rogazilla wrote: ↑20 Mar 2019, 19:02
Quantum wrote: ↑20 Mar 2019, 18:43
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You have still not accepted that in the race RB were 0.7 down. Fact.
Nor that they were 0.8 down in qualifying. Fact.
You assert that in clean air a 3rd placed car racing 2nd placed car, was 0.3 a lap off a cruising lead car, 20 seconds clear of 2nd.
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This is just going round and round. There are 2 different context here. Quantum, the number you provided is fastest lap of each car quali/race and RB is 0.7 down race and 0.8 down in quali.
What godlameroso's 0.3 per lap gap is avg of the race. That includes time in traffic, pit stop and all of that. A lot more variable involved and based on the gap chart above you can see VER's time track along Vettle until pit and passed VET then it tracks along with HAM. You can certainly say BOT is cruising otherwise the gap could be wider but at the end of the day over the race distance the gap is 0.3 per lap for this race. It would be different if VER was after BOT if they are both pushing to the end but what happened in this race, this instance it is 0.3 per lap for the race. In the hybrid era,who can run the quali pace the entire race?!
This formula makes outright pace of the car and the pace over the race distance quite different. Take human factor out, the V10 or V8 Era you have the outright power of the ICE and as fuel burns off the car gets faster and faster but the ICE output is constant (more or less). However we know that's not the same in hybrid era. godlameroso is simply presenting this in different context. Just different way to look at the data. slice and dice how you want but it provide some insight while the opinion is different from yours.
I'm in complete agreement that no car is going at full tilt for the whole race. It makes no sense to do so, and given the 2 biggest limiting factors...tyres and fuel, you would end up going far slower trying to go faster because of those factors.
Fun fact? 2004 cars were 4 seconds a lap slower in Quali around this track.
Fun fact 2? 2004 GP finished 1 full minute quicker than this years GP.
The bone of contention is that Mercedes weren't stressed, had plenty of reserve and had a damaged car being dropped by it's sister machine at around a second a lap at some points.
Make no mistake Bottas drove beautifully, but Hamilton has a history of being faster. Verstappen too drove beautifully but had no answer to a car with a broken floor and rear imbalance because of it.
Verstappen had no answer though and we are told that it's difficult to overtake. Yet Verstappen did Vettel on the outside of turn 3.
In a nutshell, I hate boring seasons. Mercedes or whomever winning all the time is bad for F1. There needs to be variety and I want to see tangible signs of a classic season. I did not see much to give me hope of that on Sunday.
Avgs worked out when the race is won after 15 laps is foolhardy as it does not give indication to the performance level of either car under duress.
By that I mean Vettel Hamilton last year or Rosberg Hamilton in years previous.
I wish it was 0.3, but I'm willing to place a bet that it's double that in Bahrain despite the track being around 11% shorter time wise.
