How many positions did he lose though? He was on hards behind a bunch of cars. He would have been on a DRS train with suboptimal tires (Max even said so himself, the car didnt feel good on Hards). He then pits, comes out a couple of positions behind, but in VSC or SC conditions, so he didn't lose out as much time as you would normally lose from a pitstop. After pitting he not only has tire delta, but he is also on the best tire of the weekend, while being free to push as hard as he could. He was essentially in sync with the front runners at that point, but with tire delta while also having gotten rid of one of the worse tire sets of the weekend, so he could keep fitting mediums if he wanted to.Badger wrote: ↑09 Nov 2025, 21:18It's not about the hards being good, it's about not doing an extra pit stop and losing a bunch of positions. Doing 10-15 more laps on the hard and then medium-medium to the end would have been preferable.Emag wrote: ↑09 Nov 2025, 20:51I don't think hards were good enough to make that work as well as the eventual strategy panned out. If he doesn't overtake cars like he was overtaking, then the podium goes further and further away. You spend 1 lap behind the lower midfield and thats 1 second lost to the lead.Badger wrote: ↑09 Nov 2025, 20:47Staying on the hard for a bit longer and then taking the medium-medium to the end would have been faster. The soft wasn't a good tyre either as we could see at the end. I'm not sure what would have been possible if he had not had that puncture but Lando would have been sweating that's for sure.
For me there was no fight, Lando would just pass him easily like he did in the middle stint. A combination of poncture and VSC was quite good for Max, as they lost 10 seconds less. Without it he would just extend the stint on the very slow hard tyres, which had poor grip and was always in a DRS train...
Good point. But they did qualifying on the Monza floor lol
Yeah but they changed the setup to Yuki's feedback...
Norris passing Max would have been easy once he started pushing with the tyre delta. But yeah, it may have been easier to get P2 by staying out, all depends on the tyre life.f1isgood wrote: ↑09 Nov 2025, 21:15It still doesn't change the fact that they didn't even bother trying though. What did they have to lose by staying out? A late SC is perfectly beneficial. They have track position. Norris has to pass Max, not on entirely new tires but at least somewhat used tires.
I mean that's what they tell.... I don't buy that much. Yuki's data and Yuki himself are both useless and I said this yesterday as well. Anyways, it's done and dusted. Some decent points recovered, some poor strategy given they didn't even have anything to lose.
Fantastic analysis as usually, nothing to add. I learned a lot of new things from you in the last years. Keep up the good work.Emag wrote: ↑09 Nov 2025, 21:24How many positions did he lose though? He was on hards behind a bunch of cars. He would have been on a DRS train with suboptimal tires (Max even said so himself, the car didnt feel good on Hards). He then pits, comes out a couple of positions behind, but in VSC or SC conditions, so he didn't lose out as much time as you would normally lose from a pitstop. After pitting he not only has tire delta, but he is also on the best tire of the weekend, while being free to push as hard as he could. He was essentially in sync with the front runners at that point, but with tire delta while also having gotten rid of one of the worse tire sets of the weekend, so he could keep fitting mediums if he wanted to.Badger wrote: ↑09 Nov 2025, 21:18It's not about the hards being good, it's about not doing an extra pit stop and losing a bunch of positions. Doing 10-15 more laps on the hard and then medium-medium to the end would have been preferable.Emag wrote: ↑09 Nov 2025, 20:51
I don't think hards were good enough to make that work as well as the eventual strategy panned out. If he doesn't overtake cars like he was overtaking, then the podium goes further and further away. You spend 1 lap behind the lower midfield and thats 1 second lost to the lead.
It's just hypotheticals at this point, but I don't think he would have made the podium with hards-medium-medium. Or if he did, it wouldn't have been as "easy".
Do we have pictures confirming this? They said he was running the Monza floor but from the broadcast it looked like the Mexico floor to me.
Norris passing Max on brand new tires versus Max on old tires is very different from Norris passing Max on basically at least 10+ lap old mediums imo. Also, people really underestimate how good Max is at following and passing cars. It's happened so many times at this point that it's hard to ignore. Norris is not the greatest at that either.Badger wrote: ↑09 Nov 2025, 21:27Norris passing Max would have been easy once he started pushing with the tyre delta. But yeah, it may have been easier to get P2 by staying out, all depends on the tyre life.f1isgood wrote: ↑09 Nov 2025, 21:15It still doesn't change the fact that they didn't even bother trying though. What did they have to lose by staying out? A late SC is perfectly beneficial. They have track position. Norris has to pass Max, not on entirely new tires but at least somewhat used tires.
For me there is zero doubt he could have held on for P1 without that last stop. It felt like unwaranted fear for the tire to dropoff or something. P3 is awesome after yesterday ofcourse but it seems to me a win is thrown away this weekend.
He lost 5 positions and 14 seconds.Emag wrote: ↑09 Nov 2025, 21:24How many positions did he lose though? He was on hards behind a bunch of cars. He would have been on a DRS train with suboptimal tires (Max even said so himself, the car didnt feel good on Hards). He then pits, comes out a couple of positions behind, but in VSC or SC conditions, so he didn't lose out as much time as you would normally lose from a pitstop. After pitting he not only has tire delta, but he is also on the best tire of the weekend, while being free to push as hard as he could. He was essentially in sync with the front runners at that point, but with tire delta while also having gotten rid of one of the worse tire sets of the weekend, so he could keep fitting mediums if he wanted to.Badger wrote: ↑09 Nov 2025, 21:18It's not about the hards being good, it's about not doing an extra pit stop and losing a bunch of positions. Doing 10-15 more laps on the hard and then medium-medium to the end would have been preferable.Emag wrote: ↑09 Nov 2025, 20:51
I don't think hards were good enough to make that work as well as the eventual strategy panned out. If he doesn't overtake cars like he was overtaking, then the podium goes further and further away. You spend 1 lap behind the lower midfield and thats 1 second lost to the lead.
It's just hypotheticals at this point, but I don't think he would have made the podium with hards-medium-medium. Or if he did, it wouldn't have been as "easy".