Perez starting on H means his race will be ruined. The 2022/23 strategy of "we have pace in hand anyway, so can overtake with tyre offset in the first 20 laps" doesn't apply anymore. If Perez wants to have any hope of making places, he has to start on S and look to use the superior DRS advantage to overtake the cars in front.
We know that Perez struggles to overtake in equal tire conditions to rivals (he destroys the tire) so building a strategy around that doesn't work. The thinking is to run a long first stint on a harder tire to those ahead. You trade ultimate pace for a longer first stint at a slower "virtual pace" that ends up giving you a big tire offset towards the end of the race.venkyhere wrote: ↑22 Jun 2024, 19:30Perez starting on H means his race will be ruined. The 2022/23 strategy of "we have pace in hand anyway, so can overtake with tyre offset in the first 20 laps" doesn't apply anymore. If Perez wants to have any hope of making places, he has to start on S and look to use the superior DRS advantage to overtake the cars in front.
I think there is a chicken-egg problem here - let's say he starts with H from P9 on grid, loses a few positions (due to S and M starters behind him) and settles into a P11/P12 by lap2. Then, he has to drive gently enough to warm up the H gradually but not allow himself to fall too much behind into the P14s and P15s, and be left with too much of a task to gain positions even if he is on a 1 stop. And then if there is a safety car around the first window of pitstops (when the likes of Sargeant are pushing their tyres beyond what they can take), he might gain 5-6 positions for free, but again lose places on the restart when he is on used H while others around are on fresh M or fresh H. So in my view, starting on H from P9 (rather than something like P16 in which case it's a no brainer to start on H) is fraught with risk, particularly because the driver is in poor form and doesn't have the confidence to push and make 'terrorism moves' like Russel does.AR3-GP wrote: ↑22 Jun 2024, 19:36We know that Perez struggles to overtake in equal tire conditions to rivals (he destroys the tire) so building a strategy around that doesn't work. The thinking is to run a long first stint on a harder tire to those ahead. You trade ultimate pace for a longer first stint at a slower "virtual pace" that ends up giving you a big tire offset towards the end of the race.venkyhere wrote: ↑22 Jun 2024, 19:30Perez starting on H means his race will be ruined. The 2022/23 strategy of "we have pace in hand anyway, so can overtake with tyre offset in the first 20 laps" doesn't apply anymore. If Perez wants to have any hope of making places, he has to start on S and look to use the superior DRS advantage to overtake the cars in front.
At this point we need to accept this is Perez natural position and there is little reason to expect him to make much progress.AR3-GP wrote: ↑22 Jun 2024, 19:36We know that Perez struggles to overtake in equal tire conditions to rivals (he destroys the tire) so building a strategy around that doesn't work. The thinking is to run a long first stint on a harder tire to those ahead. You trade ultimate pace for a longer first stint at a slower "virtual pace" that ends up giving you a big tire offset towards the end of the race.venkyhere wrote: ↑22 Jun 2024, 19:30Perez starting on H means his race will be ruined. The 2022/23 strategy of "we have pace in hand anyway, so can overtake with tyre offset in the first 20 laps" doesn't apply anymore. If Perez wants to have any hope of making places, he has to start on S and look to use the superior DRS advantage to overtake the cars in front.
WCC or WDC ? WCC is pretty much fuc*ed at this point, but for WDC is fully game on in my view, and that's thanks to Max; I am not too pessimistic at the moment, but surely I expect an effective upgrade to give some boost to the car.
If the Silverstone package is not enormous then the WCC is gone already. Perez will not be finishing better than p6-p8..