2025 São Paulo Grand Prix - Interlagos, Nov 07 - 09

[organic]

How big an advantage do you think it is to change the setup after qualifying to a setup that is totally focused on the race? Presumably most cars were set up with the best compromise of qualifying pace and race pace. I'm sure he still would have come through the field, but interesting to wonder how far Verstappen would have got if the other cars were set up purely for the race as well.

Yeah I've thought about this before... But cars like McLaren are just set up for the race too imo. a consistent balance at high fuel will usually get you into a decent place at low fuel and they won't take the setup far away from there tbh

[AR3-GP]

How big an advantage do you think it is to change the setup after qualifying to a setup that is totally focused on the race? Presumably most cars were set up with the best compromise of qualifying pace and race pace. I'm sure he still would have come through the field, but interesting to wonder how far Verstappen would have got if the other cars were set up purely for the race as well.

I think it's a fallacy in this day to think there are big differences between qualifying and race setups. Otherwise, everyone at the back would just put on a "race setup", and pass those in front. True qualifying setups of old tended to do with closing up the brake and radiator ducts and turning the engine to 11. A team wouldn't do that at the expense of the race nowadays.

Points are scored on Sunday. Interlagos has two DRS zones. Why start from pitlane when you could run the race setup during qualifying and just start in the top 10? It turns out that this is what everyone already does


All this talk of new PU, race setups and so on. If this is such a nailed on thing with massive benefit, why is it so infrequent? This kind of thing is rare for a reason. F1 teams tend to move as a collective towards the optimal weekend procedures. Taking a fresh PU and new setup after qualifying is not really in the recipe for podiums and wins.

[Francis Bacon]

How big an advantage do you think it is to change the setup after qualifying to a setup that is totally focused on the race? Presumably most cars were set up with the best compromise of qualifying pace and race pace. I'm sure he still would have come through the field, but interesting to wonder how far Verstappen would have got if the other cars were set up purely for the race as well.

I think it's a fallacy in this day to think there are big differences between qualifying and race setups. Otherwise, everyone at the back would just put on a "race setup", and pass those in front. True qualifying setups of old tended to do with closing up the brake and radiator ducts and turning the engine to 11. A team wouldn't do that at the expense of the race nowadays.

Points are scored on Sunday. Interlagos has two DRS zones. Why start from pitlane when you could run the race setup during qualifying and just start in the top 10? It turns out that this is what everyone already does


All this talk of new PU, race setups and so on. If this is such a nailed on thing with massive benefit, why is it so infrequent? This kind of thing is rare for a reason. F1 teams tend to move as a collective towards the optimal weekend procedures. Taking a fresh PU and new setup after qualifying is not really in the recipe for podiums and wins.

[/quote] I think it's a fallacy in this day to think there are big differences between qualifying and race setups. Otherwise, everyone at the back would just put on a "race setup", and pass those in front. [/quote]

I was ready to agree with you, but I don't think we can lump "everyone" together. The top four are different. For any given weekend, they are shooting for the top four positions, positions where running up front and away from everyone in clean air is not an unreasonable goal--qualy setup assumes clean air. So yes, they setup for qualy with this objective in mind.

It's the deceidly mid-pack and back marker team that tend to setup for mainly for dirty air, pace and overtaking (it seems Hass may be an exception?). Max and RB were shooting for pole, and optimized their setup for qualy (or tried to). They clearly changed their setup for dirty air, and installed a new PU for the race. Then, thanks to the puncture which saved them from flailing on the hards, they adopted a go-like-hell, tires-be-damned strategy.

[venkyhere]

How big an advantage do you think it is to change the setup after qualifying to a setup that is totally focused on the race? Presumably most cars were set up with the best compromise of qualifying pace and race pace. I'm sure he still would have come through the field, but interesting to wonder how far Verstappen would have got if the other cars were set up purely for the race as well.

I think it's a fallacy in this day to think there are big differences between qualifying and race setups. Otherwise, everyone at the back would just put on a "race setup", and pass those in front. True qualifying setups of old tended to do with closing up the brake and radiator ducts and turning the engine to 11. A team wouldn't do that at the expense of the race nowadays.

Points are scored on Sunday. Interlagos has two DRS zones. Why start from pitlane when you could run the race setup during qualifying and just start in the top 10? It turns out that this is what everyone already does


All this talk of new PU, race setups and so on. If this is such a nailed on thing with massive benefit, why is it so infrequent? This kind of thing is rare for a reason. F1 teams tend to move as a collective towards the optimal weekend procedures. Taking a fresh PU and new setup after qualifying is not really in the recipe for podiums and wins.

I was ready to agree with you, but I don't think we can lump "everyone" together. The top four are different. For any given weekend, they are shooting for the top four positions, positions where running up front and away from everyone in clean air is not an unreasonable goal--qualy setup assumes clean air. So yes, they setup for qualy with this objective in mind.

It's the deceidly mid-pack and back marker team that tend to setup for mainly for dirty air, pace and overtaking (it seems Hass may be an exception?). Max and RB were shooting for pole, and optimized their setup for qualy (or tried to). They clearly changed their setup for dirty air, and installed a new PU for the race. Then, thanks to the puncture which saved them from flailing on the hards, they adopted a go-like-hell, tires-be-damned strategy.

Re: bold
Kindly elaborate on the difference between the two in terms of :
- ride height
- tyre pressures
- suspension stiffness (pitch/roll/heave)
- wing levels
(because these are the things that I can think of, which influence the 'balance' that the drivers talk about).