Cs98 wrote: ↑08 Apr 2024, 16:35
Hammerfist wrote: ↑08 Apr 2024, 16:13
Cs98 wrote: ↑07 Apr 2024, 11:50
A, the damage I've seen on F1TV. It's a small nick on the ramp-like piece that sits on the outside of the endplate, no structural damage to the endplate. Hard to see a big loss of downforce, the wing is basically completely intact.
B, He wasn't faster overall. The extra pace you have when you overcut (which Lewis did both times) has to be weighed against the time you lost when your teammate undercut. Lewis lost a bunch of time in both pit-stop phases and didn't make all of the time back up during the stint (at least until George reached the back of Piastri/Alonso).
He was clearly faster in stint 2 and 3. He lost time on the inlaps of course because George was on fresher tires at the time. But I found out the truth:
"It took us two stints to finally dial more and more wing in to make up for that loss. Last stint, I was better, but it was too late, I had 10 seconds to regain."
https://racinginfinity.com/f1/hamilton- ... t-would-be
So yeah he got damage and lost front downforce but then he adjusted his wing throughout the race and that’s where the extra pace came from. Unfortunate. He probably finishes ahead of Alonso without that.
Yes but that's the point isn't it. If you lose 6 seconds from staying out two laps longer and then only make back 5 seconds in the stint you were slower overall, not faster. That's basically what happened, until George hit traffic.
The damage was tiny. We've seen people have great pace missing an entire endplate. Chances are the balance was just off from the start with the higher temps.
Okay, so what you are saying is Hamilton is a slow mediocre driver. We get it now.
The season is long. I can make a bet that by half way through the season, Hamilton would be back to his usual run and onlookers will say mercedes moved the car away from Russel and that's what's benefitting Hamilton.
Every year this happens.
The W14 updates claimed the same, and same will happen with W15.
We are just 4 races in. At this point I am just watching the races as the season unfolds. Hamilton is almost 40, he cannot be expected to be firing on 100% for 17 years straight every race.
He did have understeer in the car by the crash, and still was on Russel's pace more or less. It's not really much to argue about or raise an Alarm. It's perfectly fine if Russel outperforms him on some weekends also.
Next year when Russel has Sainz, or Checo or Alonso in the car, it would give some perspective on how good George is.