Wynters wrote: ↑16 Jul 2020, 15:03
I did a brief dive into the pace of Verstappen-Bottas-Albon-Perez from Styria and came across something interesting. The main post is in the Red Bull Racing Team thread but I've reproduced the Racing Point relevant parts here.
- Up until lap 50, the car behind Albon has been doing
1:08.4s and Albon has been cruising around matching that. Perez has just passed Ricciardo though. Interestingly, while chasing Ricciardo down, Perez was doing
1:08.2s. He passes Ricciardo and starts doing
1:07.8s for the 5 laps it takes to catch Albon*.
- Albon has clearly seen him coming and upped his own pace. He's now doing
1:08.2s. From lap 57 onwards, it's obvious that Perez has pace enough to pass despite the dirty air. Albon (or Honda) realise this is a real problem and he begins to accelerate, his lap times dropping into
1:07.5s where he and Perez stay until the contact. This is interesting because it's a pace Verstappen doesn't reach until his fastest lap attempts at the very end. Verstappen only had six laps below
1:08.0 total (other than these last two). Albon has 13 pretty much back-to-back.
- Looking at the relative pace between Albon and Verstappen, it's clear that Albon is pushing pretty hard as he's lapping faster than his team mate at this point (even accounting for damage and more worn tyres). I suspect Albon's car has been turned up to 11, although there's only the lap time differential to support that. This leads me to suspect that the Racing Point is properly fast in race trim at this circuit.
*Perez pitted 4 laps later than Bottas. But this is almost Bottas-chasing-Verstappen pace. From laps 40-65 (which includes Bottas slow 6 laps (likely traffic) but also Perez being behind Ricciardo), Perez is nearly 1/10th of a second faster, lap-by-lap, on average, than Bottas. Bottas sets his fastest lap of the race on lap 62 (
1:07.534). We know Perez's tyres are a little younger but from lap 62 until the contact with Albon on lap 69, Perez is only slower than that fastest lap once and sets his own fastest lap on lap 68 (
1:07.188).
I don't think this is truly indicative of the pace differential between Mercedes and Racing Point. Hamilton did a
1:06.719 on the same lap on 11 lap older tyres. But it highlights the pace of the Racing Point. It does also seem reasonable to conclude that Bottas had more in the pace if he needed it though.