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[Badger]

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 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.

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.

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".

He lost 5 positions and 14 seconds.

Did you miss the start? You realise Max was making up a bunch of positions on the hard tyre right? You also realize he had 6 soft runners and 1 hard runner ahead of him before the puncture? The soft tyre was sh**, they would have come towards him if had stayed out another 10-15 laps.

I feel like you're not actually explaining how an extra stop and losing track position actually helped. We understand the medium was the preferred tyre, he would have taken full advantage of that on the optimal strategy too, just with one less stop. I think he would have easily finished P2 doing that, and made Lando sweat as I said originally.

[FittingMechanics]

I see most did not really monitor the laptimes, Verstappen already had big dropoff on the medium in the first stint, if he continued to the end he would reach the same point and be forced to pit.

The pace Verstappen was doing on that second medium was too fast to go to the end.

[AR3-GP]

I see most did not really monitor the laptimes, Verstappen already had big dropoff on the medium in the first stint, if he continued to the end he would reach the same point and be forced to pit.

He was in traffic on high fuel destroying the tires in dirty air to pass 6 or 7 cars. You can't just stare at laptimes without seeing what's going on out on the race track.

[Vettel165]

I think a win was on without the puncture and at least a fight for P1 was on without the last pitstop. I will stop my contribution on this topic after this as I have made my point many times. I think Max was there today to win.

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.

I dont believe it. Lando would just easily close that gap on medium tyres. Max had 16 laps older tyres than Lando in the middle stint. Also he was always attacking and using the tyres in the early part of the stint (dirty air), Lando was taking it easy. Brasil is a track which has high tyre wear, it would have worked in Monza. Undercut is massive here and new tyres making the difference. I think without going into the pits he would finish P3/P2, around the same as he did.

[Emag]

It'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.

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.

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".

He lost 5 positions and 14 seconds.

Did you miss the start? You realise Max was making up a bunch of positions on the hard tyre right? You also realize he had 6 soft runners and 1 hard runner ahead of him before the puncture? The soft tyre was sh**, they would have come towards him if had stayed out another 10-15 laps.

I feel like you're not actually explaining how an extra stop and losing track position actually helped. We understand the medium was the preferred tyre, he would have taken full advantage of that on the optimal strategy too, just with one less stop. I think he would have easily finished P2 doing that, and made Lando sweat as I said originally.

I just checked again, he went from P13 to P16 and ~7 seconds back from P15. P15-P13 were covered by 0.3+0.7s at the restart after the VSC. The rest pretty much within DRS distance of each other up until the Mercs. Oh and one of the cars ahead after the restart being Tsuonda, so discount him completely on top of that.

So basically, lost 8 seconds from his position to swap some horrible tires and get tire delta. He was within Lewis' DRS by lap 12 by the way with the VSC restart being at lap 9. Because the field is bunched up in the first couple of laps, he was literally gaining buckets of time on the cars ahead, so essentially, in 3 laps, he was back where he started but while being on a much better position strategy-wise with tire delta on everyone ahead and free to push as hard as he could for the rest of the race.

I fail to see where the disadvantage is.

[FittingMechanics]

I see most did not really monitor the laptimes, Verstappen already had big dropoff on the medium in the first stint, if he continued to the end he would reach the same point and be forced to pit.

He was in traffic on high fuel destroying the tires in dirty air to pass 6 or 7 cars. You can't just stare at laptimes without seeing what's going on out on the race track.

I' talking after he cleared the cars and had a gap to the car ahead. It was going ok and then his tires went off the cliff and he went to the pits.

[Gillian]

I think a win was on without the puncture and at least a fight for P1 was on without the last pitstop. I will stop my contribution on this topic after this as I have made my point many times. I think Max was there today to win.

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.

I dont believe it. Lando would just easily close that gap on medium tyres. Max had 16 laps older tyres than Lando in the middle stint. Also he was always attacking and using the tyres in the early part of the stint (dirty air), Lando was taking it easy. Brasil is a track which has high tyre wear, it would have worked in Monza. Undercut is massive here and new tyres making the difference. I think without going into the pits he would finish P3/P2, around the same as he did.

Worth the risk!

[AR3-GP]

I' talking after he cleared the cars and had a gap to the car ahead. It was going ok and then his tires went off the cliff and he went to the pits.

Are you saying that driving flatout from the word go on new tires has no influence on how long the tires last?

[Badger]

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.

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".

He lost 5 positions and 14 seconds.

Did you miss the start? You realise Max was making up a bunch of positions on the hard tyre right? You also realize he had 6 soft runners and 1 hard runner ahead of him before the puncture? The soft tyre was sh**, they would have come towards him if had stayed out another 10-15 laps.

I feel like you're not actually explaining how an extra stop and losing track position actually helped. We understand the medium was the preferred tyre, he would have taken full advantage of that on the optimal strategy too, just with one less stop. I think he would have easily finished P2 doing that, and made Lando sweat as I said originally.

I just checked again, he went from P13 to P16 and ~7 seconds back from P15. P15-P13 were covered by 0.3+0.7s at the restart after the VSC.

So basically, lost 8 seconds from his position to swap some horrible tires and get tire delta. He was within Lewis' DRS by lap 12 by the way with the VSC restart being at lap 9. Because the field is bunched up in the first couple of laps, he was literally gaining buckets of time on the cars ahead, so essentially, in 3 laps, he was back where he started but while being on a much better position strategy-wise with tire delta on everyone ahead and free to push as hard as he could for the rest of the race.

I fail to see where the disadvantage is.

He was P18, he passed Stroll on the restart and Ocon pitted at the same time.

It took 6-7 laps of hard pushing on the medium to get back where he was before the puncture. The disadvantage came at the end of the race when he didn't have enough tyre life to stay out until the end. If you eat all your sweets early you have nothing left for the end of the night.

I think you're just overstating your case. I will obviously concede that the puncture wasn't race ruining because of the VSC and going onto a medium which was a good tyre. But that doesn't mean it helped his race, doing more stops than you need to rarely does. Regardless he would have taken advantage of those great mediums, just with one less stop.

[Sergej]

[FittingMechanics]

But if he stayed on a 1s slower tire for 20 more laps, he would have lost more time than 10s he lost under the VSC.

It is hard to be sure what would have been better as we don't have the data.

[f1isgood]

I do wonder if the Mexico floor is a step up in race pace but a huge drop in quali pace if that's what they ran today.

[Gillian]

But if he stayed on a 1s slower tire for 20 more laps, he would have lost more time than 10s he lost under the VSC.

It is hard to be sure what would have been better as we don't have the data.

He had to do 10 laps more in his second medium stint than his first medium stint without pushing as hard.

[Dee]

I do wonder if the Mexico floor is a step up in race pace but a huge drop in quali pace if that's what they ran today.

As far as I know, Max was still on the Austin floor put with a different setup...

Tsunoda's setup was terrible, they went with another one.

[Gillian]

I do wonder if the Mexico floor is a step up in race pace but a huge drop in quali pace if that's what they ran today.

Quali was on old spec floor right, COTA spec?