2023 Aston Martin | Aramco | Cognizant F1 Team

[-wkst-]

Genius tactic…
Worst tyre deg on the Grid and they took the soft. Without the 3 SCs they would be P15…

[diffuser]

Genius tactic…
Worst tyre deg on the Grid and they took the soft. Without the 3 SCs they would be P15…

They needed 3 more laps behind a safety car ....

Don't forget, nobody did long runs ... They didn't really know how long the tires would ago. Plus they changed the track this morning in sector 3.

[OnEcRiTiCaL]

They choosed soft ,because they could save a medium at tomorrow for race.

[KimiRai]

They choosed soft ,because they could save a medium at tomorrow for race.

Correct, Fernando said they chose the soft tyre because they wanted to discard it for the race and not spend medium sets for tomorrow. They knew that the soft tyre might not be the most suitable tyre.

[Jambier]

Since shootout 5th time was deleted it was a good choice to sacrifice the sprint

Painful to watch but make sense, now let’s see tomorrow the car looks decent

[KimiRai]

Yep we all saw that the wear was terrible, the proposed stint limits or pit stops would most likely benefit us but not sure if that's going to happen. Have they said anything about it yet?

Stroll has a lot of new tyres for tomorrow due to not progressing during the qualy sessions, he could do a decent recovery. Fernando only one new set of mediums and one set of hards but I think some of his used sets have less laps than other drivers.

[KimiRai]

Wow, this is very interesting.

Asked by The Race to describe the particular problem he experienced in Friday’s Q1 session that created the frustration that led to his outburst, Stroll mentioned “high levels of understeer, snap oversteer, lack of grip” and explained “I feel like I can’t really lean on the car and drive it with confidence without dealing with snaps and understeer and just a balance that I really don’t particularly enjoy driving”.

He said the Austrian Grand Prix in early July was the last time he felt confident in the car underneath him, and later in this exchange he described feeling “not super confident for tomorrow [the grand prix] because I know with the limitations of the car, I know I’m not confident in driving it right now”.

Stroll also referenced what he called Alonso’s “particular driving style, the way he gets around the corners that might be very different to mine, and at the beginning of the year I think the car was kind of giving a bigger window for different driving styles to work.

"And right now it has a lot of limitations I don’t like that he kind of drives around and deals with it and doesn’t bother him as much.”

So a clear picture is emerging of how Stroll’s frustration has built through this season.

He’s started off, despite carrying injuries, in a car that he feels is comfortable to drive, with a wide performance window and a balance that suits him.

As the season’s progressed and “the characteristic of the car has changed a lot throughout the year”, Stroll has become increasingly uncomfortable while Alonso has found ways to manipulate a peaky and more difficult car in a far more efficient way.

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/how- ... -outburst/

Well this gives some validity to the theory. Stroll seems to have been left behind as car balance and window worsened while Fernando has simply adapted better most likely due to his driving style. This would explain why Lance was closer at the start despite being affected by injuries, which was one of the weird inexplicable things. The car was plainly better and, probably, driver differences were slightly more alleviated.

Stroll has suffered more with the snaps and general unpredictability that have been known to this car since mid season, when the early balance was lost. Now we just need to know from someone in the team whether that was really caused by failed upgrades or most likely an FIA intervention and we'll have solved the mystery, but I guess that will have to wait for now.

What we now know and what you guys posted makes me more confident that Vettel would have taken a not too dissimilar beating in the hypothetical scenario where he remained instead of Lance. Vettel fans should be glad they were spared a humiliation, at least.

Just watch Alo laps in qual. He is correcting the understeer or anything with surgical super fast moves of the wheel like a 6th sense and this is solely the reason of this result. I saw the same today from Leclerc even thought Ferrari is undrivable in comparison to AM.
Kudos to Alonso for this in that age.

[-wkst-]

He said Austria was ok - that race was after the updates in Canada and after the rumored front wing changes. They say they will bring updates to address their weaknesses, I am not sure if that’s not only PR stuff and the rest of the year is a write off.

[ALO_Power]

3 pit stops it is for today then. confirmed

[GoranF1]

Not that much slower than Mclaren and Mercedes on race pace here

[GoranF1]

Not that much slower than Mclaren and Mercedes on race pace here

[Michelangelo]

P4 looked possible if that little slip error didn't come. Maybe a bit unstable due to reduced drag. Mclarens were just too quick to keep behind.

[jofs89]

Not that much slower than Mclaren and Mercedes on race pace here

1 second a lap slower than the McLaren's on a faster tyre with similar tyre life at the moment...

[Michelangelo]

Fernando got to cruising after some laps behind Leclerc under 2 seconds. Probably decided backing off to the finish. He could've kept him behind if not that mistake.

[jofs89]

I think before the weekend they would have taken 6th and 9th though given the track characteristics. Having the second fastest car at the start of the year is starting to feel like some bizarre fever dream.