After Max Verstappen had initially gained the upper hand at the start, Mercedes's Lewis Hamilton fought back and executed a two-stop strategy to perfection towards the race win. Verstappen had to be content with second as Bottas finished a bleak third.
An important bit of information came from Lewis during his post qualy ibterveiw: Mercedes compromized qualy to set the the car up for the race so he wasn't happy with the qualy balance at all . If RedBull had done the opposite it should make for an interesting first stint.
I find it weird. I mean, Barcelona is a track where it is super difficult to overtake. Why would yo compromise your qualy set-up,then?
When the midfield is this close, the leading cars take more laps to open a gap to pitstop into. So the undercut is a risk of falling back into traffic while the lead cars with more tyre life can afford to wait just that much more to pit into clean air.
But if you have understeer, it's going to punish your front left like crazy or you'll be slow. The balance is very narrow, if you add too much front wing, the car is pointy and good through the slow stuff but lacks traction. Too little front wing and the car just pushes wide so you have to use big steering lock and it upsets the aero due to the tire needing more slip angle. This makes corner exit tricky. But if you have too much front wing corner entry becomes tricky, and the rear is always sliding so you have to always be on the throttle or the car gets unbalanced, and at the same time you can't get on the gas too quickly, so the steering, and setting up the corner ahead of time becomes more important.
Big sweeping long corners show so much detail regarding the car under yaw, which is partly why Barcelona is such a good benchmark track.
Today shows that the cars and drivers are so close that any little thing can turn the tide one way or the other.
Last edited by godlameroso on 08 May 2021, 20:06, edited 1 time in total.
An important bit of information came from Lewis during his post qualy ibterveiw: Mercedes compromized qualy to set the the car up for the race so he wasn't happy with the qualy balance at all . If RedBull had done the opposite it should make for an interesting first stint.
I find it weird. I mean, Barcelona is a track where it is super difficult to overtake. Why would yo compromise your qualy set-up,then?
I heard his post race interview where he talked about this, but I read it the other way, he made changes to favour qually
An important bit of information came from Lewis during his post qualy ibterveiw: Mercedes compromized qualy to set the the car up for the race so he wasn't happy with the qualy balance at all . If RedBull had done the opposite it should make for an interesting first stint.
I find it weird. I mean, Barcelona is a track where it is super difficult to overtake. Why would yo compromise your qualy set-up,then?
I heard his post race interview where he talked about this, but I read it the other way, he made changes to favour qually
The balance of the car is different with high and low fuel. 110kg in the rear will do that. It's a nice chunk of ballast and it adds inertia to the car. A slightly twitchy car on low fuel will behave nicer on heavier fuel loads because of that added inertia.
I’m honestly not especially impressed by Verstappen this year. He’s had a car that’s fast enough for pole in all four races and the only time he actually got the pole was when they had a margin. Add in the mistakes and it’s really not the driving of someone of the calibre they make him out to be - this hasn’t so far been the Alonso 06 standard where he met Schumacher on his level in order to depose him; so far Hamilton is still a step above whenever it matters.
I say this as someone who supports neither team nor driver - but is rooting for Max just as a break for the norm - but he needs to cut out the errors and maximise his package week in/week out if he wants to have any hope of getting the job done.
If the RB was that good (capable for pole), how come that PER is 9 tenths down the road on a track that all drivers know in and out?
Max had a good qualifying session. He improved in every session and didn’t make any mistakes so.
It is just that Merc play the media game that they are lacking performance to Red Bull, while in reality they aren’t .
The Red Bull is capable of achieving a similar lap time to that which the Merc achieves. That's why they have shared poles so far this season with the front of the grid being very close - today it was 0.036s between the two cars.
If you are more fortunate than others, build a larger table not a taller fence.
it appears as if he lacks the temperament to learn and improve. he seems to be impatient, frustrated and angry in the car. gasly has made leaps and bounds progress since he was expelled. if this how it goes for tsunoda, i don't think he would last the whole season. good thing for him is, there is no genuinely talented young driver in the red bull driver academy right now who is ready to jump in.
Tsunoda has some serious talent but the guy seems to lack patience. Maybe he was too encoured with his first great weekend in F1 and now he thinks that things are easy, they are not. He should be more humble and shut his mouth, these impertinent radios are not a good idea.
Leclerc and Ocon may have gone faster than Perez on that 2nd run but they had the safety of already having put in a lap so could risk more where as Perez had to get a lap in.
The wind picked up, therefore the track conditions changed. The weather is what changes track conditions.
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Apparently he has shoulder problems. Regardless he should be much faster than those cars in front of him, bo excuses.
Wind is not the same as track condition, depending on the direction head or tail they can be either useful or detrimental. Track was rubbered at the end of quali and so fastest.
Redbull had the fastest car start of season, Merc struggling. They need to maximise.
it appears as if he lacks the temperament to learn and improve. he seems to be impatient, frustrated and angry in the car. gasly has made leaps and bounds progress since he was expelled. if this how it goes for tsunoda, i don't think he would last the whole season. good thing for him is, there is no genuinely talented young driver in the red bull driver academy right now who is ready to jump in.
Tsunoda has some serious talent but the guy seems to lack patience. Maybe he was too encoured with his first great weekend in F1 and now he thinks that things are easy, they are not. He should be more humble and shut his mouth, these impertinent radios are not a good idea.
Ham & Ver very close today. Ham & Ros were also close in 2016 and we know how that ended...
But between Hamilton of 16 and Hamilton of 21, stands a difference about as big as the Everest. He is tuned in, has fought off three Ferrari assaults, arguably one of the Formula 1 Goats in Vettel, equaled Michael, and simply improved year after year. Please remember, Lewis really lost that Championship, due to his poor start. I don’t see that in him anymore. The man is metronomic, capitalising on each moment, lucky as hell, and a hell of a lot more experienced than Max.
Big twist for tomorrow's race, if it rains it's going to be in the morning, so there's a chance the race will start with a drying track. The rest of the forecast is cloudy until later on in the race.
Barometric pressure is steady dropping as we speak.
Curious how perez outqualifies verstap. in one race and then gets the Red Bull treatment. Red bull seems to have a problem with second drivers. Since this is only the 4th race it will be interesting to see how this develops. Seems Merc have a pretty good handle on making both cars fast.
current forecast has rain till noon only, so I'd guess it should be dry again when the race starts. Should still be interesting with potentially different strategies, though, as only Mercedes (apart from some back runners) has two sets of mediums left for the race, while Verstappen saved a set of new softs instead.
Still not 100% sure it'll really be a 2-stopper, but if it is, the undercut on those tyres could be mighty
