At Spa you cross the line take the first corner and then drive the wrong way back down the pitlane. I think its because the lap is too long or something similar.
Poll: Official 2024 Belgian Grand Prix Race Thread - Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps - Race 14/24
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If they were allowed to do a cool down lap then their target weight would've been lower and I think we'd still be talking about it right now.
Soldato
Exactly.
The lengths these teams go too to eek out thousands of a second, everything is calculated beyond our comprehension. Once the call to go one stop was on they will have known it would be tight with the weight, they rolled the dice and so nearly got it but alas it wasn't to be.
If they were at the sharp end of the championship and fighting for the title the risk may not have been worth it, but they aren't so why not give it a try I guess? Unlucky but rules are rules.
At least the championship seems to be getting interesting again.
I didn't realise it changed per race, in that case you're probably right.
Associate
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We are talking about teams here that use thousands of data points, measure everything in minute detail, and try and cover all eventualities.
They would have known that there was no cool down lap. Its not a new thing for this year. It would have been accounted for.
Competitive teams do not run that close to the weight limit, as the penalty is far too severe.
The engineers regularly remind the drivers to pick up rubber, for extra insurance.
There have been many races over the years that started out as multiple stops, but reverted to a one stop for various reasons.
George could not run at that pace if the tread was nearly all gone. We have all seen it happen. When these tyres run out of tread, other cars can catch you very, very quickly.
1.5kg is not a lot, but in F1 terms, its quite a chunk.
My guess is that when they went back to the old floor, something (ballast maybe?) was omitted.
It was too late to fix it, so Mercedes ignored it/turned a blind eye rather than pull the car from the race. Someone in the garage had to know it was light.
Perhaps that's the reason George was allowed to do what he wanted? Did the garage already know it maybe a problem?
The tyre thing is just a smokescreen IMO.
They would have known that there was no cool down lap. Its not a new thing for this year. It would have been accounted for.
Competitive teams do not run that close to the weight limit, as the penalty is far too severe.
The engineers regularly remind the drivers to pick up rubber, for extra insurance.
There have been many races over the years that started out as multiple stops, but reverted to a one stop for various reasons.
George could not run at that pace if the tread was nearly all gone. We have all seen it happen. When these tyres run out of tread, other cars can catch you very, very quickly.
1.5kg is not a lot, but in F1 terms, its quite a chunk.
My guess is that when they went back to the old floor, something (ballast maybe?) was omitted.
It was too late to fix it, so Mercedes ignored it/turned a blind eye rather than pull the car from the race. Someone in the garage had to know it was light.
Perhaps that's the reason George was allowed to do what he wanted? Did the garage already know it maybe a problem?
The tyre thing is just a smokescreen IMO.
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Soldato
That underweight would probably only amount to 100ths, a 10th at most, of a second and only come into effect on the last few laps.
The difference with this race is that there is no slow down lap, they're straight in at the checkered flag, hence no pick up either, as you stated and this could be a factor.
The error could also have come purely from tyre degradation and no safety car.
But your conspiracy theory must be the naffest thing I've ever heard.
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Commissario
That's blatantly not correct. The car was below the weight of all the other cars all the way through the race.
Soldato
Brundle often says in commentary that '1 litre of fuel is roughly 0.1s per lap'. Given that 1l of fuel is roughly 800g due to volumetric efficiency, and the long lap length and high speed corners at Spa, 0.2s per lap for being 1.5kg underweight doesn't seem out of the realms of possibilities. That means Russell's full race time is, at most, 9 seconds quicker than he would otherwise have been*. That would have put him in 5th place, behind Max, exactly as Mercedes originally predicted.
*This assumes that he was driving to 100% of the limit of the car for the *entire* race distance, which he clearly wasn't due to having to conserve fuel and tyre life, and also being tucked up behind other cars early in to the race. I'd guesstimate he probably gained somewhere in the region of around 4-7 seconds in pure race time because of being under weight.
*This assumes that he was driving to 100% of the limit of the car for the *entire* race distance, which he clearly wasn't due to having to conserve fuel and tyre life, and also being tucked up behind other cars early in to the race. I'd guesstimate he probably gained somewhere in the region of around 4-7 seconds in pure race time because of being under weight.
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Soldato
It also assumes other cars would be able to pass. We saw throughout the race that unless the cars had a big tyre offset, it was difficult to pass.
It would be interesting to see the dry weight comparison of both Mercedes, without tyres.
It would be interesting to see the dry weight comparison of both Mercedes, without tyres.
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Maybe, but stranger things have happened in F1. The crash at Singapore was not on purpose, until it was.
Either way, there is more to this than the tyres alone.
Caporegime
If Russell had done the expected 2 stop, and if its true that the one stop caused the underweight, then he would have been above weight for the entire race. It doesn't make sense to think of him as being underweight or not all the way to lap 40 (or whatever) depending on a decision made on whether to stop at that point.
The one stop didn't cause him to be underweight, otherwise this would've happened many times before. You have to have a margin of safety so that you can't drop below the minimum weight with extra tyre wear from a one stopper. Even if George's car was above the minimum weight for part of the race, the advantage he had over other cars that had an adequate margin of safety would still have been more than 1.5kg.
Soldato
They changed his floor overnight on Friday. It's most likely that they forgot to transfer the ballast when they changed them over. This would also explain why Toto wasn't celebrating when George won - they'd probably discovered the mistake before the end of the race and he knew what was coming.
The whole 2->1 stop and lack of tyre pickup explanations don't seem plausible to me.
The whole 2->1 stop and lack of tyre pickup explanations don't seem plausible to me.
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Caporegime
No, because at any other track they'd easily make up the difference by picking up marbles. It's only the combination of a fine margin, an unexpected one stop, and the unusual cooldown arrangements at Spa that could combine in this way. Mercedes usually post a debrief on YouTube, I guess that will confirm whether or not the one stop explanation is correct.
No, because they knew they wouldn't be able to pick up marbles and this would've already factored into their weight calculations, or at least it should have. At any other track they'd target a lower weight than at Spa due to being able to pick up marbles. Obviously they got it wrong though so their error could've been not factoring in no marble pickup at Spa, but the cause would've been an error in their weight calculations, not the one stop.
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Caporegime
Mercedes have put up their debrief:
tl;dw: Russell and Lewis' cars were the same weight to within 500g at the start of the race, any difference in the final weight came from higher tyre wear on George's car and greater weight loss (through sweat, etc.) from the driver.
tl;dw: Russell and Lewis' cars were the same weight to within 500g at the start of the race, any difference in the final weight came from higher tyre wear on George's car and greater weight loss (through sweat, etc.) from the driver.
Soldato
Everyone knows the real reason it was under weight.
George eat all the stored haribos
George eat all the stored haribos
Commissario
How does a driver sweating reduce the weight of the car?
Associate
I love the idea that George has caused his own DNF by simply sweating too much.How does a driver sweating reduce the weight of the car?
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