The Official 2016 British Grand Prix Thread **Spoilers**

[Dr Z]

Put the GP2 on...good battle for the lead.

[Dr Z]

[redacted]

[Dr Z]

Adrian W said:

Is the corridor of clunge wearing traditional British regalia?

Didn't look like it...more a Middle Eastern outfit, no? (with the hat and everything, I know nothing about these, mind)

[Dr Z]

Pirelli's strategies for this race in the order of quickest to slowest (tyre compound brackets no. of laps):

Stint	Quickest	>>>>>>>>	>>>>>>>>	Slowest
1st	Soft (12)	Soft (12)	Soft (12)	Soft (12)
2nd	Soft (12)	Soft (12)	Soft (14)	Medium (20)
3rd	Medium (28)	Soft (12)	Hard (26)	Medium (20)
4th	-	Medium (16)	-	-

If there's a definite chance of rain by 3/4 race distance, I imagine that it would be favourable to keep running the Softs as much as you can as, IIRC once the track is wet, you are not required to run the Pirelli nominated compounds at least once in the race anymore.

I won't be surprised if some front runners (and some chancers) try to stretch the Softs out much longer than recommended in the 1st stint.

[Dr Z]

deeen said:

I never understand these things... how can they predict the same number of laps for the 3rd stint as the 1st? Surely the car is lighter and the track is more "rubbered in", so the car can do more laps on the same tyres?

I think Pirelli's recommendations assume that those laps will be done at maximum attack...if you lean on the tyre, the life expectancy of the Soft is 12 laps. My suspicion is that Pirelli are purely going from the no. of laps these cars safely did in the practice sessions. In the actual race, I expect the drivers to go max attack for a few laps till they get the required gap to their competitors and then go in to 'conserve mode' till the pit stop window or to respond to an undercut attack. I'm hoping that the gaps after 4-5 laps from the start won't be too big for the front runners to get too comfortable.

[Dr Z]

deeen said:

Understood, thanks... but even so... surely "max attack" (hope he doesn't sue) from lap 1 is different from "max attack" from lap 24, when the car is 30 kg lighter?

Perhaps someone more qualified can comment, but I will give my understanding.

Car is lighter but the tyre tread is fixed--there's only so much rubber on it, so you can only push on it for a fixed distance/time.

I take the point that it will be easier to push on a rubber'd in track and get more tyre life especially on a grippier, more abrasive track asphalt as in the case of Silverstone. But you won't have the peak grip from the tyre (and hence performance) towards the end of the stint as you had in the beginning. I'm guessing, that Pirelli are referring to the peak grip in the recommended laps. It is entirely possible that I don't know what I'm talking about.

[Dr Z]

The Vambo said:

it's raining

Yay!

[Dr Z]

Damn this Safety car start...it's not even raining anymore!

[Dr Z]

Max Verstappen.

[Dr Z]

I love how Lewis says we don't get any booing from the British fans, then the fans immediately boo Nico.

[Dr Z]

Superbad said:

Rosberg's engineer should have told Nico he couldn't answer the question about going through 7th gear, has probably cost Nico a penalty.

Agree, the engineer panicked and helped Rosberg.

[Dr Z]

interview with JB!

[Dr Z]

glazbagun said:

Alonso was great to watch. If he were fifteen years younger putting in that performance we'd be talking about him as one to watch. Couldn't believe some of his moves. All those big crashes certainly havent scared him!

He was fantastic, agree. Was following Button's pace, hoping he will catch Kvyat to get into points position, but he was falling back...pace wasn't good and he really should have shined today.

[Dr Z]

I was really interested to hear Button saying the old neck was going at some point in the race. Good to hear that these cars are still quite physically challenging to drive.

[Dr Z]

I'm not sure how the Baku situation is comparable to this race's problem? In Baku, everything was working as it should--just the engine mapping was different, so no threat of DNF'ing. Here however, as explained earlier by poppopbangbang, there was a real probability of DNF'ing/safety due to leaving the problem to go on and letting the driver to trouble shoot. Having said that, I don't like the fact that these rules are cherry picking what is and isn't a safety issue and we need some real clarity in the rules and some common sense to prevail (tough ask I know).

[Dr Z]

Maybe OT but since we've already had discussions on the Championship prospects in here, I thought I'd post this.

It's almost half way through the season, so it's only right to pause and reflect. I had a look at how the picture looked at the half way point on previous seasons with the similar points scoring system to see if someone other than the Merc pilots had a realistic chance at the Driver's title for this year. This is how the Top 5 in the Championship looked from 2010 - Present, after the first 10 races (I've listed how far away the drivers sitting 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th in the standings were from the leader in percentage too):

2010	Points	%	2010-End	Points	%
Hamilton	145	-	Vettel	256	-
Button	133	92%	Alonso	252	98%
Webber	128	88%	Webber	242	95%
Vettel	121	83%	Hamilton	240	94%
Alonso	98	68%	Button	214	84%
2011	Points	%	2011-End	Points	%
Vettel	216	-	Vettel	392	-
Webber	139	64%	Button	270	69%
Hamilton	134	62%	Webber	258	66%
Alonso	130	60%	Alonso	257	66%
Button	109	50%	Hamilton	227	58%
2012	Points	%	2012-End	Points	%
Alonso	154	-	Vettel	281	-
Webber	120	78%	Alonso	278	98%
Vettel	110	71%	Raikkonen	207	74%
Raikkonen	98	64%	Hamilton	190	68%
Hamilton	92	60%	Button	188	67%
2013	Points	%	2013-End	Points	%
Vettel	172	-	Vettel	397	-
Raikkonen	134	78%	Alonso	242	61%
Alonso	133	77%	Webber	199	50%
Hamilton	124	72%	Hamilton	189	48%
Webber	105	61%	Raikkonen	183	46%
2014	Points	%	2014-End	Points	%
Rosberg	190	-	Hamilton	384	-
Hamilton	176	93%	Rosberg	317	83%
Ricciardo	106	56%	Ricciardo	238	62%
Alonso	97	51%	Bottas	186	48%
Bottas	91	48%	Vettel	167	43%
2015	Points	%	2015-End	Points	%
Hamilton	202	-	Hamilton	381	-
Rosberg	181	90%	Rosberg	322	85%
Vettel	160	79%	Vettel	278	73%
Bottas	77	38%	Raikkonen	150	39%
Raikkonen	76	38%	Bottas	136	36%
2016	Points	%	-	-	-
Rosberg	168	-	-	-	-
Hamilton	167	99%	-	-	-
Raikkonen	106	63%	-	-	-
Ricciardo	100	60%	-	-	-
Vettel	98	58%	-	-	-

First thing that jumps out is that, the lowest deficit a driver has managed to claw back and become the eventual WDC is in 2012, when Vettel had only scored 71% of the points of the Championship leader. He managed to win the Championship in the end by 3 points. We all remember that sensational drive from the back in Brazil '12. We all hopefully also remember the fact that a crucial change in the tyre construction design by midseason from Pirelli that decisively swung the balance away from Ferrari and towards Red Bull. By this reckoning, the situation already looks quite bleak this year for any non-Mercedes drivers. No big regulation changes in sight within the season.

In 2010, Alonso and Vettel had only scored 68% and 83% respectively, of the leader's (Hamilton) points halfway and they were in with a shout of the Championship till the last race. It required the leading team to completely drop the ball, however. Not likely with Mercedes, or can they? By this reasoning, Raikkonen has the better chance of the rest. However, it is easy to see in other seasons where closer challengers to the top spot from a different team have faded pretty quickly: Raikkonen, 2013; Hamilton/Alonso, 2011.

Ferrari don't look like they'll be winning races any time soon and while Red Bull are gathering momentum, will it be too little, too late for a proper charge at the title for either of their drivers?

Having looked at this, I had a new appreciation of Vettel's achievements. Half of his Championships were very hard fought (2010, 2012) and in the other half, his domination of the field (including his team mate) was absolute (2011, 2013). Interesting also that Rosberg seems much more consistent a team mate to Hamilton than Webber was to Vettel. Except 2010, Webber was absolutely nowhere in the Championship, whereas I was surprised Rosberg picked himself up from defeat in 2014 to pretty much score a similar number of points in 2015. The outward impression I got was one of Hamilton's absolute domination of his team mate in 2015, but perhaps not? In any case, Mercedes have a formidable driver pairing for a front running team from a WCC perspective and they'd be hard pressed to choose anyone other than Rosberg going into 2017.

Here's to an interesting Championship in the rest of the season!

[Dr Z]

Jasandjules said:

How many seconds a lap was he losing when unable to find 7th? And how many laps remaining?

These were his lap times:

Lap No.	ROS (sec)
25	97.317
26	97.385
27	97.612
28	98.55
29	97.673
30	98.132
31	98.28
32	97.476
33	97.215
34	97.062
35	97.357
36	97.465
37	97.66
38	97.107
39	96.356
40	96.308
41	95.989
42	96.2
43	95.889
44	95.548
45	95.805
46	99.199
47	98.502
48	97.355
49	96.714
50	96.458
51	96.862
52	97.394

He cleared Verstappen in lap 38 and was dipping in to the 1:35s when the problem occurred in lap 46. Based on the pace he was doing at that point, I would say he stood to lose around 3 seconds a lap. They fixed it temporarily by lap 47/48 but he never recovered to the pace he was driving at prior to the issue. This directly contradicts Horner's suggestion that everything was fine after Merc's "help". If the help was not given, he could have DNF'd or assuming he continued to lose 3 secs a lap, finished behind Ricciardo who was less than 20 seconds behind.

ETA: I lied. Ricciardo was 22 and a bit seconds behind Rosberg after lap 46. It's still quite possible that he'd have finished ahead at that rate as Ricciardo was simply sitting there conserving and would likely have picked up the pace once it became clear that a position is to be gained.

Edited by Dr Z on Monday 11th July 12:13

[Dr Z]

oyster said:

NJK44 said:

lewisco said:

They do believe they should not have the 10s penalty.

This is a good article about it:

http://www.racecar-engineering.com/blogs/rosberg-r...

I hope the appeal fails and Rosberg gets a further 20 seconds added or dsq.

Why?

Because Lewis Hamilton.

[Dr Z]

Merc withdraw the appeal.

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/mercedes-withdra...

[Dr Z]

Thanks for that snotrag! Anybody who went, feel free to post up your review!

cheddar said:

jm doc said:

cheddar said:

Great race
Well done Lewis
Unlucky Nico, he drove well, penalty seems fair, he loses valuable points, still leads overall, just........
Big thumbs up to Max, epic drive and as entertaining as ever

Thanks DrZ for more quality F1 input

"Unlucky Nico, he drove well", you're kidding aren't you, what was it, four seconds behind his teammate after the first lap!! And never even got close throughout the whole race whilst desperately fighting off a Red Bull most of the way round the track, even getting overtaken at one point. It's getting embarassing at times to watch him eg Monaco

Which race were you watching?

I was watching the same race as you, albeit with an open mind

Nico was never going to match Lewis's pace on that particular Sunday but, in initially atrocious conditions, he re-caught and overtook Max, drove a solid race without an off track incident whilst everyone else was spearing off left right and centre and secured a pre-penalty 2nd place. Like I said, he drove well.
The 'unlucky' part was his gearbox issue and subsequent relegation to 3rd, neither of which were his fault

He's led the championship from the start of the season, still does and is usually every bit as quick as his teammate, what are you 'embarrassed' about?

Cheers Cheddar, any betting action for you these days on F1?

You make a good observation re: Nico's driving this race. Almost everyone got caught out at Copse at some point or other...even Lewis leading with a reasonable margin once. I think Nico drives well within himself (and the limit) at these conditions and it gets him into a negative (positive?) feedback loop with lowering confidence and car performance for the conditions (Monaco this year for example). It is my feeling that he takes a more considered approach of building up the confidence slowly as he gets more familiar with the car in the conditions.

In contrast, a Verstappen or Hamilton are continuously pushing to find the limit and are able to keep the car working better in a wider range of conditions. There's something to be said for both approaches, but it makes Nico look particularly bad in low grip/wet conditions. Once he gets into the groove, he goes flat out, but that initial period leaves him vulnerable to the downward spiral of losing confidence in the car and the car performance too falling off the cliff. Example was last year's British GP when him and Vettel were very very fast on slicks catching Lewis by multiple seconds a lap in wet/damp conditions when a sudden downpour and well timed pitstop helped Lewis to keep track position and on the right tyre to win the race. No doubt, I'll get told now that I'm making stuff up to make Nico look better...completely missing the point.

Leaving this aside for a moment, it pains me to say it, Alonso was on a different league to Button this race. A few tenths on raw qualifying pace is easier to brush off, but race pace? I noticed it in FP1 and assumed that Button had some setup issue, hoping he'll sort it out by Saturday but then qualifying happened. OK, the rear wing got detached. Rain on Sunday before the race, come on JB, it's your chance! Honestly, I think some kind of god has been awakened in Alonso or something. He was embarassingly quicker than JB in the drying conditions on the slicks (in FA's 1st stint on the Mediums). JB also didn't seem to have an answer to Kvyat's pace at the end. A real shame. I hope this doesn't continue in the next few races. If it does, it may well be the end of JB in a McLaren.

Edited by Dr Z on Tuesday 12th July 13:44