[ 2020 ] Aston Martin RedBull Racing F1 Team - Honda

[SF Engineer]

...Albon managed to kick off the fastest lap flurry which culminated in both Mercs blowing their FL.

In the same way that, when I went to the fridge to get an Ice cream on lap 49, it culminated in both Mercs blowing their FL?

It's abundantly clear from their lap times that the Mercs were not trying for fastest lap.

Witty.
I was just giving Albon credit for doing the only thing he could to affect the outcome of the race. You are likely correct that it had little effect - but I am not on the pit wall, and therefore understand that I cannot know such things with complete certainty.

Anyway, I guess it was just a coincidence that Hamilton’s race engineer needed to remind him not to go for fastest lap after Bottas’s tyre went.

[Curbstone]

I don't believe Mercedes were even glimpsing at Albon and hist fastsest laps, he was no threat at all, not even in a position to finish withing top 10. Even if Mercedes wanted to give the fastest lap a serious go, they would have been saving tires for one fast lap, not burn their tires for several laps untill they blow op. Your argument would make sense if you could see Mercedes made one or two decent attempts to go for the fastest lap, but Wynters has shown that wasn't the case.

So there's is no indication of causality between the failing tires and Albon's pace, you are trying to turn thing around just to make Albon look a bit better.

[damager21]

There is still a huge difference between Mercedes and Red Bull. Qualifying times were a clear indication of the time they are capable of pulling out of the bag.

Maybe in race trim that advantage is 0.7sec per lap and it is quite possible that they detuned their engine a bit more during the race knowing the advantage they have in hand. Red Bull needs to come up with major updates else another year of Mercedes and Lewis dominance looks inevitable

Hindsight is 20/20 so I feel pitting Max to set the fastest lap was the best decision. None of us would have predicted Lewis would blow his tyres despite his race engineer urging him not to try for the fastest lap given what Bottas suffered. At least Max got that extra point which could be quite valuable later in the season.

Also, it looks like Mercedes is more aggressive with tyre wear. Only if Red Bull can close the gap a bit and push them, there will be opportunities to exploit this

[Bill]

0.7 is an exaggeration in Hungary yes but here Max was only 8 seconds behind and just managing his pace while Lewis and Bottas were pushing each other according to them.

We saw towards the end the Honda powered cars were able to push a little bit harder perhaps they had better fuel efficiency than competitors or Mercedes were turned down because of reliability issues with Hulk or Williams in the past.

[NL_Fer]

Mercedes could just as well tune down the powerunit and the driver still pushing in the corners.

I bet they could have finished at 30s of MV if they wanted to.

[SF Engineer]

Mercedes could just as well tune down the powerunit and the driver still pushing in the corners.

I bet they could have finished at 30s of MV if they wanted to.

They would have been even more tyre limited and likely would have required another stop. If that was significantly faster there is a fair chance they would have gone that route.

Either it would not have been, or they need to preserve the life of the engines by turning them down during the races (as to not use additional items incurring penalties later in the season, or for fuel economy, etc.) was prioritized.
Their pace (QF and race) seems to be miles ahead of RB (who are significantly ahead of everyone else) when on full power, but it seems that other aspects are limiting the application of such pace for the entirety of the race.

[fellowhoodlums]

Next race will be interesting.

Suppose it's same grid, will Mercedes do a 3 stop and push hard to get the 22sec gap? Do RBR push them to force Merc tyre wear?

[nzjrs]

I very well could be wrong (as I watched the race without sector timing, etc.) but it sure did seem like all 3 remaining Honda powered cars improved their relative pace in the last ten or so laps.
They may not have much of a one-lap party mode, but this seems to be a nice feature for races.
Max did a great job to keep the Mercs inside a pit stop and despite having an underwhelming race for the first 80% or so, Albon managed to kick off the fastest lap flurry which culminated in both Mercs blowing their FL.

I thought I noticed that too. Would be interested if the decision to not use that mode for longer was based on wear/damage or on fuel consumption reasons.

[SF Engineer]

Next race will be interesting.

Suppose it's same grid, will Mercedes do a 3 stop and push hard to get the 22sec gap? Do RBR push them to force Merc tyre wear?

We do not know if RB needed the final pit stop with Max (due to tyres being critical), or if they are actually better on their tyres than Merc. If we take the assumption that they are slightly better on their tyres, then they may well opt for a M-S-S or S-M-M (or somthing along those lines). Their outright pace isn't quite there, so I would expect that they would try and use their (assumed) tyre advantage to reduce the amount of pit stops they have to perform.

Recently, it seems that there is also an SC every race, so i guess you could also do a base 2-pit strategy and take then extra stop if it makes sense....

[Mchamilton]

0.7 is an exaggeration in Hungary yes but here Max was only 8 seconds behind and just managing his pace while Lewis and Bottas were pushing each other according to them.

We saw towards the end the Honda powered cars were able to push a little bit harder perhaps they had better fuel efficiency than competitors or Mercedes were turned down because of reliability issues with Hulk or Williams in the past.

hulks problem was a sheared bolt on a clutch plate which jammed the crank.

[holeindalip]

I haven’t seen any indication the mercs are hard on the tires, the mercs were pretty gentle on the tires last year as well considering Hamilton did 40 laps on the hards and set the fastest lap on the last lap which was a 27.3 to verstappen 27.0 this year on fresh tires

[SF Engineer]

I haven’t seen any indication the mercs are hard on the tires, the mercs were pretty gentle on the tires last year as well considering Hamilton did 40 laps on the hards and set the fastest lap on the last lap which was a 27.3 to verstappen 27.0 this year on fresh tires

You may be correct, my impressions were mainly from looking at the blistering on max's tyres late stint versus those of Bottas and Hamilton.

[Wouter]

In Max his garage when Lewis tire broke.

[etusch]

I haven’t seen any indication the mercs are hard on the tires, the mercs were pretty gentle on the tires last year as well considering Hamilton did 40 laps on the hards and set the fastest lap on the last lap which was a 27.3 to verstappen 27.0 this year on fresh tires

You may be correct, my impressions were mainly from looking at the blistering on max's tyres late stint versus those of Bottas and Hamilton.

my opinion is max and Redbull accepted p3 from the beginning and it was very easy thing to get, so Max didn't push and saved tyres but at merc side; ham needed to keep himself away from bottas. It may be talked between merc team that they are allowed to fight because of very big gap to remained grid which indicates an easy one-two.

[Wynters]

Average difference over the whole race, being able to go faster in one lap is different than being able to all race. Bottas made sure Hamilton wasn't cruising, Bottas had to, he's driving for his job.

...here Max was only 8 seconds behind and just managing his pace while Lewis and Bottas were pushing each other according to them.

I wonder if this is more down to what people mean by 'cruising'.

For me, it applies to the package as a whole. For others, it may apply simply to the driver. Or just the car.

If Mercedes turns everything down and sets a target number of laps to complete, the drivers can still be 'pushing like crazy' but it is no indication of the actual pace of the package as a whole.

If that was significantly faster there is a fair chance they would have gone that route.

Why? What benefit was there to going faster?

Either it would not have been, or they need to preserve the life of the engines by turning them down during the races (as to not use additional items incurring penalties later in the season, or for fuel economy, etc.) was prioritized....it seems that other aspects are limiting the application of such pace for the entirety of the race.

If you have the option of either stressing components unnecessarily, or not stressing them, which is the most logical approach?

There doesn't have to be a 'need to preserve life', there just has to be a fractional theoretical advantage. And there is. Hamilton has scored points in 71 out of 72 of the last races. He (and Mercedes) achieve that by taking the minimum out of the components whenever possible. Why increase the risk of a component failing during a race when the only pay off is an even bigger time margin?

In the current championship, the 'other aspects limiting the application of such pace for the entirety of the rest of the race' is that the rest of the field are, sadly, too slow.