Salt Bailly
Auburn, not Ginger.
Yes.Am I the only one who thinks David Coulthard's voice is nearing Jackie Stewart's with increasing age?
Yes.Am I the only one who thinks David Coulthard's voice is nearing Jackie Stewart's with increasing age?
Hard to judge, I don't think Ham was losing a significant amount of time though at that point?Ocon lost 25s to Stroll and 15s to Giovanazzi in 9 laps. So i seriously doubt it.
Hard to judge, I don't think Ham was losing a significant amount of time though at that point?
We've seen before that Hamilton is able to keep his tyres together better than anybody. The only risk was the tyres popping but they didn't seem that bad at the end of the race when they showed them either.
Have you seen the rest of the forum?Really bad decision to bring Lewis is. At worst he would’ve been taken by Perez if he’d stayed out and even that’s not a foregone conclusion. Very few we’re getting past late in the race.
Max big favourite for the title now.
This thread has some horrendous posts in it.
Also, discussion has been a lot better the past two races. I'm enjoying the thread again.Have you seen the rest of the forum?
He lost 1.5 seconds to both Perez and Leclerc on lap 50, with a ~10 second advantage. With 8 laps to go, you'd have to say the latter two would be favoured to get past him, especially as tyre degradation got worse.
Hamilton is of course unbelievable at looking out for his tyres but much of that advantage will have been negated by his overtaking early on. And with all due respect I think you're overlooking the exponential rate of tyre decline - here's what Ocon's tyres looked like at the end of the race, and he also said that he thought with one more lap he'd have had a puncture:
Should be carbon fibre?That looks awfully close to a blow out (from my naive understanding of the tyre structure). Anyone know what the exposed surface is?
Thought Merc should've pitted around the same time as Max, he then would be on settled inters to repass a couple and then take Perez and Leclerc near the end. After Perez pitted I would've responded to any closing of the pit window to him, no point losing time, clearly the track wasn't drying enough but you need to pit when it's still fairly wet, especially after all the overtaking he'd done before. Both Merc and Lewis dragged it out longer than needed a couple of times. Lewis had the lap time to make this a lot closer, 11th to 5th in the wet is not that good.
He lost 1.5 seconds to both Perez and Leclerc on lap 50, with a ~10 second advantage. With 8 laps to go, you'd have to say the latter two would be favoured to get past him, especially as tyre degradation got worse.
Hamilton is of course unbelievable at looking out for his tyres but much of that advantage will have been negated by his overtaking early on. And with all due respect I think you're overlooking the exponential rate of tyre decline - here's what Ocon's tyres looked like at the end of the race, and he also said that he thought with one more lap he'd have had a puncture:
that circle is the outer tread completely worn away. the inner part is the carcass which is usually still made of rubber but a harder structure. that wouldn’t be giving any grip.That looks awfully close to a blow out (from my naive understanding of the tyre structure). Anyone know what the exposed surface is?
Also, discussion has been a lot better the past two races. I'm enjoying the thread again.![]()
Did Merc have to take the engine penalty here as well? Otherwise was it an error to do so?
It seemed fairly clear throughout that they had a significant advantage here. Without the penalty, it probably ends with Hamilton 1st and Verstappen 3rd, so a 20 point difference to what actually happened. If they instead took it at a course where Max had the edge, and let’s say Lewis came 7th, then that’s only a 12 point loss (-7 without the penalty, -19 with it).
Yeah there were a few posts on here before the race about how it seemed like a poor decision, hard to understand the Mercedes thinking behind taking the penalty this week.
Really? Mercedes are looking bigger favourites than ever before right now. They were absolutely dominant on pace in Turkey and Honda have no answer for Mercedes’ recent boost in power.It has improved massively, although there have still been plenty of childish posts.
Still, it seems that as it's become more clear that the title is going to Max, there's less stress from his fans - even Christian Horner has been sensible for a couple of weeks!
Max luck would see Lewis’ tyre blow out when comfortably leading and looking set for victory. Lewis has been the lucky one this season by some margin. The fact that Max is still leading the championship is frankly astounding.It's all going Max's way, lewis needs Max's luck.to change.
Really? Mercedes are looking bigger favourites than ever before right now. They were absolutely dominant on pace in Turkey and Honda have no answer for Mercedes’ recent boost in power.
Mercedes have been faster everywhere since Silverstone (with the exception of Zandvoort)
Max luck would see Lewis’ tyre blow out when comfortably leading and looking set for victory. Lewis has been the lucky one this season by some margin. The fact that Max is still leading the championship is frankly astounding.
I agree that Hamilton needs Max's luck in the next weeks. 1 or 2 DNF from chrashes for Hamilton wouldn't be bad for Max and Red Bull.We'll never know but I think it was the wrong call by Mercedes. Then again he might have got a puncture and a DNF.
It's all going Max's way, lewis needs Max's luck.to change.
Really? Mercedes are looking bigger favourites than ever before right now. They were absolutely dominant on pace in Turkey and Honda have no answer for Mercedes’ recent boost in power.
Mercedes have been faster everywhere since Silverstone (with the exception of Zandvoort)
Max luck would see Lewis’ tyre blow out when comfortably leading and looking set for victory. Lewis has been the lucky one this season by some margin. The fact that Max is still leading the championship is frankly astounding.
I agree that Hamilton needs Max's luck in the next weeks. 1 or 2 DNF from chrashes for Hamilton wouldn't be bad for Max and Red Bull.
Turkey is/was a better overtaking track to regain positions. Compared to other circuits on the calendar they felt this would give them the easiest opportunity to make up ground.
I understand that. However, the way I see it is this - he has been dominant here enough to have a great chance of winning. The points gap between 1st and 2nd is 7 points, whereas the gap in points decreases between positions if you go further down.
I understand he has a great pace and it’s a good track to overtake but realistically he probably wouldn’t catch Bottas or Verstappen. Let’s assume Max wins for the sake of the argument and Lewis makes it back to second. He loses 7 points. Conversely Lewis doesn’t take the penalty and finishes first - he gains 7 points.
However if they took it on a track where he is already worse than Max because it favours RB, even if he finishes 6th, he would lose 10 points compared to second. Basically, to lose out the 7 points he is always scheduled to lose, he is better off doing so on a track he is worse at.
Let’s say Lewis takes the penalty here, comes second. Then the next track favours red bull, so he comes second anyway. That ends up as -14.
Let’s say he doesn’t take it here and wins. He goes into the next race which favours red bull at +7. He then takes the penalty at that track. To get to the same net position. (-14), and assuming Max wins, he would need to place only 8th to equal a net position of -14.
I know hindsight is 20/20, but this was as close to a guaranteed win as you can get, which was thrown away to favour tracks that are known to favour the Red Bull. Plenty suspected it would backfire and it has. Really poor decision.
1. Mercedes was much faster than Red Bull in Hungary qualifyingThat just simply isn't true. Hungary Max was taken out, Spa max won (a farce I know, but fasted in qualifying too), Zandvoort Max won, Monza Max crashed (but was faster and got torpedoed by a terrible pit stop). It's only Sochi and Turkey that Mercedes had the advantage. And now we're heading into a bunch of tracks that should heavily favour the RB.
1. Mercedes was much faster than Red Bull in Hungary qualifying
2. Mercedes looked significantly faster than Red Bull in Spa on Friday but rain blurred the picture.
3. Mercedes was much faster than Red Bull in Monza. The only reason why that wasn’t a straight forward Hamilton win was because his abysmal start in the sprint.
Mercedes has been the clear best car since that monstrous Silverstone upgrade. I recommend that you read this article:
https://the-race.com/formula-1/mark-hughes-verstappen-right-to-worry-about-mercedes-trend/
Anyone who is logical can clearly see that Max is the clear underdog here.
Mexico & Brazil are probably the only tracks on the calendar that would have RB as strong favourites, the rest is up for debate. Taking the penalty here felt like the right decision as the dominance to come back through the field was obvious. An engine change DNF at either Mexico or Brazil would have been catastrophic for their title chances as the altitude will have a much more severe effect on their performance. The gains in speed they've made though will make the difference towards the end of the season on the last three circuits.
I assume that with the bolded bit you mean remaining races, as otherwise its hard to take seriously.
Luck can change throughout a season. Max had horrendous luck earlier in the season, but recently had good luck with the rain in Sochi. The poster was simply saying that currently it's favouring Max, and for the title race to be anything other than a formality from here, it would require Max to switch back to getting bad luck.
The only reason the championship is even close is due to the DNFs for Max, otherwise he'd have it sewn up by now - the Red Bull has been a much faster car this year, with a couple of exceptions in recent races.
1. Mercedes was much faster than Red Bull in Hungary qualifying
2. Mercedes looked significantly faster than Red Bull in Spa on Friday but rain blurred the picture.
3. Mercedes was much faster than Red Bull in Monza. The only reason why that wasn’t a straight forward Hamilton win was because his abysmal start in the sprint.
Mercedes has been the clear best car since that monstrous Silverstone upgrade. I recommend that you read this article:
https://the-race.com/formula-1/mark-hughes-verstappen-right-to-worry-about-mercedes-trend/
Not true at all. The RB has been class of the field all season. The Silverstone upgrades brought Mercedes closer to RB.In clean air on on a dry track the Merc is the faster car and has been all season. The ones driving it just haven't been on their game enough.
The high altitude tracks will obviously be a different case.
Where exactly do you get the idea that the Silverstone upgrade was at the expense of race pace? There is not a shred of evidence to support that.What a load of nonsense. "Anyone who is logical would agree with me". How childish.
The Silverstone upgrade was far from monstrous, they found some one lap pace at the expense of race pace, which is why they were still slower than Red Bull overall. Silverstone itself is a great example - the Merc qualified well, but in the sprint the RB disappeared off into the distance - a pattern we saw a lot before Sochi.
Merc have been undisputedly faster for the 2 most recent races, but before that they've been playing catch up.
Of course, why would we worry about circuits than has already been done on the calendar?
Where exactly do you get the idea that the Silverstone upgrade was at the expense of race pace? There is not a shred of evidence to support that.
Obviously the Mercedes car is now a class of the field, and indeed the Silverstone upgrade was indeed massive. Look at the data, and how the average gap between them and other teams (not just Red Bull) has exploded.
The luck Hamilton vs Verstappen - breakdown:
Italy - Hamilton runs into a wall and was set to come out dead last, also needing repairs and would not score a point - BEFORE Bottas instantly mirciously saved him by crashing with Russell causing a red flag, free repairs and no more positions lost for Lewis.
Points gained by Hamilton in the championship: +19 (VER 25, HAM 19)
--
Baku - Verstappen looking to win the race and take 25 points vs Hamiltons 15 before his tire blow out.
Points gained by Hamilton in the championship: +10 (VER 0, HAM 0)
-
Silverstone - Max leading the race setting to bag 25 vs 18 point to Lewis, before Lewis is causing a collision and is deemed guilty.
Points gained by Hamilton in the championship: +32 (VER 25, HAM 18 - became HAM 25, VER 0)
-
Hungary - Hamilton looking set to win and take 25 vs 18 Vs Verstappen before Bottas takes out both Red Bulls.
Points gained by Hamilton in the championship: +18
-
Monza - Hamilton set to score more points than Max before the collision. HAM 12 - VER 10)
Points gained by Verstappen in the championship: +2
-
Russia - Verstappen set to finish 7th and Hamilton 2nd before the rain comes in, HAM 18, VER 6 becames HAM 25, VER 18.
Points gained by Verstappen in the championship: +3
Total summary of points gained by sheer luck: Points gained by Lews 79 Vs Points gained for Verstappen 5.
Note, you could even note any points gained by Verstappen in Russia should not count because the engine change was a direct result of a Hamilton punished error, meaning Hamilton was responsible and lucky Max had to take an engine penalty.
If luck was not a thing the current championship standings would be:
Verstappen: 346.5
Hamilton: 262.5
Which leads us to The Hiltons next point:
You are absoulely right Max would have already clinched the WDC-title if not for all the bad luck explained above, but you are wrong about the reasons.
The reason Max would have won is that Lewis has made so many errors that without incredible luck would have given Max an aprox 70 point swing in the championship.
Mercedes has had the better race pace except for Baku and Monaco, Bahrain and Red Bull Ring x2. At Zandenvort Red Bull won on strategy, the Mercs were insanely quick.
Conclusion, the reason Verstappen should have clinched the title already is not because Red Bulls car has been better than Mercedes on the whole, its because Lewis has made endless of errors that he was incredible lucky not to pay for. Verstappen has been pretty much error free and outpeformed Lewis in every capacity, sadly that might not be enough to win the title because of Mercs unreal engine advantage.
Fair points.It's actually impressive how much effort you've put into this post just to defend the honour of your beloved Max, filled with enough hyperbole to power a warp engine, and it's also very selective with regards to what constitutes luck in order to exaggerate, but I'm not gonna argue that stuff because you've spectacularly missed the point - as you've said yourself, the most recent gains due to luck were Max's, and the original post was that Lewis needs that luck to change - nothing to do with previous luck in the season, just that Max had some good luck recently.
As for your comment about Mercedes having better race pace, it's just silly, the Mercs have been behind most of the year, and have only recently managed to get ahead (and it remains to be seen if that was due to the tracks).
I actually agree that Max has been the better driver this year, although not error free, but he's definitely had the better car. No shame in that, as most champions do.