Spanish Grand Prix 2015, Catalunya - Race 5/19

ham has been going flat out all race and rosberg cruising and ham has only used 200g of fuel more.

While it hurts tires being in the slipstream of another car saves fuel as you have less drag, it's why slipstreaming works. So you can save a little fuel, also Rosberg was faster than Hamilton till his second pitstop. However as hard as Hamilton pushed on the third stint his fuel usage is still impressive.


Ted, seriously, he never seems to know anything. Mercedes cars are trying to make Montreal, token upgrades. Take a new engine before then and you'll have one engine less with upgrades. Ted should really know that.

This is what I was getting at, if Hamilton pushed hard and required a new engine for Monaco because they didn't trust it, he'd then have 4-5 races on the current engine spec, Rosberg would have 4 races on the new engine spec.
 
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if ham had a good start we could have had a battle for first.

Actually fairly unlikely. Only on different tires has overtaking been a genuine possibility unless the cars are very different in overall speed, IE lotus/RBR on the TR's.

If Hamilton wasn't stuck behind Vettel, he'd have been 1-2 seconds behind Rosberg and Rosberg/Hamilton would have been on the same strategy for the whole race.

The only reason they are on different strategy is because they weren't fighting in the first place.
 
Ted, seriously, he never seems to know anything. Mercedes cars are trying to make Montreal, token upgrades. Take a new engine before then and you'll have one engine less with upgrades. Ted should really know that.

going to montreal would be crazy on a 6th use engine, its flat out like monza, would be new engine i would have thought. unless they just use it for practices.
 
going to montreal would be crazy on a 6th use engine, its flat out like monza, would be new engine i would have thought. unless they just use it for practices.

Going all the way to MOntreal on the first engine, as in, getting there. They are supposedly bringing a new spec engine to Montreal so you gain a HUGE advantage if you can use one engine until Montreal, then use the second one there, which will be an upgraded/token used/reliability update applied engine.

If you take one at Monaco, then you'd end up using the old spec engine for Monaco, Montreal and two more races, all of which your team mate would have the new spec engine and maybe 20-50bhp extra.

Ferrari had updates planned for here, but they got pushed back. They didn't believe they could make it to Montreal on a single engine so when they found out about the delay they took a new engine and planned 3 races a piece on two old spec engines, and new spec engines from Montreal. They will either take a penalty or use the old spec later in the season at less power limited tracks, ones they feel they can't fight Mercedes in at all.

Ferrari haven't been as close as people think I don't believe, for one, downforce tracks they are obviously miles ahead(though Ferrari compromised their strategy here poorly). But it's Mercedes attempting to go 6 races on one engine for a engine advantage through the rest of the year that has held back their total pace advantage at power tracks.
 
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and now for sky to go on about how rosberg is back and confidence etc etc.

Yup, will be painful. Expecting Hamilton to win every race is nuts, I said last year and every year. Regardless of how good a driver is they'll have bad weekends or bad races, or a epic weekend and a great race or speed. Also preferred tracks or hated tracks. Kimi DID beat Alonso sometimes, it happens.

It could also be tactical, if you have a choice of which races to use X amount of power, it's in Rosberg's interest to save power for a track which is exceptionally hard to pass at like Barcelona or Monaco, than for Bahrain or elsewhere.

SO Rosberg may have decided he can't win the first 4 races and saved power to use here, to get at least one win.
 
Shame about hams bad stop, without being stuck behind vettel I think we would have won it

Almost no chance. He couldn't pass Vettel who had a much slower car when on the same tires/tire age. It was only on a contra strategy that he could pass other cars here. Had he gotten by Vettel he'd have gained and probably closed the gap but in being close and in competition Rosberg would have just had the same strategy as Hamilton, they'd both have one or two stopped, Rosberg would have come in first both times and gained a second or two each time.

Rubbish track frankly, of course there is a possibility that Rosberg could have made a mistake under pressure, for sure, but this track doesn't lend itself to that. Other tracks there is more chance to overtake in corners if one guy over/under brakes but somewhere like here or Monaco you can be pretty conservative in braking and entering corners because it's so hard to pass you don't need to be on the limit in the same car on the same tires to defend well.

Hamilton's only real chance of winning was a Rosberg mechanical failure or passing him at the start.
 
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Great weekend by Rosberg, happy to see a fight for the championship.

Fantastic recovery by Hamilton to grab 2nd.

Vettel needs to have a word with the strategy guys about that one.
 
Ferrari aren't remotely close to Mercedes on pace, I think this race proves that. Rosberg and Vettel on a two stop, Merc cruising, Vettel clearly being pushed to go faster by Hamilton yet still no where near Rosberg. They were 5-10 seconds slower per stint easily. Both engine saving for Merc tactical reasons and the early season more power focused races on a car that mostly improved in downforce rather than downright speed meant Merc didn't look as fast as they really are.

Australia suggested the pace difference but new car, massively changed engine, new driver and Vettel got 'stuck' behind Massa(or Bottas, forget which) left a small question mark about how much they would improve with experience and how much they were held up. Answer is not much to both. Merc appeared to be cruising in China and Bahrain, winning as slowly as possible being the saying banded around. There is a reason for that, Merc trying to save engine life.

Season could be interesting, tactical reasons mean Ferrari are closer than they should have been and got a win they didn't expect. IF, and it's a big if, Ferrari's engine upgrades bring bigger performance gains than Mercedes, then the rest of the season may be closer as well. However, it looks like Ferrari will either have to use the older engine spec at points later in the season or take an engine penalty at one race.
 
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