now..
Soldato
Missed the race but delighted to see Ferrari winning again.
Feel bad for Alonso, he has driven the wheels off the cars he was given at Ferrari and his arch enemy gets a better car than he was ever given on his first year there.
Feel bad for Alonso, he has driven the wheels off the cars he was given at Ferrari and his arch enemy gets a better car than he was ever given on his first year there.
Caporegime
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 33,188
I don't like or dislike any team, I like teams doing a good job. I see F1 as a technical and driving race, teams making big technical leaps is great to see.
Brundle however was banging on about how Ferrari had this on pure pace, Brundle and frankly Sky F1 were fawning all over Ferrari as if tire deg was the only importance. Yes they could 2 stop where Merc really needed to three stop, but that is because they were faster. A properly run race and while Vettel would have been close behind and potentially even kept Hamilton behind him(as Ham would have needed to pass him on the final stint), would not have been the fastest car. 2 stopping over 3 on the same pace is epic, 2 stopping over 3 when you can be 0.5 seconds faster a lap over 56 laps isn't a winning car. Ferrari were MUCH closer than they've been for ages, but that wasn't a pure win.
As for driving, I'm not convinced Ferrari's pace is good. I think this year what we'll see is maybe rather than the hopeful and predicted battle between Williams, Ferrari and RBR... what we might get instead is Merc 1-2, a gap, Ferrari 3-4, a gap, Williand 5-6, a gap, RBR 7-8.
Cars closer to the front is only good if they can compete with them and go toe to toe, 30 seconds or 10 seconds behind doesn't mean anything to me at all. I'd prefer to see Merc run off into the distance but have Ferrari/Williams/RBR around the same pace so they fight throughout a race.
Maybe Ferrari will be better than I think but at I would think 2/3rd's or more of races this year Ferrari will be closer but still a decent gap behind the Mercs. I don't really care where the racing is, for 1st/2nd, or for 5th/6th, 10th/11th, whatever, racing is racing, actual position doesn't mean much to me.
I think all we've seen is Ferrari likely move away from the pack but that just reduces the size of the racing pack. The one real advantage is that with Kimi's current magnetism to being hit, we might see him fighting through the field almost every race this year
