Pressure...
Is there any evidence of such a drop off in performance though? I don't see it in the data.godlameroso wrote: ↑25 Sep 2021, 14:09The drop off means if the opening stint starts in mid 40's on C2, then by lap 15 only mid 41's will be possible because you won't be able to put down the power in sector 3, by lap 20 you'll be doing 42's and you still have 32 laps to go. If you box on lap 14 you'll be doing mid 39's to high 38's because of fuel burnoff, and fresh tires, that's like 2.5 seconds pace difference per lap. Enough to overtake cars on older tires. Say I severely miscalculated, the hards are still not going to be able to do 30 laps for the same aforementioned reason. The pace drop off and the power of the undercut is too strong.Fulcrum wrote: ↑25 Sep 2021, 09:05So an, as yet, unobserved, yet humongous drop off in tyre performance. Okay then.godlameroso wrote: ↑24 Sep 2021, 23:01
That's 9 laps...The race is around 6 times longer than that, the tires are going to fall off a cliff and be horrendous to drive on in ~20 laps, there will be almost no grip in the rear, maybe you can nurse them for a one stop, but you'll be so painfully slow that it's not worth it.
I'll stick with my prediction of a '1-stop' for Mercedes, with an unneccesary 2nd stop for fastest lap at the end of the race.
A 2.5 second per lap pace disparity means it takes ~10 laps to make up a pitstop loss. If your final stint is 14 laps, that gives you enough time to catch up, and gives you ~3 laps to get the overtake done.
Absolutely NOTHING to do with "luck"