mwillems wrote: ↑25 Jun 2024, 10:28
LionsHeart wrote: ↑25 Jun 2024, 10:17
mwillems wrote: ↑24 Jun 2024, 22:57
I thought you'd appreciate the Russian author. I never read it, but Anna Karenina I did enjoy a lot.
Yeah they are doing well. It'll be interesting to see what the teams bring over the next races and where that affects the order.
And I appreciated it. We read most of these books back in school during literature lessons. However, I can't say that I like War and Peace. It is written in a heavy language and it is a bit difficult to keep the thoughts in your head. To understand all the subtleties that the writer has laid out.
I just liked the way you turned my message around very briefly and added "The End" at the end. You know, in school we sometimes used to do other things, like a short summary, to better understand certain literary works. It allowed us to shorten the reading time and better understand the meaning of what was written. The way you wrote it is very competent. It explains everything in a nutshell and overall it turned out to be a good reference.
I did read your message, and I also summarised it in ChatGPT just because I was interested. I agree with what you are saying. But I don't know that it was obvious that the offset was a good idea. I thought they were going to stretch to a one stop on the softs by going another 4 laps. It certainly seemed like they could. The offset will usually be inherently slower. In this case, I think it was Lando's driving and the car being good on the tyres which got us more laps at the end of the stints before the tyres plateaued to run at smaller but quicker delta to those around us.
One thing I did not consider in the race was how strong of an effect the dirty air was having on the tyre temps, and I think this is what brought us the time and made it work. The Delta helped us get past people. More people than if we'd pitted earlier. But it ensured we'd get past them and into clean air, where the tyre temps would be lower and the car pushed to go faster whilst still managing the tyres.
I knew the dirty air was affecting us, but I thought it was from an aero point of view because I've seen this car struggle all season in dirty air. I still think the aero struggles a little more in dirty air than we'd like (outside of tyre temperatures), but predominantly the gift in this race was tyre temps as once again... this race was all about the tyres.
Yes, something like that. When Will, Lando's engineer, started talking about an undercut, I thought it would be a good idea, but by talking about it they provoked Mercedes to do a defensive undercut, thus opening up a straight space for Lando to drive at his real pace.
And then I thought, what if they hold off and do a longer first stint, because that would be good towards the end of the race. And the team executed it perfectly. Knowing that Lando is a master at saving his tyres, the plan was perfect. At this point Lando was even catching Max, which meant that their pace was not inferior to Red Bull.
The cars here are usually set up for high downforce, which means it's harder to follow the car in the corners. The tires overheat, the engine overheats too. I remember before that a clean overtake requires 1.5 seconds of advantage. This is possible when the tires are fresher. In the corners, Lando caught up with his rivals, got closer to them, and on the straight he overtook them using the DRS. If the tires had as much life as the rivals in front, Lando would simply lag behind in the corners, then only compensate for this lag on the straights. It turns out to be the status quo, when there is no advantage in speed.
Given that the overall pace of the Ferrari and Mercedes is comparable to the McLaren, it is clear that this advantage has to come from somewhere. So I was glad when Lando said that he wanted to catch Max, and not just defend against George. That was the grown-up thing to do. And even though Lando didn't win and I was disappointed, the team did everything right. The strategists did a masterful job this time, and Lando did a great job behind the wheel.
The consistent fight for victories in itself only hardens the spirit at McLaren. They get used to the pressure, and therefore it will be easier from now on. Red Bull feels threatened by McLaren and there is plenty of evidence to back this up. Now their rivals have acknowledged it. Let the Bulls feel the pressure now and then they might start making mistakes.
And also about the extension of stints. It reminded me a bit of Barcelona 2021, when Lewis had fresher tires in front of Max at the end of the race and was able to beat him in the race. I expected about the same.