2021 Mexican Grand Prix - Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, Nov 05 - 07

[Tizz]

The numbers from mr Sokolov...

[LM10]

Seems like Mercedes won’t come close to Max this weekend. Higher engine mode, yet half a second away.

FP1 was the only session they did this. It was for PU calibration purposes.

I was surprised to see Ferrari struggle so much here. Was expecting them to be competing for pole.

Mercedes struggled with balance in FP2. Curious to see how much more they’ve got to turn things around.

Ferrari’s PU must be turned down quite significantly as they are bound to use the new PU in all remaining sessions of this season.

Edit: Apparently Sainz used the last spec PU yesterday so obviously it’s possible for them to switch to older spec. At first it was reported that they can’t go back to old spec anymore once they introduced the new spec - for whatever reason.
Anyway, the PUs were still heavily detuned yesterday it seems.

[Tizz]

Anyone still anxious about team orders at Red Bull??

Perez's race pace was close if not equal. So team orders still on the cards.

ON the Mercedes side of the garage, Bottas seems quicker. Hamilton is trying to squeeze more out of the set up though. Could be serious gains yet.

I’m sure qualy and race will be closer than RB would like…

[Sieper]

Of course. The race pace was to a delta though (imho).

[search]

apparently there are some rumours about Hamilton taking a penalty today

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/98006/ru ... exico.html

I doubt there's much truth in it, though, especially in the way the article reports it - changing MGU-H and MGU-K only would result in a +20 (as he hasn't taken any penalties for those yet), so basically makes no sense at all

[atanatizante]

Peter Windsor said here that HAM was some 10km/h faster in the top speed than VER, presumably in FP1 when they seem to calibrate their PU and maybe @Jush could help us with had that info is correct or not ...

Basically, he ends by saying that based on the higher top speed Merc could trim their RW in order to have more downforce and maybe RB will do the opposite ...

Knowing that HAM was running in both sessions with the higher RW setup it`ll be interesting to see which RW he would opt further on ...

[El Scorchio]

Based on yesterday, the US GP and past races at this circuit, I’ll be hugely surprised if this isn’t a comfortable pole and victory for Verstappen.

[KAIZEN]

Max Verstappen v Lewis Hamilton lap comparison with minisectors | Mexican Grand Prix 2021 FP2

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[KAIZEN]

Max Verstappen v Lewis Hamilton lap comparison with minisectors | Mexican Grand Prix 2021 FP2

[Bill_Kar]

I don't get the optimistic side of my fellow posters above (that Mercedes will challenge RBR), but I sure hope it materializes.

[InsaneX_Badger]

I don't get the optimistic side of my fellow posters above (that Mercedes will challenge RBR), but I sure hope it materializes.

Same here, I want it to be close between the two. But I think Max just needs to drive like he's done throughout the season and it's going to be a nice championship win in Abu Dhabi. Probably a situation where if Max finishes anything above 7th or something and it doesn't matter what Lewis will do. Anyway, back to being on the current race xD

[Zynerji]

Here's hoping that Mercedes found something overnight, as well as Ferrari and McLaren.

Top ten in Q3 separated by 0.01s,please!

[El Scorchio]

I don't get the optimistic side of my fellow posters above (that Mercedes will challenge RBR), but I sure hope it materializes.

Same here, I want it to be close between the two. But I think Max just needs to drive like he's done throughout the season and it's going to be a nice championship win in Abu Dhabi. Probably a situation where if Max finishes anything above 7th or something and it doesn't matter what Lewis will do. Anyway, back to being on the current race xD

Exactly. It’s swung back and forth a little between the two teams over the course of the season, but I think Mercedes really reached the end of their development tree with what they did in Silverstone which put them ahead for a few races, but Red Bull have them covered now unless something extraordinary happens.

[dans79]

Max's stints were the same length as Hamiltons on the softer tyre

Max

lap
9    out lap
10   1:17.301
11   1:54.166
12   1:43.455
13   1:17.619
14   in lap

Valtteri

lap
7   out lap
8   1:36.822
9   1:18.032
10  1:46.536
11  1:47.223
12  1:21.997
13  1:46.312
14  2:08.344
15  1:22.628 
16  1:56.817
17  1:17.725
18 in lap

Valtteri's stint was twice as long, he had two race pace laps in the middle (1:21.997, 1:22.628 ), and did his fastest lap on the last lap.

https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files ... es_v01.pdf

Where these really racesims? They don’t look anything like the stats for racesims on other tracks I’ve seen. To base any conclusions on this for the race seems odd.

no, these were qualifying run stints. The point is, Valtteri did his fastest lap, on lap 11 of the stint, compared to Max who did his on the second lap.

Given the fact that Valtteri did 3 fast laps, and a lot of laps in general before his fastest lap, means one of two things. Either merc has a non trivial amount of pace in hand, or they have amazingly good degradation!

[Scorpaguy]

I will believe Merc is 0.5 seconds behind only after quali.