The Official 2015 Monaco Grand Prix thread **SPOILERS**

[deadslow]

Honestly don't know what all the fuss is about. Hamilton made a wrong call. The team also madde a wrong call, when they may have been in a position to have known better. But they have given him an effortless cruise to two championships and a hundred million quid. Come on

[VladD]

deadslow said:

Honestly don't know what all the fuss is about. Hamilton made a wrong call. The team also madde a wrong call, when they may have been in a position to have known better. But they have given him an effortless cruise to two championships and a hundred million quid. Come on

I do wonder if Hamilton's annoyance was more at himself than at the team. I think the pressure of wanting to win at Monaco may have clouded his judgement.

[Scuffers]

VladD said:

deadslow said:

Honestly don't know what all the fuss is about. Hamilton made a wrong call. The team also madde a wrong call, when they may have been in a position to have known better. But they have given him an effortless cruise to two championships and a hundred million quid. Come on

I do wonder if Hamilton's annoyance was more at himself than at the team. I think the pressure of wanting to win at Monaco may have clouded his judgement.

please explain how this is Lewis's fault?

having read the transcripts etc, I can't see how you can lay the blame at his door, all he did was suggest his tyres might not be in best shape if the others behind him stopped, all the pit wall had to do was tell him that was not going to happen, job done.

instead they went on some committee based logic, and crewed it.

[007 VXR]

VladD said:

deadslow said:

Honestly don't know what all the fuss is about. Hamilton made a wrong call. The team also madde a wrong call, when they may have been in a position to have known better. But they have given him an effortless cruise to two championships and a hundred million quid. Come on

I do wonder if Hamilton's annoyance was more at himself than at the team. I think the pressure of wanting to win at Monaco may have clouded his judgement.

So what are Merc saying sorry to Hamilton for then ????

[VladD]

007 VXR said:

VladD said:

deadslow said:

Honestly don't know what all the fuss is about. Hamilton made a wrong call. The team also madde a wrong call, when they may have been in a position to have known better. But they have given him an effortless cruise to two championships and a hundred million quid. Come on

I do wonder if Hamilton's annoyance was more at himself than at the team. I think the pressure of wanting to win at Monaco may have clouded his judgement.

So what are Merc saying sorry to Hamilton for then ????

Because when Lewis suggested a pitstop they should have had the information and nouse to tell him it wasn't necessary.

[Rude-boy]

All I know about this incident and the who's why's and wherefores is that it has reminded me why I don't 'do' social media' in any real way other than this forum.

The utter squit coming off the LH fanboys has been embarrassing.

I want Hamilton to win the WDC this year. I really wanted him to win Monaco and was flabbergasted by the decision to pit him - FFS anyone with more than 10 minutes F1 experience knows that Taki Inoue in a 1991 vintage F3 car would stand a better than average chance of holding off NR and SV at Monaco for 10 laps or so BUT it was with a rueful expression and an under the breath "you lucked into that one mate" muttering about NR that I reacted. Part of my reasoning is that if the tables had been turned I'd be happy that LH had lucked into it!

Any road up. There's another race on shortly and another chance for Lewis to show Nico what the arse end of a Merc looks like

[Jasandjules]

Gaz. said:

Nigel Mansell proved that in 1992 imo.

Ah, you mean when Senna had a 16ft wide car.... Yes, just plant it in the middle of the road and the guy behind has, without crashing into you, little chance of getting past... Especially if you are Lewis in the fastest car on the track..

[deadslow]

VladD said:

deadslow said:

Honestly don't know what all the fuss is about. Hamilton made a wrong call. The team also madde a wrong call, when they may have been in a position to have known better. But they have given him an effortless cruise to two championships and a hundred million quid. Come on

I do wonder if Hamilton's annoyance was more at himself than at the team. I think the pressure of wanting to win at Monaco may have clouded his judgement.

Yes, you could be right.

It wont cost him the championship (which others have lost at the last race because of bad strategy calls in recent times - now that's gutting) and when the dust settles I doubt LH will be too bothered about it. He will get the chance again. Nowadays LH handles these things a lot better than some of his more ardent fans, which is a credit to the boy.

[_Leg_]

HTP99 said:

Sherzinger had this air of sophistication about her

Not heard her talk then? Thick as a bag of concrete.

[_Leg_]

HTP99 said:

Sherzinger had this air of sophistication about her

Not heard her talk then? Thick as a bag of concrete.

[Vaud]

^^^^^^^

As this thread has now descended into a critical and somewhat negative analysis of drivers girlfriends, I encourage you all to join me here for spurious wild guesses about Canada, which so far is WAG free.

Ô Canada! Terre de nos aïeux...

[Derek Smith]

Rude-boy said:

All I know about this incident and the who's why's and wherefores is that it has reminded me why I don't 'do' social media' in any real way other than this forum.

The utter squit coming off the LH fanboys has been embarrassing.

I want Hamilton to win the WDC this year. I really wanted him to win Monaco and was flabbergasted by the decision to pit him - FFS anyone with more than 10 minutes F1 experience knows that Taki Inoue in a 1991 vintage F3 car would stand a better than average chance of holding off NR and SV at Monaco for 10 laps or so BUT it was with a rueful expression and an under the breath "you lucked into that one mate" muttering about NR that I reacted. Part of my reasoning is that if the tables had been turned I'd be happy that LH had lucked into it!

Any road up. There's another race on shortly and another chance for Lewis to show Nico what the arse end of a Merc looks like

And there's the point. If even someone who merely drives a keyboard can see what was wrong with the decision, that leaves us with two options: 1/ for some unknown reason all the Merc team, at least that on the side of LH, suddenly had brain fade or, much less likely it seems, 2/ we're not in full receipt of the circumstances which generated the decision.

I know it is controversial, but I tend to feel that the second option is not entirely impossible. Call me a blue sky thinker if you wish, but if a successful team does something that, on the face of it, was illogical, then I ten to think that I need more information.

[Derek Smith]

Gaz. said:

Really? You're a Mclaren fan so you must have noticed all of their strategic cock ups over the last 15 years, but especially in the last 5 years when some of their decisions have been inexplicable when the viewers at home could see they were going to make a big mistake- Hungary 2012 stands out as a great example when they flushed Button's race down the toilet and posters on the race thread said it was a stupid idea before Button pitted.

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

Wolff has explained a number of times the sequence of events that gave rise to LH being called in. They seem logical to me. I have no reason to doubt what he says. It is an explanation that stands up.

The suggestion of the simplistic 'at Monaco the only thing is track position' being the only criterion is, I would suggest, not something that is set in stone.

That the decision was wrong is apparent but had one of the other scenarios occurred then we would be suggesting that Merc were hide-bound and not willing to think tactically.

I've been in a witness box when the defence brief has ridiculed a decision I made. He knew why I'd made it but he also knew that the jury, not being specialists, would think that I'd been partial. Nothing is simple and to base a conclusion on simplistic reasoning is wrong.

I have a degree of faith in Wolff's honesty and I believe his explanation. Until something more believable comes along, it is good enough for me.

According to reports, Wolff hasn't spoken with LH since the immediate post race chat. That's from Wolff himself.

[eps]

I think the result was classic Lewis. He overthinks / thinks was quicker than most other drivers and most of the time this helps him out, but at Spa (I forget which year) and in a few other scenarios it has worked against him, such as this. He should have been thinking about driving and instead he was trying to second guess what the two cars behind him were doing. He had a rear gunner in place and should have left it as such. One for the memory bank for next season.

Don't get me wrong I am not criticising him for this, he is out and out one of the quickest drivers on track and great at thinking about tactics and so on, but sometimes almost too good.

It did remind me of 92 with Mansell vs Senna, although in Mansell's defence that was due to a faulty tyre pressure sensor indicating he had a deflation (iirc).

[Scuffers]

I don't see it like that, Lewis needed a clear head on the pit wall to feed him only the information he needs in good time.

From what we know of this farce, way too many people were talking across each other and nobody distilled it into clear communication with Lewis.

If Ross was still there, I very much doubt this could have happened.

You want a driver that can think and drive, this is why Schumacher was as good as he was, the problem is you need somebody equally sharp on the pit wall.

[Vaud]

Scuffers said:

I don't see it like that, Lewis needed a clear head on the pit wall to feed him only the information he needs in good time.

From what we know of this farce, way too many people were talking across each other and nobody distilled it into clear communication with Lewis.

If Ross was still there, I very much doubt this could have happened.

You want a driver that can think and drive, this is why Schumacher was as good as he was, the problem is you need somebody equally sharp on the pit wall.

Fully agreed. Lewis is a racer, and a great one. But the stories of MSC's ability to process and analyse in the cockpit are truly remarkable, including watching data on the big screens at tracks whilst racing... I forget the term for it, but there is a phrase for the cognitive ability to process and react to so many streams - cognitive load?

[RYH64E]

eps said:

I think the result was classic Lewis. He overthinks / thinks was quicker than most other drivers and most of the time this helps him out, but at Spa (I forget which year) and in a few other scenarios it has worked against him, such as this.

There was no thinking needed, it's Monaco, overtaking is virtually impossible, giving up track position when you're leading the race with your team mate behind and just 10 or 15 laps to go (partly behind the safety car) is lunacy. If Lewis was as quick thinking as you say he would have known that and he should have known that, as should the team.

[ewenm]

RYH64E said:

eps said:

I think the result was classic Lewis. He overthinks / thinks was quicker than most other drivers and most of the time this helps him out, but at Spa (I forget which year) and in a few other scenarios it has worked against him, such as this.

There was no thinking needed, it's Monaco, overtaking is virtually impossible, giving up track position when you're leading the race with your team mate behind and just 10 or 15 laps to go (partly behind the safety car) is lunacy. If Lewis was as quick thinking as you say he would have known that and he should have known that, as should the team.

They didn't think they were giving up track position - they thought they were just insuring against Vettel changing tyres and getting past Rosberg to attack Hamilton. The issue occurred because they didn't have accurate gap data for Hamilton and thought he was a couple of seconds further ahead of ROS-VET than he was.

For me it was over-thinking from the team - they were covering off a very unlikely scenario when they should have just trusted their drivers to be able to hold off Vettel anyway.

Edit: And that's a consequence of relying so heavily on data during a "normal" race where the data is accurate. When you get unreliable data you need to add extra error margins to decisions - it appears that the team didn't do that. The commentators said the GPS data is unreliable at Monaco due to the nature of the circuit.

Edited by ewenm on Wednesday 27th May 11:21

[andyps]

It seems that Mercedes have recognised that pure data may not always be as good as it could be and a little common sense may also be needed - http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/mercedes-admits-...

I think Derek is probably correct though, despite it being obvious to all of us sat watching TV and on the internet that pitting was wrong, the decision would not have been taken lightly and therefore Mercedes must have thought it was the right decision. Unfortunately it wasn't but they have accepted all responsibility and recognised they were wrong. Not much more to say about it, a real shame for Lewis though as it was clearly his race but the rewards weren't delivered to him.

[eps]

ewenm said:

RYH64E said:

eps said:

I think the result was classic Lewis. He overthinks / thinks was quicker than most other drivers and most of the time this helps him out, but at Spa (I forget which year) and in a few other scenarios it has worked against him, such as this.

There was no thinking needed, it's Monaco, overtaking is virtually impossible, giving up track position when you're leading the race with your team mate behind and just 10 or 15 laps to go (partly behind the safety car) is lunacy. If Lewis was as quick thinking as you say he would have known that and he should have known that, as should the team.

They didn't think they were giving up track position - they thought they were just insuring against Vettel changing tyres and getting past Rosberg to attack Hamilton. The issue occurred because they didn't have accurate gap data for Hamilton and thought he was a couple of seconds further ahead of ROS-VET than he was.

For me it was over-thinking from the team - they were covering off a very unlikely scenario when they should have just trusted their drivers to be able to hold off Vettel anyway.

Edit: And that's a consequence of relying so heavily on data during a "normal" race where the data is accurate. When you get unreliable data you need to add extra error margins to decisions - it appears that the team didn't do that. The commentators said the GPS data is unreliable at Monaco due to the nature of the circuit.

Edited by ewenm on Wednesday 27th May 11:21

Yep, under the VSC they had a gap of something like 40 seconds, then when it reverted to a normal safety car the gap reduced to something more like 20 seconds...

It's easy enough for us all to say we wouldn't have made that choice, but almost none of us have been in that position and even fewer in F1.