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

[Dr Z]

Date(s): Friday 15 April - Sunday 17 April 2016

UK Broadcast Timings (and local time)

All sessions are live on Sky F1, with the Channel 4 highlights indicated below.

Session	Day	Sky F1	Channel 4	Session Start	Local Time
Practice 1	Fri	0245	-	0300	1000
Practice 2	Fri	0645	-	0700	1400
Practice 3	Sat	0445	-	0500	1200
Qualifying	Sat	0700	1230	0800	1500
Race	Sun	0530	1330	0700	1400

Shanghai International Circuit

Number of laps	56
Length of a lap	5.451 km
Race distance	305.066 km
Race lap record	1:32.238 (L55; M. Schumacher, 2004; Avg speed: 212.750 km/h)

2015 Grand Prix Results

P1	L. Hamilton	Mercedes	1:39:42.008
P2	N. Rosberg	Mercedes	+0.714
P3	S. Vettel	Ferrari	+2.988
P4	K. Räikkönen	Ferrari	+3.835
P5	F. Massa	Williams-Mercedes	+8.544
P6	V. Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	+9.885
P7	R. Grosjean	Lotus-Mercedes	+19.008
P8	F. Nasr	Sauber-Ferrari	+22.625
P9	D. Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-Renault	+32.117
P10	M. Ericsson	Sauber-Ferrari	+1 Lap

Pole time: 1:35.782 (L. Hamilton, Mercedes AMG F1; Avg Speed: 204.877 km/h)

Fastest Race Lap: 1:42.208 (L31; L. Hamilton, Mercedes; Avg Speed: 191.997 km/h)

Live timing for all sessions available here:

http://www.formula1.com/content/fom-website/en/f1-...

Weather forecast:

Seems like some rain is forecast during the weekend and race day. Hopefully rain appears during the race to make it more interesting.

http://www.accuweather.com/en/cn/shanghai/106577/d...

Day	Comment	High/Low (?)
Fri	Rain and drizzle p.m	17/13
Sat	Rain and drizzle p.m	18/15
Sun	Rain and drizzle a.m	21/13

The tyre choices requested by the teams:

---

The previous race whilst providing plenty of action in the midfield, disappointed in the battle at the front with Vettel’s Margherita letting him down before lights out and the Iceman’s finger slipping from the single clutch paddle at lights out. So here we are at Race 3 of the season, still wondering if there is going to be a genuine championship battle between the Mercedes and Ferrari drivers. I fear this race will give us more of the same. Happy to be proved wrong though.

Last year at the Chinese GP, the only battle at front we saw was between the Mercedes drivers and even that was managed only too well by the team and Ferrari lacked the ultimate race pace to take the fight to Mercedes. I recall the Soft tyres were going off faster in the Ferrari compared to Mercedes as they were pushing very hard to catch the Mercedes cars, while Hamilton was cruising at the front looking after his tyres awaiting the Ferrari challenge that never quite materialised. Mercedes had nearly 1 second advantage over the best Ferrari last year in qualifying pace.

I’m expecting everyone to tiptoe around in the 1st stint on these Super Softs as tyre wear is high, and throw on a set of Mediums at the first opportunity. Last year even the Softs barely lasted 10 laps on the Ferrari for the 1st stint. Not looking forward to seeing how slow they need to go to get the Super Softs last 7 or 8 laps in this circuit. However, drivers at the front of the Q2 grid will have a good chance with strategy I think, whilst some rain would also be very welcome in the race.

So, some discussion points for this thread:

Do you think Ferrari might have the pace this time around? More importantly, will both of their cars hold up?

Will we see another Grosjean-Haas Special this time?

Will Williams get their act together? 3rd time lucky with the Medium tyres?

Will McLaren deliver on the promise shown thus far and have a clean weekend?

Will the Sauber mechanics have clothes to wear, and chairs to sit?

Will all Team Principals make it to the pre-race press conference?

And last, but not least, what kind of qualifying format will we have? Will you be watching qualifying if it's not back to the 2015 format?

Edited by Dr Z on Tuesday 5th April 13:46

[Dr Z]

HustleRussell said:

Judging by what I've read, if we want Ferrari et al challenging Mercedes we need hot dry conditions.

Not that I don't love a wet race, It might assist our Renault powered pilots.

Yes, last season that was a pattern with Ferrari doing well in hotter races, but I don't think we've a truly hot race yet. And the forecast for this GP also looks fairly mild.

---

Sector 3 is an abomination and the turns 11/12/13 are the worst...hard to know what the architect was thinking when he conceived of this design. Anyhow, it seems a Mercedes track and running in clear air gives you the added advantage of being able to keep the tyres in good shape.

I had the stint data from last year's race between Mercedes and Ferrari lying around; revisiting it, seems the Mercedes in clear air likely had an advantage of ~0.4s/lap in the first stint over Ferrari. In the 2nd stint, Ferrari were matching Mercedes in the early laps of the stint but the tyres start to go off quicker than the Mercs. Again, Hamilton in clear air probably had a reserve of 0.4-0.6s/lap, hence his second stint data set forms a nice downward curve with two very fast laps in succession at the end, giving the game away. By the start of the 3rd stint, you would have to say the race was over with the Mercedes cars having a clear cushion to the Ferraris.



Looking at the tyre choices, Ferrari are up for a fight aren't they? Seems even McLaren want to have some fun. My predictions is, in qualifying if Mercedes are only ahead by <0.5s then it is game on in the race. This is why I'm even more annoyed at them tinkering with the qualifying! It takes a lot away from me as a fan, in forming an opinion about the relative strengths of the competitors if the competitors are given a reason to not go for their ultimate pace in Q3. In any case, I won't be watching if it's an aggregate format.

In the race, if Ferrari can recreate the Melbourne start, that would be good. I'll be interested to see how the strategists play it too.

[Dr Z]

Mr_Thyroid said:

What do you mean by this? I don't remember anyone criticising this circuit before.

I was thinking in the sense that, if you are defending from someone who's faster, no matter how well you position the car in the 11/12/13 sequence, it allows the attacker with superior grip to really line you up through those three turns before the main straight. This is pretty bad, if you then also have one of the longest straights in the calender to complete the overtake in. It becomes too easy for the attacker, IMO.

Also, you have a short straight before that 11/12/13 complex and if you made a compromised entry to 11, you can still recover before the main straight/turn 13, so it doesn't look like a particularly challenging corner sequence before the main straight that rewards precision.

Feel free to tell me that I'm talking rubbish though.

[Dr Z]

Good news!

https://joesaward.wordpress.com/2016/04/07/some-go...

Joe Saward is reporting 'rumours' that the F1 overlords will decide to go back to the 2015 qualifying format from this GP forwards.

[Dr Z]

suffolk009 said:

Does anyone care to speculate what it will take to upset a Merc 1 and 2?

Rain and/or Ferrari being less than 0.5s off Merc in qualifying pace. That's my best guess.

[Dr Z]

mollytherocker said:

Sam All said:

Nice one - Sky reported earlier that Alonso would be back this weekend.

Back in the wall?

Cruel.

[Dr Z]

This track is not that really hard for overtaking. I would bet Hamilton will be up in P3 by Lap 5. I'll keep an eye out for that Merc's pace as surely he's going to be optimised for overtaking.

That W07 will be turned up to 11.

[Dr Z]

Alonso cleared to race.

Watching FP2, Ted going on about the six element front wings as being 'bad' for following closely... He has no idea, does he?

[Dr Z]

FOM are doing well with these useful tyre usage graphics. Pairing this with the FP2 lap times and disregarding the headline times for a moment, Raikkonen put in a very impressive stint on a used super soft. It must be something to do with his driving style as only he could make that peaky tyre last for 10 laps, maintaining a consistent degradation rate. If that was a 1st stint simulation, game on in the race as it compared very favourably to Rosberg's and Hamilton's simulations, but none could put in 10 laps that consistently!

Red Bull and Force India look faster than McLaren and the super soft tyre is all over the place for RB and McL. They seem more comfortable on the soft, however.

[Dr Z]

Who's watching Quali? Pascal just slid and smacked in to the barriers. Lewis having some PU problems.

[Dr Z]

They could just disable DRS and get them out...but never do the sensible option, would they?

[Dr Z]

Last year's pole was 1:35.782. Button starting with a 38.324 now. Waiting for the big boys to come out.

[Dr Z]

Not bad, Button was only 0.6s off the Merc.

[Dr Z]

VolvoT5 said:

I wonder why they have left it so late to run on a damp track - really puts pressure on the drivers to deliver doesn't it? Cutting it so fine seems a bit unnecessary for Q1.

The clock was stopped as it was a Red Flag, so no time lost surely?

Lewis in big trouble now.

[Dr Z]

VolvoT5 said:

Yeah but there was still 5 or 6 minutes or so where Rosberg/Vettel/Raikkonen just sat around. Obviously it has worked out OK but given it is a damp track it seems a bit risky not to give yourself time to do a second lap if necessary.

Sure, but that's a risk taken by the teams who think they have a pace advantage, so I don't have a problem with it.

Good lap by Nasr. Even better by Ericsson.

[Dr Z]

Vettel for pole then? Or will Rosberg have something to say about that?

[Dr Z]

A 36.2 on the Soft for Rosberg. Maybe the Soft is working better than the Super Soft? Delta seems too small compared to others on Super Soft.

Ferrari only a tenth faster on the Super Soft. Is that W07 being uncorked now?

Edited by Dr Z on Saturday 16th April 08:59

[Dr Z]

OK, Rosberg just set a 36.1 on Super Soft. That confirms that the Soft worked better for the conditions.

ETA: Raikkonen just went faster.

[Dr Z]

Mighty lap by Ricciardo!

Vettel left it late. Paid the price. Ferrari just made it difficult for themselves in the race.

[Dr Z]

Extracted some of the FP2 stint data...plotted the most interesting below for some armchair analysis:

Super Soft:



Soft:



Medium:




Raikkonen really stands out of all the stints. Super consistent and super easy on the super soft tyres. But the one negative is he appears to take less out of the tyres on the opening laps than the others (which might be the 'secret' to making it last). It would be great if he can lead from the front at the start, and this skill would put him in a great position to win races. However, the other technique of taking a lot out of the tyres at start and holding station would work better at the start of the GP as you're invariably fighting with other cars. But you would suffer a worser degradation rate.

I would love to see him get out front after the first corner to really put his unique driving style to use. Unfortunately he tends to get poor starts and gets gobbled up by the field and this skill then becomes limiting.

You can't really gain much of an idea from the actual lap times as you don't know who's sand bagging by how much, but looking at the degradation rates (i.e. the slope of the stints), there's not much in it between Ferrari and Mercedes on all the tyres. Vettel's Medium tyre stint is also impressive and comparable to Hamilton. Looking at the best sector times in qualifying, Rosberg gained most his time through Sector 3 and a tenth in Sector 1. This is very interesting in that the Ferrari PU is doing a weird rev drop off towards the end of the straight before the braking zone as if it runs out of puff. I haven't noticed this in the customer cars running the '16 PU. I read that they're running their PU conservatively owing to the reliability issues in previous races.

I believe that race track temps will be higher than Q3 and Ferrari will be able to put their Super Softs in the opening stint to good use. I was glad to see Ferrari being this close to Mercedes in qualifying, on the latter's backyard so to speak. I would tentatively suggest, Ferrari have built a genuine contender for the WDC.

As for Red Bull, again the best sector times of Ricciardo gives it away. He was stronger in Sector 3 while matching Ferrari/Mercedes in Sector 2. Long run pace was worser for Red Bull on the Super Soft, it looked like they couldn't get it under control in FP2. Dan mentioned some setup changes that helped towards Q3 but extracting one lap pace is much easier than doing a consistent stint on it. I expect Daniel to struggle in the first stint, pitting maybe in 5-6 laps. Look out for him on the Softs though, if Ferrari/Mercedes slip up he'll be there to pounce.

McLaren looked quite slow on both the Softs and Super Softs, I would be surprised if they can score points. However, Button mentioned they'd got it under control doing some setup changes after FP2. With two top drivers, points is possible I guess but I'm not holding my breath for tomorrow.