planetf1.com

I can't search for the official Ferrari thread, apparently. Not entirely sure if this is the right place for it but since it's about Ferrari performance thought may as well:

Ferrari has run thorough analysis into the cause of the double engine failure and Binotto says it was a problem with the inlet manifold on the compressor to the cylinder heads on both cars which was triggered by a defective part.

http://www.crash.net/f1/news/883895/1/f ... alaysia-gp

I can only imagine the heat somehow contributed to the fault, as otherwise it's difficult for a mere mortal like me to understand why both failed at the same race, but at least they've identified it and hopefully this means Ferrari will be firing on all cylinders again

Zoue wrote:Pretty much as I predicted:

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hami ... ka-961994/

http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/form ... 02865.html

Amus reporting Mercedes already suffering from overheating. When the track gets hotter be interesting to see what happens.

F1_Ernie wrote:

Zoue wrote:Pretty much as I predicted:

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hami ... ka-961994/

http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/form ... 02865.html

Amus reporting Mercedes already suffering from overheating. When the track gets hotter be interesting to see what happens.

The tyres not the car!

Clarky wrote:

F1_Ernie wrote:

Zoue wrote:Pretty much as I predicted:

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hami ... ka-961994/

http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/form ... 02865.html

Amus reporting Mercedes already suffering from overheating. When the track gets hotter be interesting to see what happens.

The tyres not the car!

Of course.

F1_Ernie wrote:

Zoue wrote:Pretty much as I predicted:

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hami ... ka-961994/

http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/form ... 02865.html

Amus reporting Mercedes already suffering from overheating. When the track gets hotter be interesting to see what happens.

I wonder if the new aero package is not helping with this and putting more loading on the tyres?

Maybe the car concept has reached the end of his development already, a flawed concept?

Something that's been ignored this entire thread is how often engine power has won Mercedes races.

Russia: Bottas and Vettel have a roughly equal launch (Vettel maybe slightly worse), but Bottas is fully ahead even before turn 1.

Spain: it takes Vettel 4 laps to pass Bottas (and he makes the move stick on the brakes). Hamilton passes Vettel easily with DRS.

Austria: Vettel is all over Bottas in the closing laps but cannot even attempt a move because the Merc has him covered on the straight.

Belgium: Vettel gains on Hamilton up the kemmel straight, then loses momentum as soon as he pulls out of the slipstream.

You could easily argue that Vettel has lost 4 wins (28 points) just because of a lack of top speed while Hamilton has gained 2 wins (14 points). That's a net points swing of 42 points in Hamilton's favour thanks to the Mercedes engine's grunt.

KingVoid wrote:Something that's been ignored this entire thread is how often engine power has won Mercedes races.

Russia: Bottas and Vettel have a roughly equal launch (Vettel maybe slightly worse), but Bottas is fully ahead even before turn 1.

Spain: it takes Vettel 4 laps to pass Bottas (and he makes the move stick on the brakes). Hamilton passes Vettel easily with DRS.

Austria: Vettel is all over Bottas in the closing laps but cannot even attempt a move because the Merc has him covered on the straight.

Belgium: Vettel gains on Hamilton up the kemmel straight, then loses momentum as soon as he pulls out of the slipstream.

You could easily argue that Vettel has lost 4 wins (28 points) just because of a lack of top speed while Hamilton has gained 2 wins (14 points). That's a net points swing of 42 points in Hamilton's favour thanks to the Mercedes engine's grunt.

Don't forget setup. Mercedes acknowledged sacrificing lap time for straight line speed at Spa.

Russia isn't right there, even start? Bottas got a great launch and sat in Vettels slipstream in Russia. He was in his slipstream for the first 6 seconds. Its quite clear from the other 14 starts this year that the cars launch at a similar rate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtHtegExhXY

Unless Ferrari have miraculous race pace tomorrow, it's safe to give Suzuka to Mercedes too.

Obviously, you can already notch a 10-9 score down for Suzuka qualifying. We'll wait and see on the race but I have to imagine Mercedes will be faster and that for Vettel to win he has to bring Mercedes arguably less kind tyre treatment into play by jumping him at the start. Hamilton might still have the raw pace in the 2nd half of the race when the car gets lighter and lighter to overtake Vettel on track should he get nipped on the start.

Vettel needs to win one against the grain here to realistically keep his title hopes alive.

So I hope this will silence all the doom and gloom from the Mercedes supporters. It's looking more and more like Mercedes were simply struggling at tracks where they were predicted to struggle. It's back to business as usual as far as I can see and once again it's Lewis' race and title to lose. Vettel said he didn't have anything left to give and Bottas still beat him. Mercedes are clearly significantly faster here

KingVoid wrote:Belgium: Vettel gains on Hamilton up the kemmel straight, then loses momentum as soon as he pulls out of the slipstream.

Actually, what happened here, was that Hamilton lifted ever so slightly through Eau Rouge, to make Vettel have to lift as well, meaning that Vettel had to scrub off his acceleration, which neutralised the advantage the chasing car usually gets going into the straight.

Alienturnedhuman wrote:Actually, what happened here, was that Hamilton lifted ever so slightly through Eau Rouge, to make Vettel have to lift as well, meaning that Vettel had to scrub off his acceleration, which neutralised the advantage the chasing car usually gets going into the straight.

Vettel was still gaining speed on Hamilton up the kemmel straight, right until he pulled out of the slipstream, and which point he began falling back again. That's a classic example of engine power advantage.

Lewis would have never played that trick (lifting up Eau Rouge) if Vettel had as much top speed as he did, because then Seb would have just passed him. He could only do this because he had the faster car.

KingVoid wrote:

Alienturnedhuman wrote:Actually, what happened here, was that Hamilton lifted ever so slightly through Eau Rouge, to make Vettel have to lift as well, meaning that Vettel had to scrub off his acceleration, which neutralised the advantage the chasing car usually gets going into the straight.

Vettel was still gaining speed on Hamilton up the kemmel straight, right until he pulled out of the slipstream, and which point he began falling back again. That's a classic example of engine power advantage.

Lewis would have never played that trick (lifting up Eau Rouge) if Vettel had as much top speed as he did, because then Seb would have just passed him. He could only do this because he had the faster car.

It wasn't about engine power. It was the setup of the car. Ferrari ran more wing.

KingVoid wrote:Something that's been ignored this entire thread is how often engine power has won Mercedes races.

Russia: Bottas and Vettel have a roughly equal launch (Vettel maybe slightly worse), but Bottas is fully ahead even before turn 1.

Spain: it takes Vettel 4 laps to pass Bottas (and he makes the move stick on the brakes). Hamilton passes Vettel easily with DRS.

Austria: Vettel is all over Bottas in the closing laps but cannot even attempt a move because the Merc has him covered on the straight.

Belgium: Vettel gains on Hamilton up the kemmel straight, then loses momentum as soon as he pulls out of the slipstream.

You could easily argue that Vettel has lost 4 wins (28 points) just because of a lack of top speed while Hamilton has gained 2 wins (14 points). That's a net points swing of 42 points in Hamilton's favour thanks to the Mercedes engine's grunt.

Russia - slipstream, been explained.

Spain - tyres, delta was nearly 2 seconds with an extended DRS zone.

Austria - near impossible to overtake, main straights are not long enough.

Belgium - Mercedes set there car up for 1st and 3rd sectors and also the de-rate option. Plus the Hamilton trick.

Low temps and high tyre pressures and we're back as Mercedes being the best.

Trend continues.

sandman1347 wrote:

KingVoid wrote:

Alienturnedhuman wrote:Actually, what happened here, was that Hamilton lifted ever so slightly through Eau Rouge, to make Vettel have to lift as well, meaning that Vettel had to scrub off his acceleration, which neutralised the advantage the chasing car usually gets going into the straight.

Vettel was still gaining speed on Hamilton up the kemmel straight, right until he pulled out of the slipstream, and which point he began falling back again. That's a classic example of engine power advantage.

Lewis would have never played that trick (lifting up Eau Rouge) if Vettel had as much top speed as he did, because then Seb would have just passed him. He could only do this because he had the faster car.

It wasn't about engine power. It was the setup of the car. Ferrari ran more wing.

ERS deployment too, Hamilton had used much more earlier in the lap on that particular lap. Apparently Ferrari can not change when its deployed on there car which I find quite a weakness in itself. Apparently this is why the Mercedes gets a lot of de-regs in the first few laps because they use all the deployment off the line and through the first few corners and it take the battery a couple of laps to charge back up to normal levels.

Lotus49 wrote:Low temps and high tyre pressures and we're back as Mercedes being the best.

Trend continues.

This is a power track. Was always going to be a Merc pole - just like Silverstone.

Look at the way Williams were the 2nd fastest team in 2014/15 (ahead of Red Bull/Ferrari respectively) and Ferrari were the 2nd fastest in 2016 (ahead of Red Bull).

davidheath461 wrote:

Lotus49 wrote:Low temps and high tyre pressures and we're back as Mercedes being the best.

Trend continues.

This is a power track. Was always going to be a Merc pole - just like Silverstone.

Look at the way Williams were the 2nd fastest team in 2014/15 (ahead of Red Bull/Ferrari respectively) and Ferrari were the 2nd fastest in 2016 (ahead of Red Bull).

It is yeah but the worry over upgrades for Mercedes and Ferrari's performance with the new PU and upgrades left some question marks but again we see in lower temps with high tyre pressures Mercedes rise to the top.

Other factors too like grip,(power as you say) and things like that but the tyres seem to be dominating when it comes to what makes the Mercedes aero platform work. And when it does it looks the best.

Lotus49 wrote:

davidheath461 wrote:

Lotus49 wrote:Low temps and high tyre pressures and we're back as Mercedes being the best.

Trend continues.

This is a power track. Was always going to be a Merc pole - just like Silverstone.

Look at the way Williams were the 2nd fastest team in 2014/15 (ahead of Red Bull/Ferrari respectively) and Ferrari were the 2nd fastest in 2016 (ahead of Red Bull).

It is yeah but the worry over upgrades for Mercedes and Ferrari's performance with the new PU and upgrades left some question marks but again we see in lower temps with high tyre pressures Mercedes rise to the top.

Other factors too like grip,(power as you say) and things like that but the tyres seem to be dominating when it comes to what makes the Mercedes aero platform work. And when it does it looks the best.

Yeah doesn't look like that 10hp power gain helped Ferrari one bit does it?

It was certainly a surprise and kudos to Mercedes, they just won't let their advantage go and look good now to be the first team in modern history to win the title before and after a major rule change. WCC is practically in the bag.

This must be one of the very few tracks all year that Mercedes have a larger advantage than in 2016. The only other one is Baku I believe but even then it was 0.8 in 2016 and 1.1 in 2017. But Hamilton crashed out when on a lap 0.3 up on Rosbergs eventual pole so that's a bit of a false figure.

Kimi didn't have any pace today even in clean air on supersofts. Overall you'd have to say that with the qualifying advantage and (recent) reliability advantage, Mercedes has been the best car this season by a decent margin.

The reliability has changed the battle between these two cars; not performance. Given the reliability issues of the last 2 weekends, Mercedes now have a clear edge in reliability and that's a difference-maker.

KingVoid wrote:

Kimi didn't have any pace today even in clean air on supersofts. Overall you'd have to say that with the qualifying advantage and (recent) reliability advantage, Mercedes has been the best car this season by a decent margin.

Both have had the same reliability caused retirements?

KingVoid wrote:

Kimi didn't have any pace today even in clean air on supersofts. Overall you'd have to say that with the qualifying advantage and (recent) reliability advantage, Mercedes has been the best car this season by a decent margin.

Yes, I'd say this title has largely been fought and won on Saturdays, where Mercedes have had a definite edge

If Red Bull were third fastest in Suzuka (race), it was only barely. They're making good on the promise.

Toto just said on the Sky broadcast they were saving both tyres and engine.

Zoue wrote:

KingVoid wrote:

Kimi didn't have any pace today even in clean air on supersofts. Overall you'd have to say that with the qualifying advantage and (recent) reliability advantage, Mercedes has been the best car this season by a decent margin.

Yes, I'd say this title has largely been fought and won on Saturdays, where Mercedes have had a definite edge

That's a bunch of nonsense. The title has been won on Sundays; where Vettel has come up empty-handed in 2 of the last 3 races and where Raikkonen has come up empty-handed 5 times this year. Mercedes have consistently scored points with both cars in every race and that's why they're winning the titles; not qualifying. Always making excuses you...

Lewis had PU issues in the second half of the race. In the first half he pulled out 5 seconds on Max in 15 laps.

Zoue wrote:

KingVoid wrote:

Kimi didn't have any pace today even in clean air on supersofts. Overall you'd have to say that with the qualifying advantage and (recent) reliability advantage, Mercedes has been the best car this season by a decent margin.

Yes, I'd say this title has largely been fought and won on Saturdays, where Mercedes have had a definite edge

I think the title has been lost over the last 3 sundays.

KingVoid wrote:

Kimi didn't have any pace today even in clean air on supersofts. Overall you'd have to say that with the qualifying advantage and (recent) reliability advantage, Mercedes has been the best car this season by a decent margin.

Yeah but Kimi is not exactly representative. This is a driver who is performing well below average. We haven't seen Ferrari's true race pace in a long time. Even the last race, Vettel had to come from behind and was always on different tires than the other cars, so it was hard to judge their true pace in that race as well. Merc is not unbeatable on Sundays, they always seem to have issues with their tires and with dirty air. They have an ace of a driver on Saturdays though, and he is making the difference.

Well obviously, reliability has become a hugely important aspect of the Championship battles.

kleefton wrote:

KingVoid wrote:

Kimi didn't have any pace today even in clean air on supersofts. Overall you'd have to say that with the qualifying advantage and (recent) reliability advantage, Mercedes has been the best car this season by a decent margin.

Yeah but Kimi is not exactly representative. This is a driver who is performing well below average. We haven't seen Ferrari's true race pace in a long time. Even the last race, Vettel had to come from behind and was always on different tires than the other cars, so it was hard to judge their true pace in that race as well. Merc is not unbeatable on Sundays, they always seem to have issues with their tires and with dirty air. They have an ace of a driver on Saturdays though, and he is making the difference.

Of all the teams, it's most important that Mercedes qualify best - they supposedly struggle in the dirty air and with the tyres more than Ferrari and Red Bull. The Mercedes strategy has been absolutely spot on, whether by design or not.

mikeyg123 wrote:Both have had the same reliability caused retirements?

Hamilton has not had a single reliability related retirement this year. Vettel has today. Vettel also had to start from the back in Malaysia. The worst that has happened to Hamilton on Saturday was a 5 place penalty in Austria.

So yes, I would say that the relevant Mercedes has been more reliable than the relevant Ferrari.

KingVoid wrote:

mikeyg123 wrote:Both have had the same reliability caused retirements?

Hamilton has not had a single reliability related retirement this year. Vettel has today. Vettel also had to start from the back in Malaysia. The worst that has happened to Hamilton on Saturday was a 5 place penalty in Austria.

So yes, I would say that the relevant Mercedes has been more reliable than the relevant Ferrari.

I'm wrong anyway because Ferrari have had 2 and Mercedes 1 but you're forgetting both teams run two cars.

They definitely had the pace on Suzuka. It would have been easy 1-2 without Bottas penalty. He was in DRS zone and SS tyres so it would be interesting had there not been VSC. I think Bottas could have got podium. Only some 10sec off Hamilton. Sepang, Singapore he much further back

KingVoid wrote:Lewis had PU issues in the second half of the race. In the first half he pulled out 5 seconds on Max in 15 laps.

Toto said there were no issues, just saving engine and tyres. They had a lot in hand.

mikeyg123 wrote:I'm wrong anyway because Ferrari have had 2 and Mercedes 1 but you're forgetting both teams run two cars.

I was concentrating mainly on Hamilton and Vettel, but yes, as you stated Ferrari have still had more reliability DNFs than Mercedes,

1. Mercedes have been faster in qualifying
2. Mercedes have had better reliability
3. Mercedes have been at least as quick in the race

When you combine these three factors, you have to admit that Mercedes has been the car to have this season.

mikeyg123 wrote:

Zoue wrote:

KingVoid wrote:

Kimi didn't have any pace today even in clean air on supersofts. Overall you'd have to say that with the qualifying advantage and (recent) reliability advantage, Mercedes has been the best car this season by a decent margin.

Yes, I'd say this title has largely been fought and won on Saturdays, where Mercedes have had a definite edge

I think the title has been lost over the last 3 sundays.

Sure, they're the most sensational examples. But before that qualifying gave the Mercs a definite edge especially on tracks where things were very close between them.

Mercedes-Benz wrote:They definitely had the pace on Suzuka. It would have been easy 1-2 without Bottas penalty. He was in DRS zone and SS tyres so it would be interesting had there not been VSC. I think Bottas could have got podium. Only some 10sec off Hamilton. Sepang, Singapore he much further back

I agree that Merc had better pace than the Red Bulls, but I'm not at all convinced it "would" have been an easy 1-2 just because Max has been showing such great race pace recently and Bottas hasn't been nearly as impressive relatively speaking. Red Bull could have undercut Bottas in different circumstances and at least had some serious chances to attack for P2. Verstappen is making a big difference right now, methinks.