GPR-A wrote: ↑25 Jul 2020, 09:44
godlameroso wrote: ↑24 Jul 2020, 15:32
the gap at the end was 6 seconds and change. Plus 22 seconds for a pit stop, that's ~28 seconds. IIRC Hamilton pitted on lap 67?
So without the stop Hamilton would have finished roughly ~30 seconds ahead by the checkered flag.
30 second gap divided by 70 laps gives us ~.5 which is the average race pace gap.
What happens if that gap comes down by .3?
With a .2 sec average gap or less, Verstappen and Hamilton would be trading laps through the race.
While Max was under pressure from Bottas and driving as fast as the car can go, Lewis was cruising at the front. He always does that to protect his PU. Both Andy Shovlin and James Vowell have mentioned this in many of their debriefs. Yet, you take the difference on the face of it and project the deficit.
How does the gap comes down by 0.3? Would Mercedes be sitting idle when RB is bringing that gap down to 0.3? You keep posting 0.2 and 0.3 for the past couple of years and yet, that gap doesn't go away. At the end of the year, Mercedes shows a dominant pace when it reaches Abu Dhabi. More crucially this year, Mercedes have prevailed in Austria and Hungary by big margin, whereas in the past few years Mercedes has faced troubles and Red Bull took full advantage of it with their package.
Don't you think it's time to look things differently and stop being overtly optimistic without any reasoning? When was the last time Red Bull had such aero problems (with their own admission) that they had to revert to their Preseason testing package to do a comparison? Up next is Silverstone which brings the best of Mercedes chassis to the fore. While RB is currently scratching their head to identify the problem and fixing it, Mercedes is probably optimizing their car and bolting more upgrades, isn't it? That might just increase the gap between the two teams.
Currently, RB's only strength is Max. He is getting the best out of the struggling package. But he is also frustrated with the unpredictability of the car and psychologically, from the highs of last year that generated so much optimism for him for 2020, the sudden struggles this year will affect him badly.
Maybe, it could be like any other year where RB takes a few races to get on top of the car.
I honestly think if the gap comes down you'll see things are closer than they appear. If you have enough pace to pull away while managing the race, it lets you not only save the engine, but also ERS. After a stint of being able to save ERS boost, you can pull a 1.2 or 1.3 second per lap gain until you pit where you can charge the ERS since you're slightly over fueled.
But! If you don't have the ability to pull away while managing things, suddenly you cannot build an ERS surplus. Your potential 1.2 second ultimate pace advantage can never be realized. Because you'll be using your ERS to defend and try to stave off the chaser. Plus you'll burn up your tires in the process as well.
So it's not over yet. Mercedes may not be toppled but they will get a challenge over the season. Silverstone is completely different than the previous two circuits. The average speed is higher, the corners are faster.
Naturally the RBR will lose out on braking, but will it lose out on slow corner acceleration? Austria showed us the RB is slightly faster in short slow hairpin like corners. It doesn't seem like RB is slower in the very high speed corners.
I will be worried however if they spin in the esses, if not I can see Verstappen guaranteed podium.