Bingo! Just like the case of Norris the engineers could have done a better job of communicating ths consequences to the driver. I can't blame the driver for working with the information he has. It is the engineer's job to feed more convincing data to the driver. If the driver still ignores it well that driver is a dumbass! LolEl Scorchio wrote: ↑12 Oct 2021, 13:38He doesn't know the full picture from in the cockpit. He only knows how he is getting on and how he feels with the tyres at that moment, so I'd not say he was dithering- just that he was comfortable with his own pace and the feel of the tyres. Obviously we don't hear everything, but it seemed to me like he was unaware that by doing that he was getting into that position. It's where the team have to fill him in on the bigger picture of the race which (at least from what we hear) they don't always seem to do fully or convincingly. If they'd have said 'we need to mirror Perez or you'll lose places- you WILL be able to overtake him on track on new tyres' then he's obviously going to come in. Or even if it's not strictly true, say 'These tyres won't last until the end of the race'. It probably is difficult for the team to overrule someone like him given his experience and that his instincts are usually correct- and for him then it becomes hard to trust their judgement when they have made bad calls several times in the past and cost him points.adrianjordan wrote: ↑12 Oct 2021, 12:16The team DID back their best driver when he said that he could stay out. The only one who dithered was Lewis. If he'd have come in when the team told him to in the first place he would have very possibly have been on the podium, he didn't, he argued with them for several laps.El Scorchio wrote: ↑10 Oct 2021, 18:41... FWIW the team should back their best driver or at least put it in his hands in a better car to get past Perez ...
That's 2 races in a row now where a driver has overruled his team and paid the price. Yet in both circumstances, the team gets blamed by fans...??
You are probably right that the fault lies a little between them, (we are also talking about 'backing' in slightly different terms) but the team has to make it crystal clear to him what the situation is and what the ramifications are of staying out or going in are. We can't know exactly what was said, but from what we did hear, they hardly put a convincing argument forward to him for coming in, even when it was obvious from the timings that it was the wrong call.
Great analysis. In hindsight (and to be honest it seemed so during the race as well) the best option must have been to mirror Perez rather than staying out until the end - which probably wasn't ever viable - or doing what they did, which was not commit to anything and presumably praying for a safety car or the track to miraculously dry out enough for another car to try slicks, leaving him in absolute no man's land.RZS10 wrote: ↑12 Oct 2021, 16:32To see his perspective one has to look at his laptimes, he wasn't losing any pace in the entire second half of that stint until they pitted him, so he probably felt confident that he could keep it up. Ocon was dropping off at that time already. [source]
https://i.imgur.com/hQ9wRjy.png
Just from lap 36 to 50, the trend is ~ 1/100th of a second slower per lap.
https://i.imgur.com/KW506PV.png
He was 10.410s ahead of Leclerc and 11.096s ahead of Perez when he pitted, Perez overtook Leclerc on the next lap - so assuming the tyres would not have disintegrated, how big could his loss of pace have been without losing positions?
With the continuing trend of not really losing any pace he would have just lost ~7s to Leclerc but ~12s to Perez who would have been on his tail on lap 56 whilst being 2s/lap faster - so even without a drop in pace he most likely would have lost the position to at least Perez.
https://i.imgur.com/2fuSHHf.png
[gap in s on (y), laps on (x) ]
This would have been the gaps if Lewis had experienced the same absolute loss of time as Ocon (without that one outlier).
https://i.imgur.com/4HiBeKh.png
LEC catching him on the last lap whilst being 3s/lap faster.
He could have kept P4 with losing 0.15s relative to the previous lap
https://i.imgur.com/bHItQJl.png
In any case Gasly and Norris were too far away, unless the tyres would have completely gone off the cliff.
So it would have been a gamble for P3, which would have been near impossible to defend, with a possible P4 finish instead of the safe P5 or in other words for two points with risking a DNF...
That is remarkably consistent pace on tyres that were, on the face of it, well past their best. It seems to show how good he is at maintaining pace and tyres at the same time.RZS10 wrote: ↑12 Oct 2021, 16:32To see his perspective one has to look at his laptimes, he wasn't losing any pace in the entire second half of that stint until they pitted him, so he probably felt confident that he could keep it up. Ocon was dropping off at that time already. [source]
https://i.imgur.com/hQ9wRjy.png
Nice work !
Right. Im a fan but i blamed Lewis. But can he be blamed for not being able to know a future with 100 variables?El Scorchio wrote: ↑12 Oct 2021, 13:38He doesn't know the full picture from in the cockpit. He only knows how he is getting on and how he feels with the tyres at that moment, so I'd not say he was dithering- just that he was comfortable with his own pace and the feel of the tyres. Obviously we don't hear everything, but it seemed to me like he was unaware that by doing that he was getting into that position. It's where the team have to fill him in on the bigger picture of the race which (at least from what we hear) they don't always seem to do fully or convincingly. If they'd have said 'we need to mirror Perez or you'll lose places- you WILL be able to overtake him on track on new tyres' then he's obviously going to come in. Or even if it's not strictly true, say 'These tyres won't last until the end of the race'. It probably is difficult for the team to overrule someone like him given his experience and that his instincts are usually correct- and for him then it becomes hard to trust their judgement when they have made bad calls several times in the past and cost him points.adrianjordan wrote: ↑12 Oct 2021, 12:16The team DID back their best driver when he said that he could stay out. The only one who dithered was Lewis. If he'd have come in when the team told him to in the first place he would have very possibly have been on the podium, he didn't, he argued with them for several laps.El Scorchio wrote: ↑10 Oct 2021, 18:41... FWIW the team should back their best driver or at least put it in his hands in a better car to get past Perez ...
That's 2 races in a row now where a driver has overruled his team and paid the price. Yet in both circumstances, the team gets blamed by fans...??
You are probably right that the fault lies a little between them, (we are also talking about 'backing' in slightly different terms) but the team has to make it crystal clear to him what the situation is and what the ramifications are of staying out or going in are. We can't know exactly what was said, but from what we did hear, they hardly put a convincing argument forward to him for coming in, even when it was obvious from the timings that it was the wrong call.
I watched a replay of the laptiming and there was never a drop in laptime, right until the last sectors, before the his stop. Also the others (VER, BOT, PER) never experienced graining and a dip in performance on the new inters, after they fitted them. Probably, because the track was still wetter than. There was even some light rain after those pitstops, around lap 45. And even LeClerc started to drop after 3 laps on his new inters.
I agree with that. I think had they mirrored Perez, he'd have got him in the second stint and finished third in the race. Especially if the Mercedes is as 'dominant' as some people seem to keep trying to insist it is.RZS10 wrote: ↑14 Oct 2021, 00:10Well in the debrief they said in retrospect 36/37 would have been ideal, which was when Verstappen or Perez and Bottas pitted - there was graining for the others as well but not as bad.
IIRC the first call came on lap 42 which already wasn't ideal, he had already lost a few seconds to Perez by then, however he was still almost matching those who switched to new inters when the call came - he kept the gap at around 15s for a few laps during Perez' graining phase and the latter just started picking up the pace three laps after the initial call.
https://i.imgur.com/V6YZf73.png
[(x) laps - (y) gap in s]
I believe it's fair to assume that Lewis would have been capable of the pace Sainz had towards the end, with a few laps of light graining and being 3-5s behind Perez after the stop he would have caught up by lap 48-50 leaving 8-10 laps in order to try to gain the position.
Lewis is now on his 4th ICE of the season, and Wolff has not ruled out the possibility of having to use another, though hopes that the current one will be sufficient.
"It [4th ICE] can last until the end of the season but there could be a moment where we say is it worth taking a fresh one(5th ICE) because the other one is still at risk," Wolff said.
https://racingnews365.com/wolff-wary-of ... ampionship
Michael Schmidt:
" There is almost nothing left in Hamilton's engine pool. The first engine broke down at Zandvoort. The second debuted in Baku, where they took the turbo, MGUHand MGU-K to combine them with the fourth (new) ICE. The third engine is no longer considered capable of doing a race distance, despite the fact that it only has done three races. If you look at the recent engine situation at Mercedes, it that can never be enough.The fourth engine has to last for seven races now. None of the Mercedes engines have done that so far this year."
https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... on-pannen/