Hammerfist wrote: ↑22 Sep 2024, 16:18
Tvetovnato wrote: ↑22 Sep 2024, 16:10
It could only work if the race was a carbon copy of last year, ie driving slowly to not open an undercut attempt. With a straight race like this it was always gonna end in a disaster…
Yeah that’s a good point. Maybe they thought Lando or whoever was in the lead was going to drive way off the pace and they could survive on softs. Honestly I thought it would play out like that too and I was wrong. I can understand their mistake more now.
Yes, I was actually expecting one of the top drivers to try it, mostly Max since he would have a real chance of taking the lead into turn one with that tyre. But they likely knew that McLaren was too fast and decided to protect P2 to be safe. Always hard for P3 to do anything at the start here since he is boxed in in at T1.
And I don’t understand all the outrage of trying something here to be honest. Merc opened up all strategic options with the move, and it made sense to try it with Hamilton who is leaving anyway. Only thing Mercedes could have done is to invert the cars when Hamilton was starting to drop back early and it was clear he wasn’t bothering top 2 to see if Russell could make inroads, but otherwise it’s OK from my side.