Which also would have made for more excitement.
I think Verstappen’s pit stop was a good call. They couldn’t have known that Hamilton would blow a tire, and there was the possibility that Verstappen would blow a tire. By pitting, they eliminated the possibility of Verstappen blowing a tire and also got the near-certainty of a point for fastest lap, so on balance it was a smart choice. There is also the fact that, realistcally, they are racing for second place in the championship anyway.
Aye but the Hulk got third in quali.
What a great strategy by Red Bull! They learned from last week. Looks like Merc has some issues in the heat.
Well, as a national champion used to say at the beginning of every beginner’s autocross walk-through he did:
What’s the third most important thing on a race car?
Tires.
What’s the second most important thing on a race car?
Tires.
What’s the most important thing on a race car?
Tires.
It’s literally the place where the rubber meets the road, after all. I actually am pretty happy when tire strategy is part of a race. The question in my mind is: The merc has the snazzy dual axis steering, which seems like it should be more gentle on the tires, especially on the fronts. Are they just cranking down on the aero since they’re losing less drag through alignment and overheating the tires? (Yeah, I know a factual answer probably isn’t at hand.)
That dual access steering, as far as I understand, is actually used to increase the toe angle, to help warm the tires on formation and safety car laps. So it wouldn’t be useful to decrease tire wear.
Hmm, everything I’ve heard about the DAS is that it’s to lower drag/wear by lowering toe on the straights when actually racing, and increasing the toe back to the normal setting one would expect for a corner when you get to those. I haven’t heard of it being used to heat the tires on warm up laps.
Wow. Today’s race was a real snoozer. Not enjoying this season at all.
We need the rain to influence a few races. We’ve had too few wet races over the past few seasons.
True, except history suggests rain will simply increase Hamilton’s dominance.
Not a classic.
What may be rather ominous is the reaction of Mercedes to the tyre degradation issues seen at Silverstone. The team seem confident now that they have at least identified some potential causes and means of mitigation. Part of that mitigation seems to be in the hands of the driver and few people are better suited to execute it than Hamilton. There was a step up in tyre grade this week but temperatures were similar and even the “soft” this week was behaving itself better than when it was the “medium” last week. All circuits are subtly different of course and the exact mix of casual factors may never be known but the bald facts were that Hamilton was cruising at the front, probably a full second or more off the car’s potential and still the Red Bull couldn’t get near and it was the RB this week that was having tyre issues and rumours of very competitive race pace didn’t really materialise…go figure.
Looking at the remaining races, we are unlikely to see such extremes in the rest of the season. Wet races may well come into play but, as Dead_Cat said, there is one person in particular that would benefit from that.
I hope Hamilton breaks Schumacher’s records this year, it is looking likely, and then we can perhaps look forward to a 2021 with Alonso back in the saddle, Ferrari in better shape and Norris/Ricciardo in merc powered McLarens. (and I predict a left-field Red Bull change for Albon if his poor form continues)
Hamilton has benefitted from fewer seasons in an uncompetitive (or less competitive) car than Schumacher had but nevertheless has been consistently excellent for a very long time and for that reasons ‘deserves’ to take his record, I guess he’ll probably continue for a couple more seasons and look to crack 100 wins, I personally doubt he will follow the well-trodden path of former champions and play out his ‘twilight’ years at lesser teams but you never know.
The extent of his dominance of the sport was really brought home to me by the following quiz question that I composed recently (having heard/seen the answer to it in another context):
Lewis Hamilton is the only driver ever to have accomplished what during his Formula One career?
a) At least one pole position on every track at which he has competed
b) At least one race win in every season in which he has competed
c) At least one fastest lap at some point in every race in which he has competed
d) At least one podium finish in every country in which he has competed
The correct answer is b), but when I came to check the ‘wrong’ options I was shocked to discover how close he was to a) and d) (I haven’t checked c) but sheer number of races make it obviously impossible) - he is only missing Turkey for a) and India for d) (if I recall correctly), both of which only had a GP for 3 or 4 seasons before dropping out of the calendar again. I chose them because I thought them plausible (at least for non-F1 fans) but probably well out of reach.
The slight advantage that Schumacher had was that he was a designated number 1 driver in his team. Which meant Ferrari gave him the best parts and there were team orders in place to allow him to be able to overtake his team mate without a fight. I’m not saying this to undermine Michael’s record, because he is clearly one of all time greats. However Lewis has always had to compete against a team mate in an equal car with equal treatment (although in the past season or two I think Bottas might have questioned that).
Good point - had that not been the case, Hamilton would certainly have won more races (and the title) in the 2016 season. There may have been other times when there were some team orders in Hamilton’s favour, but I think only on the odd occasion when it was important to defend a championship lead.
We should remember as well that not only were Schumacher’s team-mates a definite no.2, Hamilton has had three other world champions as his team-mates and had to race them on an equal footing.
He’s extraordinarily good and his hard racing also has the benefit of being consistently fair and respectful in a way that Schumacher’s and Senna’s sometimes were not.
His true worth can sometimes be muddied by the machinery he drives but that was ever the case for any of the greats (simply because the best machinery attracts the best drivers). However, alongside the other all-time greats he has the qualities that mean he can win races in a shit car, win championships in a good car and dominate in a great car.
I am a bit surprised that we haven’t really discussed the Racing Point hubbub. Though I don’t know if anything will come from the appeal filed by other teams, RP completely copying a 2019 Merc didn’t really have that much of a punishment. Does that incentivize other teams from doing similar and taking a few WDC punishment points and fine? If it gets caught - since RP was basically flaunting it.
I’m on Racing Point’s side on that. They legally purchased the design last year, and used that design this year. It seems to me if it was legal for them to buy the design, they shouldn’t be required to forget that knowledge that they acquired.
Yeah, I’m with you on this one. Even if they designed their own this year, the old ducts would be the starting point, at least. If you can’t improve on the one you have, you’d keep using the design of the old duct.
And really, I’d prefer that there was a market of easily purchase-able competitive parts, such as the DFV was in years long past. But I don’t know how you’d make that happen.
I confess I don’t see what the big deal is about the RP cars. You can buy straight copies of the engines and I can’t see any problem with copying anything on any other other car. Wouldn’t bother me in the slightest if any team provided a straight carbon copy of a previous car to another team, I don’t see how that harms the competetive nature of the sport (but it is certainly harmful to the title chances of the team doing the supplying)
The far bigger scandal is the cheating at Ferrari last year with a ruling that has seen them drop down the grid and yet there has been no ruling made public, no points deductions and no fine, just a private “settlement”