2021 Austrian Grand Prix - Spielberg, July 02 - 04

[MtthsMlw]

Tire selection by Pirelli
C3 - C4 - C5 | 2x hard - 3x medium - 8x soft

2020 Results
Qualifying


Race




2020 Pole Lap


2020 Race Highlights

[PlatinumZealot]

Hmm. I would be surpised if it's not more of the same because the teams are simply going to default to last race's soft and medium which are this race's medium and hard respectively. Soft will be avoided like the plague.

We will see this week's hards "cherished" throughout this weekend.

Only rain can give us something interesting.

[GOAT]

Hmm. I would be surpised if it's not more of the same because the teams are simply going to default to last race's soft and medium which are this race's medium and hard respectively. Soft will be avoided like the plague.

We will see this week's hards "cherished" throughout this weekend.

Only rain can give us something interesting.

I like the way you are approaching things; you too are experiencing that true competition is a good thing- everybody wins.

[zibby43]

I’m not going to predict the same outcome after what happened with the back-to-back races at Silverstone last year.

The softest compound for this week will definitely be giving up the ghost before a single flying lap is complete - especially if the temperatures are high again.

[PlatinumZealot]

I thought about it today; I think I know who i will be watching for this race. George Russell.

[Zynerji]

I thought about it today; I think I know who i will be watching for this race. George Russell.

Pierre Gasley. On softs, he could start top 3.

[Sevach]

2 stopper with one C4, 2 C3s seems ideal, Perez took C4s long enough despite being in Norris slipstream for much of it.

Don't expect much of Mercedes, as people said in the previous thread they don't usually do well in high altitudes and they have horrible traction.
In Silverstone they should be back in the hunt, though i don't expect them to be outright smash to RBR anywhere.

[RZS10]

Given that Merc tried some exotic setup to improve one lap pace i wonder if they might revert to something more normal and potentially give up quali pace (and positions) for better race pace and tyre deg, even though that probably wouldn't give them the laptimes necessary to take the fight to RBR and might make it necessary to overtake other cars at the start ...

[cooken]

Could play out differently if the purported radical/experimental setup issue is rectified. I guess maybe setups will need to be slightly different across the board in order to baby the tyres, and that may slightly shift relative performance (in either direction).

Having said that, not sure how much scope there is for protecting tyres any more than what they would have done this last race.

[RZS10]

This is from the last race, marked the longest stints on the soft and medium which will be medium and hard respectively for this race, combining them gives the 70 laps race distance - not sure about who Horner was talking but i remember him saying that Max' or Sergio's tyres easily could have gone another 10 laps when they looked at them after the stop, so 36 on the now medium or 39 on the now hard tyres whichever he was talking about....



It will probably be another one stopper for those who can start on the mediums.

[zibby43]

Could play out differently if the purported radical/experimental setup issue is rectified. I guess maybe setups will need to be slightly different across the board in order to baby the tyres, and that may slightly shift relative performance (in either direction).

Having said that, not sure how much scope there is for protecting tyres any more than what they would have done this last race.

Good points.

I think Merc need to take the risk and spend some actual time on track trialing a lower-downforce RW configuration. Their simulations say such a choice costs too much time in the corners, but they should still be able to protect the tires over a race distance (with more fuel in the car, the rear instability is mollified somewhat) with a decent setup because the option with less "dirty" downforce doesn't take quite as much life out of the tires in the corners.

It's a fine line between extra downforce protecting tires, and extra downforce taking life away via more robust engagement in the corners. And there's plenty of time to "rest" the tires with the straights in Austria.

Gary Anderson pointed this out on The Race's podcast, as well.

[cooken]

You're not in good graces quoting Gary Anderson around here. From the onboard laps I saw Hamilton still had a fair amount of rear instability during last race even with the large rear wing. Less rear downforce will also reduce traction which already seemed to be in short supply for Merc.

[Zynerji]

You're not in good graces quoting Gary Anderson around here. From the onboard laps I saw Hamilton still had a fair amount of rear instability during last race even with the large rear wing. Less rear downforce will also reduce traction which already seemed to be in short supply for Merc.

Meh. If it's already happening, let the 7 times WDC have a shot of holding it on the ragged edge with slightly less downforce for a GP distance. If anyone could pull it off, it would be him.

I say let him have a go with what he wants. I think the world would only benefit from such a display of racecraft if he can pull it off.

[Zynerji]

Ps: I bet Davidson has a catheter and a drink bottle of coffee in the simulator this week... I hope he's OK

[zibby43]

You're not in good graces quoting Gary Anderson around here. From the onboard laps I saw Hamilton still had a fair amount of rear instability during last race even with the large rear wing. Less rear downforce will also reduce traction which already seemed to be in short supply for Merc.

Oh is he verboten?

I find he has some valuable technical observations from time to time.