SectorOne wrote:Edit: someone downvoted mine and yours, so you are welcome in the sense that i neutralized your post even though i probably should be the last person to do so.
Stradivarius wrote:I won't bother quoting everything you wrote, as I guess it can be interpreted as you don't want to look at the lap times because you choose to believe that Vettel was only cruising for the whole race. At least that is one interpretation of what you write. (But I must admit it is difficult to find out exactly what you mean without running into contradictions.)
No that´s not true. Looking at laptimes is one thing. But basing everything on it is utterly insane.
I´ve explained in detail why that is as well.
I think that when one claims that one particular driver is more than one second faster per lap than another driver, the lap times become essential. I don't really see another way of arguing for or against a statement like that, without basing it on the lap times.
Oh please, present the contradictions, and while you are it, respond to your original idea of Rosberg being hampered by Vettel´s wake despite being over 2 seconds away from him.
First of all, I never said that Rosberg was hampered by Vettel's wake being over 2 seconds away. What I wrote was: "the first couple of seconds will come automatically, without having a faster car". When I write "a couple of seconds" it's a way of expressing some uncertainty. Some years ago, it was said that you could feel the car ahead when within 4 seconds, although the effect is obviously not strong at such a distance. When Alonso was penalized at Monza in 2006 for hindering Massa during qualifying, I don't think he ever was less than 2 seconds ahead in any corner. My point was not that Rosberg spent a lot of time close to Vettel. My point was that if Rosberg had had identical pace to that of Vettel, he would have been a couple of seconds behind Vettel at the end of the stint. So when we are evaluating Vettel's speed in light of the lead of 8.275 seconds after 14 laps, the reference should not be 0, it should be a couple of seconds. I.e. if Vettel had an identical car behind him with an equally skilled and minded driver, the gap wouldn't have been 0 seconds after 14 laps, indicating identical pace. The gap would have been a couple of seconds, maybe even more. If you choose to stay close to the car in front, your tyres will suffer in the long run and you will loose performance towards the end of the stint. So a couple of seconds is probably quite a careful estimate from my side.
Regarding the contradictions, what I said was that it was difficult to interpret what you write without running into contradictions. But the main message was that I don't quite understand how to interpret what you write. One possible interpretation, which contains a contradiction, is that you claim that Vettel showed that he was more than a second faster than Rosberg, but you also say that we can't rely on the lap times. You then refer to the lap times when Vettel was on old tyres, while Rosberg was on new tyres, as proof that Vettel was a lot quicker. If I understand you correctly, you are either refering to lap 16 and 17 or to lap 41 to 44. That was when Rosberg had pited and Vettel hadn't. On lap 16 and 17, Vettel did 1:53.784 and 2:01.858 (his inlap). Rosberg was actually not much slower than this on lap 14 and 15, when he did 1:53.835 and 2:00.635 (his inlap). Vettel's pace on these two laps are actually not very impressive and he even looses more than a second on his inlap compared to Rosberg. I don't see the 1 second difference here.
Regarding lap 41 to 44, Rosberg was then clearly hindered by Webber, and he probably also didn't want to stay too close to Webber, as he hadn't scheduled any more pitstops and had to make his tyres last until the end of the race, i.e 20 more laps. Lap times don't say anything about the pace unless the driver has clear track ahead of him. Anyway, Rosberg was 1.474 s behind Webber after lap 42. After lap 43, he had closed this gap to 1.160 s and after lap 44, he had closed it further to 1.050 s. After lap 46, Rosberg was 0.885 seconds behind Webber. His lap times are thus not interesting, as they were limited by Webber, who was in front of him, driving slower. When a faster driver is behind a slower driver, the gap will stabelise around some equilibrium that depends on the speed difference. If the speed difference is very large, the gap will be very small and vice-versa. If one drivers stays less than 1 second behind another driver for several laps, or closes the distance to less than 1 second, it means he is considerably faster, although it is difficult to quantify the difference accurately. You can look at Kimi Raikkonen, who followed Jenson Button from the safety car until lap 54. The gap between them on the laps before Raikkonen passed Button developed as follows starting after lap 46: 0.729 s, 0.857, 0.723 s, 0.605 s, 0.479 s, 0.664 s, 0.428, 0.337 s. When Kimi got passed Button, he pulled away with 4 seconds per lap and opened up a 39.434 s gap in less than 8 laps. So I guess this shows that for Rosberg, it was out of the question to follow Webber closer than half a second, as he wasn't 4 seconds faster per lap. But that doesn't mean he wasn't faster when he managed to close to within one second.
Stradivarius wrote:I would then like to ask you to explicitly explain when he showed this true pace that impressed you so much.
Is this a joke or are you just playing around? Are you honestly asking me this?
Especially considering not only what i wrote in the post but also what you wrote here below.
It's not a joke, I would like an answer. Instead of writing: "If you mean lap 16 and 17...." or "If you are refering to lap 41 to 44" I thought it would be convenient to know precisely which laps on which you base your conclusion, as it is then easier to answer directly to that. At some time Rosberg had rubber in his front wing, which slowed him down and at other times, he was in traffic. But some times he showed a pace that was within half a second of what Vettel was doing. Therefore it is important to be specific about what laps you are refering to.
Stradivarius wrote:You seem to be very impressed with what Vettel did on lap 1 and 2, and also the laps he did after Rosberg pited. But if you study the lap times, you will see that this big difference at the beginning was due to Rosberg being very slow, not Vettel being very fast.
Yes very impressed at the opening laps, obviously.
So basically, you think 1:52.866 on lap 2 showed that Vettel was more than a second faster than everyone else? You do realise, I hope, that Vettel and Rosberg were the only two drivers running in clean air at that point? The tyre performance drops more in the beginning than after a few laps and Vettel was the only driver with clean air from the start. Rosberg didn't follow him, but everyone else were stuck behind him before Rosberg got his speed up.
Ok so Rosberg was just slow. How about Alonso? New tires, 5 tenths of Vettel on 26 laps old tires.
Maybe everyone was just going slower... i guess that´s the only thing that makes sense when you are trying to downplay the utter dominance displayed by Red Bull.
Again, what laps are you talking about? Well, Vettel had 26 laps old tires only once in the race, and that was just before he made his last stop at the end of lap 44. But you say that Alonso then had new tyres, but this is not true. Alonso had stoped 8 laps after Vettel, so what he had was 18 laps old tyres, which is very different from having new tyres. Also, Alonso was held up by Hamilton until the end of lap 43. So could you be refering to Alonso's lap 44, when he did 1:51.082? Well, this is 5 tenths slower than Vettel's time on lap 42, but then Vettel had 24 laps old tyres, not 26. So this is not clear to me, I can't find the evidence you are refering to, please be more specific. Please also remember that Alonso was on a 35 lap stint lasting until the end of the race, so he probably didn't push very hard at this time. Vettel, on the other hand, was headed into the pits to change his tyres and didn't have to save anything. Knowing that pit stops some times offer problems that cost time, Vettel probably wanted a good margin. He came out a few seconds behind Alonso and I doubt he would have liked to have any smaller margin than that.
Do you really think soo??? Oh boy
