Spent some time with long run data from F1-tempo, with one race pace lap each from the top four teams.
Made sure I selected laps where LEC was not stuck behind VER and where NOR was not stuck behind ANT.
Observations & inferences (could be totally wrong)
- McLaren and Redbull on lower wing settings than Ferrari and Mercedes, it looks like, they are the ones who have to lift the most through T5 & T9-T10
- McLaren seems to be more heavily laden with fuel than Ferrari
- Ferrari is masterful through T12, they can get to higher gear much earlier than others
- Redbull (Max) doing some weird things in slow corners, they are one gear lower than others :
a) either because the car is simply refusing to rotate in slow corners (3,11,13)
b) or because they want to 'hide-pace' by downshifting extra, thus delaying the speed buildup for the section after the corner.
(I think 'a' is the likely reason)
- Redbull (Max) sandbagging by refusing to upshift for pit straight and delaying upshift between T2 and T3 & delaying downshift for T9-T10 (which would've given better engine braking before and better traction after, the 'chicane')
- Ferrari and McLaren are delaying upshift (sandbagging) too, for the pit straight.
- Mercedes seems to be the 'relatively honest' team in terms of showing their hand.
- Mclaren are the kings of the high speed section (can't see evidence of any derating by others) that is sector2.
- Ferrari/Mercedes/Redbull are almost similar (w.r.t time consumed) through the sector2 high speed section ; though Redbull seems to struggle with T6 (which in turn means more time in pocket for sector2).
Overall, contrary to my belief earlier from FP1, Ferrari are 'upto-speed' with McLaren and have emerged as the 'threat' for McLaren, they have similarly sharp front-end on their cars.
@dialtone & @JPBD1990 , I stand corrected.
