Hamilton "lost" pace

[Shrieker]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this here or in another thread, but one thing that has changed since Monza is the new tire pressure rule and Hamilton had declared that it was going to be a disaster once the change was announced.

[dans79]

Lastly, I really hope this doesn't have an impact on the 2016 season. If I'd be Hamilton, I'd be fuming. I get Mexico, I get Brazil, but I sure as hell did not get this one. Fair enough if the strategist stuffed up and they come up and apologize or simply stick up their hand and explain it, but to act as if everything went according to plan when it didn't is what is seriously damaging team-relations.

So Lewis is still the WDC. No big deal. But for some reason people still turn on their TVs despite the championship is over... but not to see something like this.

Honestly, I think this is exactly what Lewis needed to get him focused for next year. He knows what change to the car has helped Nico or hurt him (take you pick what it actually is). Nico being his typical smug little self, and the team screwing him over, have only added more reasons to focus. Lewis said he didn't really have a goal after his 3rd title, but I'm willing to bet his goal next year, will be to grind Nico into dust.

[PlatinumZealot]

To get the balance more to his liking Lewis removed one of the dampers in the front suspension just like Barichello did some years ago at Brawn (was the rear suspension in that case?). He lost 1.5 tenths in qualifying because of that change alone, and he had terrible pace on the super soft tyre but his pace on the soft was really good and he had good tyre life too.

I hope the team sort this out or Lewis get's on top of it. I really wonder why Mercedes is making the car slower to please Nico. Lewis said the car is actually slower compared to the comptetion after they changed the suspension. Isn't the engineer's job to make the car faster? Why go backwards? It almost reeks of Mclaren in 2012.

[Felipe 92]

I really wonder why Mercedes is making the car slower to please Nico. Lewis said the car is actually slower compared to the comptetion after they changed the suspension.

McLaren Honda made rubbish car just to please Magnussen.

[giantfan10]

To get the balance more to his liking Lewis removed one of the dampers in the front suspension just like Barichello did some years ago at Brawn (was the rear suspension in that case?). He lost 1.5 tenths in qualifying because of that change alone, and he had terrible pace on the super soft tyre but his pace on the soft was really good and he had good tyre life too.

I hope the team sort this out or Lewis get's on top of it. I really wonder why Mercedes is making the car slower to please Nico. Lewis said the car is actually slower compared to the comptetion after they changed the suspension. Isn't the engineer's job to make the car faster? Why go backwards? It almost reeks of Mclaren in 2012.

Or maybe Lewis is full of you know what and is making excuses
MERC has said the car has not changed... how many races did lewis win after singapore where he claimed the car change happened? Much ado about nothing...

[henra]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this here or in another thread, but one thing that has changed since Monza is the new tire pressure rule and Hamilton had declared that it was going to be a disaster once the change was announced.

You might be on to something here. It was pretty much since then that the advantage he had over Nico disappeared.

I seriously doubt they modified the car to please Nico especially since in the first part of the Season it seemd as if at least Niki Lauda favoured Lewis wins over Nico wins and Toto seemed impartial at best. It has been pretty clear that Nico is rather #1,6 in the Team. And they spent a tremendous amount of Money to get Lewis into the Team while they got Nico pretty cheaply. Why would they otherwise want to waste Money?

[dans79]

Or maybe Lewis is full of you know what and is making excuses
MERC has said the car has not changed... how many races did lewis win after singapore where he claimed the car change happened? Much ado about nothing...

something has changed, and someone on the team has commented on it.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/34828754

One senior figure in the Mercedes team said the only difference he could see in the data was that Rosberg has improved in the braking phase into the corner.

He can tolerate more rear slip on entry than before, which is allowing him to be more aggressive and winning him time from the entry to apex. This is only gaining hundredths, not 10ths. But when there is only 0.08secs between the drivers over a lap, as in Brazil, that could be decisive.

ould the change in the Mercedes car Hamilton referred to be related to this?

The only publicly known tweak to the car is in the way Mercedes treat the tyres ahead of qualifying and race.

This is their response to tyre supplier Pirelli's demand for teams to run higher pressures as well as limiting the maximum temperatures of the tyre following the 200mph failures suffered by Rosberg and Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel at the Belgian Grand Prix in August.

The mandatory minimum pressures are higher than the teams would ideally like to run because they reduce grip - indeed their views were represented in a letter from governing body the FIA to Pirelli ahead of the Brazil race. Pirelli rejected the teams' complaints.

In an attempt to run tyre pressures as low as possible, but still ensure they meet Pirelli's mandatory minimums, Mercedes heat the wheels before the car goes out on track, which raises the tyre pressure when the car is static and allows it to fall down again when they are out on track for better performance.

Treating the wheels and tyres in this way can affect the front-rear balance during braking, and therefore could be an explanation for Rosberg's ability to brake later, accept more "slip" and attack the corner more confidently.

Asked about this, Mercedes executive director (technical) Paddy Lowe admitted: "Tyre pressures have affected changes [to the car] through that period."

No to mention Nico went from getting one pole out of the first 12, to all 6 after Singapore, That's not a coincidence.

[iotar__]

To get the balance more to his liking Lewis removed one of the dampers in the front suspension just like Barichello did some years ago at Brawn (was the rear suspension in that case?). He lost 1.5 tenths in qualifying because of that change alone, and he had terrible pace on the super soft tyre but his pace on the soft was really good and he had good tyre life too.

I hope the team sort this out or Lewis get's on top of it. I really wonder why Mercedes is making the car slower to please Nico. Lewis said the car is actually slower compared to the comptetion after they changed the suspension. Isn't the engineer's job to make the car faster? Why go backwards? It almost reeks of Mclaren in 2012.

Or maybe Lewis is full of you know what and is making excuses
MERC has said the car has not changed... how many races did lewis win after singapore where he claimed the car change happened? Much ado about nothing...

Basically although Alonso beat Hamilton in BS department this race, he caused the whole start situation, cut Nasr, lost the car, rammed into Maldo and complained about the clearest penalty ever. A "high driving standards" hypocrite.

About 'tyre pressure". Rosberg didn't need any tyre pressure changes to out-qualify Hamilton for similarly long periods last season, out pace or be close enough in most of the races together. This theory does not have any legs to stand on. Let's say it is tyre pressure (it's not but for the sake of it): 1. it does not change anything - a quicker driver is still quicker 2. Did it affect any other driver? No it did not, only one of the best drivers in the best car. 3. maybe previous car config was in favour of LH and this is an equalised situation, huh?

"I really wonder why Mercedes is making the car slower to please Nico."Is that a joke ? Not even "if". 1. How are Mercedes cars any slower? 2. how is it pleasing Rosberg to have a slower car? 3. I thought the car was "slower" only for Hamilton. 4. Following this broken logic - when Hamilton was quicker in Singapore it was at its slowest for the last two seasons, wasn't it? No, it's just a desperate nonsense to excuse a favourite driver from getting outperformed, insult to human intelligence and a proof how pointless those discussions are.

[RicME85]

I'm not a Hamilton fanboy but the impression I got post race watching the Sky feed was that Mercedes were trying to everything possible to please Rosberg. The crew and bosses were congratulating him and singing to him in a very forced way, didn't feel natural like when Hamilton wins (or other teams and drivers). To me it felt very much like the team were treating Nico as if he was Veruca Salt.

[PlatinumZealot]

Yes. It is all about creating a good atmosphere for Nico and family that Christmas party.

Remember Nico's wife will be bringing the baby; we don't want any awkward moments with the evil Lewis and Nico's family now do we?

[sgth0mas]

Different cars and different car characteristics suit somw drivers better than others. Im not saying that this is 100% the case here, but there is no one fastest driver in every car they drive.

Look at Vettel with EBD and high rear grip, any rookie with modern era cars, kimi in NASCAR...even Rossi when they launched more electronic controls on motogp bikes.

[Kingshark]

I bet next year Nico will take over the #1 all time spot.
http://s15.postimg.org/a6ody4ga3/Nico.jpg

Out of the drivers on that list:

1. Rosberg is on the same level as Reuteman and Peterson. I would put those three in the same bracket, one above the recent #2 drivers (Barrichello, Coulthard, Webber, Massa).

2. Stirling Moss is on another level altogether. I rank him above several multiple-WDC's.

[Vasconia]

According to some newspapers Mercedes gave Hamilton the chanche to choose the strategy. I think he tried too hard with the tyres and he wanted to keep the same tyres until the last lap, which was quite stupid indeed.

But we should not loose our time speaking about this. Mercedes is preparing a much slower car for Nico to beat Lewis the next season. Come on...

And I thought Alonso fanatics were the worst, I was so wrong...

[Phil]

According to some newspapers Mercedes gave Hamilton the chanche to choose the strategy. I think he tried too hard with the tyres and he wanted to keep the same tyres until the last lap, which was quite stupid indeed.

There's a problem with that; It's practically impossible for the driver to make certain decisions with little to no feedback of what is happening around him. Compare this to the team and specifically the race-engineer who is sitting at the track with an array of monitors in front of him, seeing the respective gaps to every single car on the grid, their sector times and know exactly on what tires they are on, how many laps they all did on them etc. This all has a bearing on the optimal strategy. How then could any driver, who's driving more or less at the limit with two tiny side-mirrors and no one ahead of him (he was leading at that point), make a better decision or know what is going on around him?

The way it should be is that the team informs the guy on track to what options he has and gives him a fair assessment. It's either - this makes sense, or it doesn't. Perhaps sometimes you have a per-determined plan, like a possible 1-stop scenario, but then it's the teams - or the race strategists - responsibility to come forward when it's clear that the plan isn't working out and adjustments need to be made.

What absolutely makes me furious about the race is that Hamilton showed once again that he had terrific pace. He closed a 7 second gap down to 1 and was practically within DRS reach when the pitstop window for Rosberg came up. Had Lewis pitted a lap after Rosberg, he would have been less than 2 seconds, maybe 3 seconds worst-case behind with roughly 25 laps to go on a track with 2 DRS zones and one of them a respectable straight length wise on tires where he already showed that he had good or better pace than his leading team-mate.

Would it have worked? Would he have been able to pass Rosberg? Hard to say. Catching and passing are two different things. It would have been damn exciting to find out though. He would have had 25 laps to pull it off - something he successfully did on numerous occasions last year. More to the point; it would have been his best shot at the win in Abu Dhabi.

What do the team do? They keep him out. Lap after lap and lap after lap, Rosberg was putting in better times as a logical consequence of having fresher tires. The only way this made sense is if the goal was to either not stop again (and impossibility according to the team) or to go on to the super-soft tires for a short 15 lap stint at the end on a light car. But the team then puts him on the slower more durable soft-tire instead. Sorry, there's no fricking way that would have yielded anything.

And then Lewis's race engineer has the balls to come on radio (after that stop) to tell Lewis "pace is looking good"? Idiot - it was a long way off of being good enough to close that 14 second gap within the roughly 14 laps that were still left. What also makes me furious is that the team then later says that Rosberg was unbeatable today. My ass he was. It only looked that way because they put Lewis on a strategy that made him go from 1 second behind his team-mate to 15 seconds. They could have just as well ordered him to stop for an ice-cream.

[SiLo]

Whether they made any changes or not, I do find it strange that the tables have turned so abruptly between Hamilton and Rosberg. Has Rosberg just found extra pace from nowhere? Unlikely. Has Hamilton just gotten slower for no reason? Also unlikely.

But seeing as there is nothing concrete, its difficult to judge. The most obvious thing seems to be either tyre pressures, or a small change in suspension geometry related to tyre pressures.

I don't think Hamilton's claim that the Mercedes seemed slower to him compared to the Ferraris. What were the gaps like after Singapore? Maybe it seems that way because he was all of a sudden behind Rosberg.