2018 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, 22 -25 March

[Rodzilla]

Vettel would have been nowhere near Hamilton or Raikkonen without his blind luck. To then make out that it was all a master plan?

well part of that plan is about getting track position so that luck can happen to you, im actually surprised that i have to explain this lol

even without the luck splitting the strategy is the best thing you can do in that situation, hamilton and mercedes would love it if you make simple on them and just pit at the same time

this way you pit one early so you force hamilton to either endure a long 2nd stint or give up the lead then you bring in vettel 10 laps later who has given up time but will have fresher tyres for the rest of the race

whatever you think about this plan, the fact is that ferrari were doing it and thats why vettel was slower early in the race

No Vettel was slower because.........He was slower.

Dress it up all you like but Vettel was slower and won due to dumb luck.

no he was slower because he had to go 10 laps longer and was conserving tyres

(source: my brain)

[Steven]

There's one thing I don't understand about VET strategy: if there wasn't any VSC or SC would they have tried SS instead of S?

Probably!
That's the only other option they had.
All of this was possible because Bottas wasn't there, just as Kimi wasn't there so many times last season!

Ferrari should have sacked Kimi long time ago! Too often he's just to slow, even for a number 2 driver. Useless!

Somehow, Kimi was put on crappy strategies fairly often last year.
This weekend, he was faster than Vettel
Chances of a SC are fairly high, maybe Ferrari knowingly gambled for that with Vettel

Also, the only overtakes that I'm aware of were Daniel Ricciardo on Sainz, and then some by Valtteri Bottas.

[basti313]

So, why did Vettel stay out so long, he was loosing more and more time, at Some point his only hope was a virtual safety car. Just at that point one Haas car got stopped on track and then one more, just at the perfect time. That was very lucky.

In Melbourne a lot races are vastly decided by a Safety Car. I do not think it is pure luck to base your strategy on a SC.

The point is rather: Ham lost because Bot threw his car away on his banker lap in Q3. With Bot in the mix, Ferrari could not play strategic games like Merc did last year with the VSC...

There's one thing I don't understand about VET strategy: if there wasn't any VSC or SC would they have tried SS instead of S?

Without the VSC this would not have mattered because of the big gaps. They had not many laps to wait...so I doubt it.

Toto says it might be a software bug that may have represented the VSC delta times inaccurately.

makes sense, so maybe HAM drove to a wrong value?

Toto said right after the race, that Ham was driving to a delta at this stage.

Just to add: Toto just stated on ORF that their computers said that a 15 second should be sufficient to retain the lead. At that point, Vettel was 12.1s ahead.

One tricky thing though: the pit entry and exit are not included for the VSC delta, so Vettel accelerated on the pit entry and extended the gap to 16s.

Either way, Mercedes got the gaps wrong and should have calculated more margin.

Yes, but I think that is ridiculously stupid. That is an error in which many teams were falling since the start of the VSC. To me it is clear, that a safe gap for a SC window is 8sec and ~10sec for a VSC on a usual track. You could literally see how Ferrari was waiting for the SC in any kind of way. No idea, how the whole Merc crew can sleep so well and this was obviously not just the strategist. It was also stupid sandbagging by Toto or whoever is in charge...they could have easily opened the gap to Rai and closed down on Vet in no time. But this would have shown the pace of this car...

[JonoNic]

If Ferrari pitted Raikkonen early just to wrongfoot Hamilton then surely they will be wise to it next time...

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[Rodzilla]

If Ferrari pitted Raikkonen early just to wrongfoot Hamilton then surely they will be wise to it next time...

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they were wise to it this time but they must cover raikkonen in that situation and expose hamilton

[GPR-A duplicate2]

If Ferrari pitted Raikkonen early just to wrongfoot Hamilton then surely they will be wise to it next time...

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they were wise to it this time but they must cover raikkonen in that situation and expose hamilton

This strategy is possible on tracks where overtaking is impossible. With the kind of pace difference between Merc and Ferrari, the Ferrari would get roasted on circuits like China and Bahrain.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

So, why did Vettel stay out so long, he was loosing more and more time, at Some point his only hope was a virtual safety car. Just at that point one Haas car got stopped on track and then one more, just at the perfect time. That was very lucky.

In Melbourne a lot races are vastly decided by a Safety Car. I do not think it is pure luck to base your strategy on a SC.

The point is rather: Ham lost because Bot threw his car away on his banker lap in Q3. With Bot in the mix, Ferrari could not play strategic games like Merc did last year with the VSC...

When the VSC happened, Vettel was ahead of Hamilton by 11 seconds, who was ahead of Kimi by 5 seconds and who was ahead of Ricciardo by 4 seconds. Right behind them, was Grosjean and Verstappen. At any point after that time if Vettel was going to make a stop, he was going to come out behind all that gang. What was Ferrari gambling on?

[henra]

Looking at how impossible overtaking seemed to be then without the VSC Vettel was hosed.

There are hundreds of races in F1 history where the second or third fastest car/driver has won. It's called RACING. And those lucky wins are the important ones.

That said the temporary advantage of Mercs Quali Mode looks alarming for an interesting season. On tracks with overtaking opportunity nothing will stop Merc with their probably around 100HP advantage.
So, unfortunately I'm not yet convinced of an interesting season ahead. Rather the opposite. Despite this win not going to Merc. Ferrari will need to find quite a number of Cavallinos....

[RZS10]

>100hp

i think you forgot a 0 there m8


(this is an obvious joke)

[Mchamilton]

>100hp

i think you forgot a 0 there m8

100hp advantage, not 100hp total lol

[iotar__]

>100hp
i think you forgot a 0 there m8

It's the same with top/start-finish straight speed. If Merc has an adavantage it's visibly the engine - check the numbers! If Ferrari is equal it's something else, can't lose in shifting goalposts universe. Measurement don't matter, like 0,7 s - engine impact in Melbourne necessary to make chassis equal. Make it 0,4-0,5 s since Hamilton was always quick in Australia.

Uptade on Verstappen http://www.planetf1.com/news/verstappen ... f-the-car/
Apparently it was "something". I can help them with an algorithm: count what was on the car at the start, what was at the finish, substract, provide info and impact in points of DF and say Sixth Sense couldn't cope with a dreaded lack of something . OK whatever, if it's in the material world it's the reason, but until details, "something" = we couldn't come up with "anything" else.

[basti313]

So, why did Vettel stay out so long, he was loosing more and more time, at Some point his only hope was a virtual safety car. Just at that point one Haas car got stopped on track and then one more, just at the perfect time. That was very lucky.

In Melbourne a lot races are vastly decided by a Safety Car. I do not think it is pure luck to base your strategy on a SC.

The point is rather: Ham lost because Bot threw his car away on his banker lap in Q3. With Bot in the mix, Ferrari could not play strategic games like Merc did last year with the VSC...

When the VSC happened, Vettel was ahead of Hamilton by 11 seconds, who was ahead of Kimi by 5 seconds and who was ahead of Ricciardo by 4 seconds. Right behind them, was Grosjean and Verstappen. At any point after that time if Vettel was going to make a stop, he was going to come out behind all that gang. What was Ferrari gambling on?

No idea what you mean....no one had stopped in the pack except Ham and Rai. Vet was pitstop corrected about 25sec clear to anyone behind. And 23sec to P4 when Rai pitted with a pitstop time of 21sec.
When the VSC happend, Ric was 28sec behind Vet in P4. Then Alfonso in P5 and the only dangerous one who had successfully pitted behind was Ves at above 50sec.

[max_speed]

Haas have decided to use "ferrari's" pit crew as well. only thing they did not borrow from ferrari caused them big time today

[henra]

This strategy is possible on tracks where overtaking is impossible. With the kind of pace difference between Merc and Ferrari, the Ferrari would get roasted on circuits like China and Bahrain.

Ferrari and RB will get roasted on many if not most tracks with the Qualiy Mode advantage Merc has shown. They both will have to find some temporary HP urgently if they want to have a chance of not being overtaken on the straights.

I doubt Merc can run this 0,7s per lap advantage over really long periods in the race but they won't have to. If they are equal or slightly faster in pace and can push that magic button for 4 or 5 laps that is all it takes on most tracks.
And of the alleged 0,4 or 0,5s from RB/Renault I haven't seen much today.
And Ferrari also needs to get their act together on Soft Tyres. So there is a lot to do for RBR and Ferrari to really take the fight to Merc.

[f1316]

It was certainly a fortuitous victory for Ferrari today - quite a decent gap in race pace for Mercedes, although not 6 tenths per lap - but tbh I’m pleasantly surprised by the gap because it’s still clear Ferrari are not on top of the car and there’s therefore a good amount of room for improvement.

Sometimes these safety car periods work out for you, sometimes they don’t - just look at both China and Bahrain last year when Vettel was disadvantaged by the timing (managing to still get away with it in Bahrain). But given Mercedes current pace advantage, it’s good for the season that they don’t run away with it before the others close up - and i’m confident there’s a lot of development potential in that Ferrari.