Mercedes forced to run with less power today? Equalisation
Discussion
LeftHooker said:
Right you are. You must have good contacts inside Bernie's inner sanctum to be so sure of yourself, can you share any other opinions that you care to claim as fact based on this unique access?
Crack on yourself.
Surely the "access to Bernie's inner sanctum" qualifier applies equally to your original assertion? Seems rather arrogant to hold people to account for presnting opinions as facts whilst simultaneously doing exactly that yourself. If you're going to demand a minimum evidential standard for the debate, it seems reasonable for participants to expect you to be held to it as well.Crack on yourself.
OP.
I was working too hard the last 3 days to do more than watch the race at 11pm last night when I got home.
The pace of the Ferraris was a bit of a surprise. I knew that they were closer but not that much closer.
It would appear that on the 'normal' tracks (Melbourne is not a good barometer, only a bit of a hint) they have made huge strides.
Add to that that Merc really, seriously, screwed the pooch on strategy in a way we have not seen for a while. Meantime our excitable Italian friends made the right calls the whole day long and (love or hate him) Seb was 'on it' yesterday in true 4xWDC form. It would have been interesting to have seen what would have happened if Kimi had qualified better and hadn't had all the s
t in the World thrown at him.
Let's see what happens over the next few months though. History has told us that the odd team has the odd mega race when it all falls into place when by rights they should be 3rd or 4th best.
I was working too hard the last 3 days to do more than watch the race at 11pm last night when I got home.
The pace of the Ferraris was a bit of a surprise. I knew that they were closer but not that much closer.
It would appear that on the 'normal' tracks (Melbourne is not a good barometer, only a bit of a hint) they have made huge strides.
Add to that that Merc really, seriously, screwed the pooch on strategy in a way we have not seen for a while. Meantime our excitable Italian friends made the right calls the whole day long and (love or hate him) Seb was 'on it' yesterday in true 4xWDC form. It would have been interesting to have seen what would have happened if Kimi had qualified better and hadn't had all the s
t in the World thrown at him.Let's see what happens over the next few months though. History has told us that the odd team has the odd mega race when it all falls into place when by rights they should be 3rd or 4th best.
Tyres for me. It was a little like the struggles REDBULL were having at the start of 2013 when the tyres Pirelli supplied were very fragile. many other teams didn't poses the downforce to trouble the tyre carcase so could run at THEIR max, REDBULL however had too much downforce for the tyres so had to run a compromise which hurt their performance. It made it look like the other teams caught up.
Fast forward to the weekend just gone and with such high track temps, the Ferrari was just some much lighter on it tyres, for whatever reason it could get the max out it own car, where as the Mercs could not get the max out of their car. 10-15 degrees cooler on the track temp and I think the Mercs would have run away and hid.
But take nothing away from the Ferrari team and Vettel, they just hit the sweet spot and delivered a very well deserved win.
Fast forward to the weekend just gone and with such high track temps, the Ferrari was just some much lighter on it tyres, for whatever reason it could get the max out it own car, where as the Mercs could not get the max out of their car. 10-15 degrees cooler on the track temp and I think the Mercs would have run away and hid.
But take nothing away from the Ferrari team and Vettel, they just hit the sweet spot and delivered a very well deserved win.
Lost soul said:
timlit said:
Conspiracy !
Safety car brought on by a Sauber, powered by a Ferrari engine !!
Mille gratsie !!!
Safety car brought on by a Sauber, powered by a Ferrari engine !!
Mille gratsie !!!
Are Renault supplying better engines to Toro Rossa than Red Bull so they become Red Balls number 1 team so they sell Horners team to Renault.
hornet said:
LeftHooker said:
Right you are. You must have good contacts inside Bernie's inner sanctum to be so sure of yourself, can you share any other opinions that you care to claim as fact based on this unique access?
Crack on yourself.
Surely the "access to Bernie's inner sanctum" qualifier applies equally to your original assertion? Seems rather arrogant to hold people to account for presnting opinions as facts whilst simultaneously doing exactly that yourself. If you're going to demand a minimum evidential standard for the debate, it seems reasonable for participants to expect you to be held to it as well.Crack on yourself.
LeftHooker said:
Hamilton was 34 seconds ahead of Vettel in Oz, and probably could have been more if pushed harder.
Vettel was also held up by the Williams at the start of the race in OZ and went over a second a lap faster after the Williams pitted..Bradgate said:
Ferrari were competitive today because they made a massive step forward over the winter, which was obvious from the first day of the Jerez test. The very hot conditions suited their package, and they also had a superb strategy, which Vettel executed perfectly.
Mercedes didn't win because they completely screwed up their strategy and their car was harder on its tyres in the conditions. Lewis's pace was limited by the need to manage his tyres, not his power unit.
Agreed! Mercedes didn't win because they completely screwed up their strategy and their car was harder on its tyres in the conditions. Lewis's pace was limited by the need to manage his tyres, not his power unit.
Ferrari and Mercedes were similar in pace, it was strategy that won Ferrari the race. There long runs in practice showed how strong Ferrari were.
I wonder if the new FIA directive regarding fuel pressure measurement had anything to do with the Merc engine cars having less of an advantage in Singapore?
IIRC the new directive requires the max 100psi fuel pressure limit to be measured at a number of points down stream of the pump.
My understanding is that some engine manufacturers took advantage of the fact that the previous directive required fuel pressure be measured at the pump only, but then accumulated pressure down stream when the car was off throttle - and then used this accumulation of fuel pressure/fuel when accelerating without exceeding the 100psi measured pressure at the pump.
IIRC the new directive requires the max 100psi fuel pressure limit to be measured at a number of points down stream of the pump.
My understanding is that some engine manufacturers took advantage of the fact that the previous directive required fuel pressure be measured at the pump only, but then accumulated pressure down stream when the car was off throttle - and then used this accumulation of fuel pressure/fuel when accelerating without exceeding the 100psi measured pressure at the pump.
rdjohn said:
Because they were conserving their tyres - the race was tyre critical.
HAM had not done long runs in FP1 either, so they were already short on data.
Fwiw I think Mercedes simply played safe with the low deg (prime) tyre gambling on the fact that their pace advantage would overcome the time deficit those had to the option. I don't think we'll see them doing that again.HAM had not done long runs in FP1 either, so they were already short on data.
LeftHooker said:
I didn't present anything as fact, I merely raised a suspicion. Read the OP, and tag, I say it smells 'fishy'.
You raised it as a question, but then singularly refused to consider any reply that didn't support your little conspiracy narrative, suggesting you have no real interest in a discussion. You can't shout down people for not offering facts to counter your argument when you yourself have presented none to support it. You're trying to hold the debate to standards your original discussion point itself fails to meet, which was my original observation.did everyone miss this?
Thejudge13 said:
Mercedes engine caution in Sepang
Ferrari fans should enjoy their day in the sun, because Vettel’s popular win at the second round of the F1 2015 championships may be his and Ferrari’s only one for quite some time.
TJ13 has learned that following the race in Australia and the failure of Romain Grosjean’s engine, Mercedes in Brixworth decided to retro fit all their engines with a new – but not fully tested seal.
The Lotus of Grosjean was forced to retire during the formation lap of the Melbourne F1 season opening event. “Romain suffered from a loss of power which we are investigating,” explained technical director Nick Chester at the time. “We ran very reliably in pre-season testing, but sometimes certain issues don’t manifest themselves until the season starts.”
Mercedes Australian GP postmortem revealed that a seal in the ICU had unexpectedly failed in Grosjean’s engine. They were concerned that in the heat of Malaysia, a repeat of this would be catastrophic for all their engines. So a revised version was developed for all the Mercedes engines running in Sepang.
However, the test bench data was inconclusive as to when exactly the seal would fail, so all the Mercedes engines were restricted in their maximum output to ensure a safety margin existed.
Seems merc were running down on powerFerrari fans should enjoy their day in the sun, because Vettel’s popular win at the second round of the F1 2015 championships may be his and Ferrari’s only one for quite some time.
TJ13 has learned that following the race in Australia and the failure of Romain Grosjean’s engine, Mercedes in Brixworth decided to retro fit all their engines with a new – but not fully tested seal.
The Lotus of Grosjean was forced to retire during the formation lap of the Melbourne F1 season opening event. “Romain suffered from a loss of power which we are investigating,” explained technical director Nick Chester at the time. “We ran very reliably in pre-season testing, but sometimes certain issues don’t manifest themselves until the season starts.”
Mercedes Australian GP postmortem revealed that a seal in the ICU had unexpectedly failed in Grosjean’s engine. They were concerned that in the heat of Malaysia, a repeat of this would be catastrophic for all their engines. So a revised version was developed for all the Mercedes engines running in Sepang.
However, the test bench data was inconclusive as to when exactly the seal would fail, so all the Mercedes engines were restricted in their maximum output to ensure a safety margin existed.
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