Mexican Grand Prix 2015, Mexico City - Race 17/19

Joe! said:
I don't think Red Bull ever had a 1-2s/lap advantage, and if they did, I'm pretty sure it wasn't at multiple tracks. Nothing's been as dominant as Mercedes for a long while.

Error prone? I'm not so sure. There's races like Malaysia 2015, CotA 2015, Abu Dhabi 2012, Brazil 2012 which are moments where he has had to push and has done so incredibly well - But there's races like Bahrain 2015 and Mexico 2015 which bode against that. People will always take the negatives more to heart than the positives though.

I'd like to see Vettel in the Mercedes, against Hamilton, but I don't think that's something we'll ever see sadly.
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Red Bull had a 1-2s a lap advantage at dozens of races over that 4 year period. The difference is the no.2 driver was just that and never pushed the front driver due to team tactics. Vettel routinely raced out to 8-10 seconds ahead of 3rd place with Webber being 4-5 seconds down then Vettel would slow down and cruise to the end. If Webber was 1.5 seconds behind him pushing then Vettel couldn't slow down.

This is the only difference between Merc/RBR, team orders, Rosberg keeps pushing so Hamilton doesn't slow down after 5-6 laps where as Vettel could.

The few times that Rosberg ends up several cars back mostly Hamilton will do the same, cruise out 5-10 seconds then maintain that.
 
Track definitely didn't give a good show. I thought it would from the layout, but DRS didn't seem hugely effective and the heat discouraging slipstreaming definitely didn't help.

Can only hope that different aero regs help the cars next time they are here.
 
Glaucus said:
I'm not sure he did, he went off once, other than that closed the gap to 1 second for about a lap or two then fell back, same everytime. Which to me sounds more likely brake temperature or something else. As it was the same everytime. Although they get so little air time who knows.
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ERS most likely, Hamilton was using it for consistent laps, Rosberg was doing one faster lap every 3-4 laps, doesn't really make a difference. Commentators too stupid to understand you can deploy the power differently and insisting any large gap would be down to mistakes.

While possible it was down to brake temps it's unlikely they'd cool down within a lap to start pushing again. Meh, another period of a race with extremely little coverage of the Mercs giving us less idea what is going on with them.
 
Glaucus said:
I'm not sure he did, he went off once, other than that closed the gap to 1 second for about a lap or two then fell back, same everytime. Which to me sounds more likely brake temperature or something else. As it was the same everytime. Although they get so little air time who knows.
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He dropped 0.8s in the middle sector on ONE LAP. That wasn't the lap he went off on a diversion, either.

From memory, he dropped another 0.5s in a mistake later toward the end of the GP, just as he got within DRS range. Both mistakes were missed :(
 
bayo000 said:
I wish he stayed out and then team to refuse to pit him under the safety car. Rosberg, Bottas and possibly even red bulls would overtake him at the end on better tires.
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It'd be a spiteful to refuse to pit him. They could just hold him for an extra 5 or seconds to make sure Rosberg was ahead.
 
not really, he thought he can make it till end of the race on those tires so let him do that if he thinks he knows better than team. Holding him in pits to allow other driver(s) to pass him would be spiteful.
 
Joe! said:
I don't think Red Bull ever had a 1-2s/lap advantage, and if they did, I'm pretty sure it wasn't at multiple tracks. Nothing's been as dominant as Mercedes for a long while.
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During Red Bull's most dominant years, I lost count of how many races Vettel would start from pole and be several seconds ahead in as many laps, then proceed to just disappear into the distance, so much so that he hardly ever got any coverage until the closing laps.
 
Your memory is hazy.

Vettel spent 1 season getting out of DRS zone in a couple of laps (1 second), and another half season owning once the tyres were moved back to a spec RBR liked.

Never did RBR have a 1 to 2s advantage over even their closest rivals for any length of time. Mercedes current dominance hasn't been seen for years. Nobody has been able to 1 2 races with a pitstop in hand like they have since probably the 90s.
 
Agreed. I think we've have this discussion before. They near dominated one season (2011 if memory serves), the rest of them they tended to have much better results in the second half of the season.
 
It's a regular thing for people to bring up as they just translate "won everything for 4 years" into "dominance", completely ignoring the results that underpinned those results.

2 of his championships were only just won, and at least one of the constructors should have gone to another team (McLaren for at least one of them).
 
Skeeter said:
Your memory is hazy.

Vettel spent 1 season getting out of DRS zone in a couple of laps (1 second), and another half season owning once the tyres were moved back to a spec RBR liked.

Never did RBR have a 1 to 2s advantage over even their closest rivals for any length of time. Mercedes current dominance hasn't been seen for years. Nobody has been able to 1 2 races with a pitstop in hand like they have since probably the 90s.
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Yep as I said with the stats someone posted last year, only the Mclaren of Senna and Prost won a higher percentage of the races in a single season and that's running fewer races and with a far better pairing of Senna/Prost than Fast but dim and grumpy but slow. That for me puts the car as probably the best of all time. Webber was also a far better challenge than tossberg. He could beat Vettel on his day with merit, until the pulled the rug from under him. Not that I think Vettel is better than him, he just never had an advantage anything like this one and for as long. He also had another team to battle with a genuine threat.
 
bayo000 said:
not really, he thought he can make it till end of the race on those tires so let him do that if he thinks he knows better than team. Holding him in pits to allow other driver(s) to pass him would be spiteful.
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Well no, if he made that decision and then there was a safety car the circumstances change and he would pit.
 
Hamilton won the title, and the first and race after he comes second. Why is anyone surprised? Pressure is off, does not need to win and sat on a new 3 time world champion status.
Mentally, getting back into the "zone" after this is going to be quite difficult. Sure he is a professional and should be able to cope, but it's not uncommon for form to dip after such a situation, especially when you have to perform so soon after the win!
The next race would be a better indication of his true performance and state of mind :)
That said, prodding Rosberg when he is down is very poor form and certainly irks me. He has beaten Rosberg fair and square, rubbing it in and making these comments is just not needed.
The hat incident was a storm in a teacup and just a visual indication of the frustration Rosberg was harbouring, the throw was a simple form of cathartic release. Such a release so soon after the event would not be uncommon. Imho Rosberg needs a sports psychologist and some help learning how to deal with his situation better.
 
Lewis now saying Rosberg only won because Mercedes are interested in keeping him happy. Well didn't Rosberg pit just before Lewis had to? I don't see how it was an unfair fight.
 
smr said:
Lewis now saying Rosberg only won because Mercedes are interested in keeping him happy. Well didn't Rosberg pit just before Lewis had to? I don't see how it was an unfair fight.
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Citation needed. :D

I have found "Lewis Hamilton says Mercedes have "felt the need to be extra warm" to team-mate Nico Rosberg since the Briton won his third World Championship."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/34706265

In my opinion only I think that Merc will be extra nice to Nico to try and get him ready for next year and make him feel his wanted.
 
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I still find the timing of both Mercedes to pit a second time odd/suspect.

For the last two seasons, Rosberg has tended to take a lot out of his tyres early on in stints, compared to Hamilton.

Which makes it a little odd that Rosberg came in for a second set of mediums after ~22 laps, but Hamilton was ordered to pit after after 21 laps (Rosberg came in for his first set of mediums two laps before Hamilton), IIRC.

Given they should not have had any indication that Vettel was going to crash and cause a safety car period a few laps later( :) ), I could see the logic in both Mercedes pitting, because they were more than a pitstop ahead of third at the time.

But I cannot help but think that Hamilton was forced to pit several laps too early i.e. he had several laps of "hammer time" left in those initial mediums when he was instructed to come in.
 
deuse said:
In my opinion only I think that Merc will be extra nice to Nico to try and get him ready for next year and make him feel his wanted.
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Absolutely. Whether a team operates one and two driver statuses doesn't mean they don't want both to be operating at their absolute best. Irrespective of what's going on in the championship, team bosses and engineers will always be engaging with drivers, getting their confidence up, listening to what they want - anything to ensure they're as fast as they can be on the track. Virtually all of that will go on behind the scenes. If Rosberg needs a hug and it makes him quicker, give him a hug.

Drivers are assets just like other members of the team and the equipment. They'll be looked after to get the best out of them, and that means doing different things according to what each individual needs. Lewis might be best served by being allowed to go off to the States and lay down a few tracks with his mates. Rosberg might need a pep talk and some sponsor photoshoot time to show how important he is to the team and the brand. Whatever works.
 
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