2021 Russian Grand Prix - Sochi, Sep 24 - 26

[zibby43]

I’m going to echo what some engineers shared a few weeks ago after Spa.

Since these cars are so sensitive to ride height changes from an aero perspective, there is virtually no such thing as a “wet” setup these days.

The only major factors a team will influence would be RW spec, RW AoA, FW flaps, and maybe some suspension tuning.

[darkpino]

In all honesty I was pretty baffled that Bottas got a penalty back then also

[ringo]

Oh boy people are so desperate for penalties yet they complain and say let the drivers race when it comes to their driver.
Pit Stops have a level of risk to them. Never saw a penalty given when a car overshoots its marks. We have seen pit crew knocked over even breaking limbs and yet no penalty.
Nothing new and part of the risk. Its internal to the team's operations.

[dans79]

The only major factors a team will influence would be RW spec, RW AoA, FW flaps, and maybe some suspension tuning.

Those are significant though. If you go for a dry set-up and get a wet race, you probably won't get enough heat in the tires and it will feel like an ice ring to the driver. If you set=up for a wet race, and get a dry one then you will probably burn the tires up.

[dans79]

In all honesty I was pretty baffled that Bottas got a penalty back then also

He lost control of his car in the pitlane, that's always going to be a penalty.

[dans79]

Easily solution is for them to program magic to disable if the pit limiter is enabled.

I think that would fall foul of the driver aide rule!

Interesting point. Maybe the pit limiter is a driver aid. Make em have to do it themselves. That would be more fun

No way that happens, the FIA is all about safety now!

[PlatinumZealot]

How come Lewis is not under investigation?
Precedent:
www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/57615056.amp

New to the Sport?
Other than speed limits and unsafe realeases Pitstop mishaps are not normally penalised.

Bottas' spin was an eager, perhaps wreckless attempt to get out more than the car was able to, and he could have collected another car. Sporting-wise he could had hurt another team's success or even hurt their mechanics.

In the case of Hitting your own Jackman it has happened several times in the past. I think Kimi broke a guy's leg at one point. That's probably the worst one, but it's not really penalized because it's more of a team screw up that disadvantages itself.

[SiLo]

It's going to rain until around 4pm tomorrow local time, with the heaviest rain around FP3 time, from what I can see. It won't be more than a drizzle on Sunday, likely dry. The rain will mean that there's a green track that will rubber in, I hope we saved our Hard tires, we're going to need them come race day. The undercut is very powerful, however there is a long pit time penalty.

The rears will need protecting.

A two stop is looking likely for the race, with a 3 stop being almost as fast. It may also afford enough pace disparity to make overtakes possible. If they don't have the top speed to make the pass into turn 2, then they'll need the downforce to make the pass into turn 13

I can think of 3 reasons for doing more than 2 stops: desperation, trying to steal the fastest lap, or getting a 'free stop' during a Safety Car period. You'd likely require a combination of these factors to facilitate 3 stops.

This track has a pitlane speed limit of 60kph. Between that and the low degradation tarmac, pit stops are hugely disincentivized, as evidenced by every race ever held here.

Look at the data from Practice 1, where the tyres typically degrade at their worst.

Bottas (C3) - 9 lap stint
01:41.762
01:40.801
01:41.978
01:40.761
01:40.675
01:41.172
01:40.232
01:40.615
01:40.516
Average: 01:40.946; 01:40.682 if excluding the initial high 01:41's.

I.e. Degradation lower than the fuel burn-off effect.

The Mercs are going to be under little to no threat with Max at the back of the field. They'll try to get through to Q3 on the C4 (yellow), nurse those tyres for as long as required during the race, before pitting for C3 (white). Then, come race end, they'll bolt on some C5's for the fastest lap. A 'fake' 2-stop in other words.

All of this assuming a dry race without Safety Cars.

I've no idea where Golameroso is getting his predictions on tyres from, some have said the F1 some, some said Assetto Corsa. Both of which are terrible ideas.

This might be a 2 stop race at best, likely from a safety car or something. Otherwise a 1 stop is easy.

[Gillian]

I just checked the weather and some sites say 80% of rain on sunday and others as low as 20%... So I am clueless really.

Max is fast when the track is wet, but how wet is the track Sunday?
Most sites say 0.2 mm - 0.4 mm rain on Sunday afternoon during the race. For example Ventusky. 0.2 mm at 3 p.m.

https://www.ventusky.com/?p=43.6;39.7;5 ... 10926/1300

Hm that's not a lot of water especially if it starts during the race.

Would make sense to run a little more rear wing and a bit softer suspension for a wet/changing coditions race, no?

[west52keep64]

What the heck!?

[Slo Poke]

Flippin’ ‘eck! Goodness gracious me! So Jackman has turned out to be a jack man... why is there any wonder?

[nzjrs]

The only option is to drop some rear wing off, really, unless they're running the PU in a very lower mode.

In the engine mode days typically they would ask the driver to try many modes after a PU change, but stay mostly in the lower ones. Not sure how they would set the mode per session to check the PU these days. Maybe just stay In a low one for the whole session.

Wouldn’t that have to be for the whole weekend? I thought that the engine mode had to be the same across all engines being run for the whole weekend.

AFAIR They can change it between sessions. Must be fixed after qualification and through the race.

[TimW]

How come Lewis is not under investigation?
Precedent:
www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/57615056.amp

Im not sure that missing a braking point or having a brake issue is the same as massively overcooking it and sending your car around in a spin nearly collecting put crew in the next box…

I don’t know… Bottas didn’t hit anyone where Lewis actually did? And especially if indeed it’s the case of the magic button still been on it would be a driver mistake just as Bottas did.

It’s a legit question, not to hit out on Lewis or anything. I’m just honestly curious about it

Normally the stewards don't give penalties if you take out your teammate, they let the team handle that. I guess the same goes for taking out your pit crew...

Sure he would be under investigation if he hit someone of another team. For accidents within the team, I think only fines have been given in the past.

[subcritical71]

Flippin’ ‘eck! Goodness gracious me! So Jackman has turned out to be a jack man... why is there any wonder?

sorry guys, I'll blame it on autocorrect... yeah, that's the ticket, autocorrect!

[zibby43]

The only major factors a team will influence would be RW spec, RW AoA, FW flaps, and maybe some suspension tuning.

Those are significant though. If you go for a dry set-up and get a wet race, you probably won't get enough heat in the tires and it will feel like an ice ring to the driver. If you set=up for a wet race, and get a dry one then you will probably burn the tires up.

Difference is a bit more subtle. Going in one direction may have the effect of severely compromising out-laps and requiring several additional warm-up laps (in the event of less wing in a wet race).

On a surface like Sochi, degradation isn’t going to be a major factor anyway.

Also, every time precipitation is considered, the teams know that changeable conditions will be involved. So the car has to be fast and functional in dry conditions, too. Which circles back around to the fact that in this modern era of cars, the scope for change for wet races is quite limited.