2020 Hungarian Grand Prix - Hungaroring, July 17-19

[Wynters]

I wouldn't be overly surprised if he manages to keep car 77 behind him more often than not. Shocking display from Bottas today.
Max had a great race and should rightly get plaudits, especially considering what happened on the way to the start would have affected a lot of other drivers but he brushed it right off.

Also his start was fenomenal. This man deserves a decent car so everybody can see his talent.

Weirdly enough he did not get of the line that well, he just took the right line(s) outside .. which is always dangerous, and even more so on wet tracks.
But 4 places by the end of T1 isn't bad at all. Hope RB gets to dial in that car very quickly, a dominance like this is boring as f***

Agreed. His start was on par with the Ferraris. But, as you say, he got both Vettel and Leclerc on that outside line and everyone else in front of him on the dirty side of the grid dropped their starts (pretty much everyone on the dirty line the length of the grid looked to have a poor start, average position loss was -2.6 on that side). I think he achieved the absolute maximum of what was achievable but he was helped a lot by misfortune and the track conditions in making it look better than it was.

[etusch]

So jumpstart detection system doing jack --- again

they are talking tolerance so designing a system allow you early start in tolerance is good area to get better starts

[Sieper]

Leclerc did have a blistering fast start from the right hand side. Yeah Max so far this year although reacting quick never gets those blistering start speeds. The Ferrari's did have them all last year. this year not so much. One reason I am still not totally convinced Honda has low end grunt / electro power on same level as the others. Or is it simply down to traction. In any case, Max has had to defend for position in the opening laps of both Austria races and here he was only able to pass as he chose the outside where the room indeed was. Still he had to manage the car on the wet kerb, which he did.

[KiLLu12258]

what a safe. holy

[Hoffman900]

I watched the in-car. Max got a great start because he was on the left side of the track. As I said, everyone on the right got stacked behind Valetri as well as being in the wettest part of the track.

Into and through T1, Max was where the dry track was and elbowed a bit to get to it as well. Anyone on the inside of T1 spun up (Sainz).

[Sieper]

He did not elbow. The one person he got close to was Vettel and Vettel was already having traction issues. Lecler did get a great start from the right side of the grid. It is true though that a lot of people got stuck behind Bottas. Somehow everybody went for the inside, that compounded the issue, Max actually had a sea of room.

[Hoffman900]

He did not elbow. The one person he got close to was Vettel and Vettel was already having traction issues. Lecler did get a great start from the right side of the grid. It is true though that a lot of people got stuck behind Bottas. Somehow everybody went for the inside, that compounded the issue, Max actually had a sea of room.

Elbow might be strong. Coming out of T1, you see him aim the car for the dry patch while Vettel was spinning up. It was close but that's part experience and being good.

Max is good, but his start was a lot of the right place and the right time, which in racing, is half the game.

[Unc1eM0nty]

Bottas started in 2nd gear, did anyone else ?

[El Scorchio]

Bottas started in 2nd gear, did anyone else ?

Not if they’ve got any sense.

[Sieper]

He did not elbow. The one person he got close to was Vettel and Vettel was already having traction issues. Lecler did get a great start from the right side of the grid. It is true though that a lot of people got stuck behind Bottas. Somehow everybody went for the inside, that compounded the issue, Max actually had a sea of room.

Elbow might be strong. Coming out of T1, you see him aim the car for the dry patch while Vettel was spinning up. It was close but that's part experience and being good.

Max is good, but his start was a lot of the right place and the right time, which in racing, is half the game.

Yeah, 100% agreed. Sometimes the sea opens in front of you and sometimes the gates hit closed in your face and it might not even be your own doing. Others are also choosing. I fact, for the very major most part there was good racing all along the field. With attacks but also with judicious retreats at the right time.

[El Scorchio]

He did not elbow. The one person he got close to was Vettel and Vettel was already having traction issues. Lecler did get a great start from the right side of the grid. It is true though that a lot of people got stuck behind Bottas. Somehow everybody went for the inside, that compounded the issue, Max actually had a sea of room.

Elbow might be strong. Coming out of T1, you see him aim the car for the dry patch while Vettel was spinning up. It was close but that's part experience and being good.

Max is good, but his start was a lot of the right place and the right time, which in racing, is half the game.

Yeah, 100% agreed. Sometimes the sea opens in front of you and sometimes the gates hit closed in your face and it might not even be your own doing. Others are also choosing. I fact, for the very major most part there was good racing all along the field. With attacks but also with judicious retreats at the right time.

On the whole a very clean race. Nice change. Also a very clean race weekend on here. Again a nice change!

[Hoffman900]

Here is Valteri's lap times from lap 52 to lap 69:


52: 1:17.900
53: 1:18.039
54: 1:18.546
55: 1:18.654
56: 1:18.363
57: 1:18.854
58: 1:19.548
59: 1:19.447
60: 1:19.079
61: 1:19.397
62: 1:18.451
63: 1:18.169
64: 1:18.165
65: 1:18.493
66: 1:17.665
67: 1:18.229
68: 1:18.508
69: 1:18.869

Average: 1:18.576

He was told he had to run 1:18.50 to catch Max, which he did. If you look at Max's pace before Valteri was told this, he dropped the pace around lap 58, with a spike around 55-58. This would be the traffic Bottas caught in laps 59-61. I think this is more on Merc. strategists being optimistic more than Valteri dropping the ball. He ran what he was asked to.

[Wynters]

I was shocked that it took so many laps for Bottas to close up to Max and that he ultimately couldn't get past. Is Bottas that bad, or is Max that good, or both?

Overtaking is tough, it looks like you need more than a second pace advantage of several uninterrupted laps to set it up. Plenty of drivers had their races ruined after getting stuck behind much slower cars. 'Monaco without the walls'.

Also, what happened to Kimi Raikkonen? I thought 1/4 of the race through he was already up to ~13th and not out of sync on pit stops. I thought he might have a chance to get some points. Did he spin or have a bad pit stop? TV feed barely showed the Alfa Romeos all race.

Looks like the first half of his last stint just wasn't enough. What he lost to the cars around him then, he couldn't make up in the last half.

Remember, Bottas was told he had to run 1:18.5s to catch him quicker than he actually did, and he did run those times. I don't have the lap times in front if me, but a quick look shows Valteri was overall faster than that. Someone should take the average from that point (radio transmission) to the end and that will tell you. If Valteri was faster than that, he exceeded expectations and it was the strategists who got it wrong.

He did, indeed, do 1:18.5s, except when he caught traffic laps 58-60. Verstappen lost 3/10ths a lap passing them, Bottas lost a second a lap passing them. Also worth noting that Verstappen went from cruising at 1:20.0s to comfortably into the 1:19s when Bottas started catching him. I think Mercedes expected that though, as their prediction would have been spot on but for the time lost in traffic.

I suspect the same thing happened the first time Bottas closed up. He got there just as the pair of them hit the Latifi/Norris/Ocon/Grosjean train and clearing that took four laps, at which point Bottas pitted.

Lecler did get a great start from the right side of the grid.

It's looks great because everyone in front of him had no traction. If you compare him to Vettel, Leclerc is only holding position. If you look at the run into the first corner (and out of it), it's Hamilton who makes the best start (by quite a distance). It probably doesn't look like that because a) Bottas was too busy trying to work out what the start light looked like and, by the time Vettel is having his wiggle, Hamilton is so far ahead he's almost out of shot.

[Wynters]

Average: 1:18.576

He was told he had to run 1:18.50 to catch Max, which he did.

He didn't though. He ran 1:18.576. Across 18 laps that 0.076 is worth 1.4 seconds.

1.4 seconds sees him on Verstappen's gearbox early in lap 67, rather than the start of lap 69. Two more sets of DRS zones would make a lot of difference, I suspect*.

*Edited for clarity.

[Hoffman900]

Average: 1:18.576

He was told he had to run 1:18.50 to catch Max, which he did.

He didn't though. He ran 1:18.576. Across 18 laps that 0.076 is worth 1.4 seconds.

1.4 seconds sees him on Verstappen's gearbox early in lap 67, rather than the start of lap 69. A whole lap plus both DRS zones for lap 69 would make a lot of difference, I suspect.

Fair enough. Just goes to show how much a few hundreths of a second makes. It was an optimistic call regardless, even Martin Brundle thought so when they made the radio transmission. It looked like they had to take the chance as Valteri was running 1:19s prior to that last pit stop, and that alone wasn't going to catch Max, who as was pointed out, the Merc. strategists likely knew he was capable of doing.