The Official 2018 Spanish Grand Prix Thread **SPOILERS**
Discussion
I knew the tyres of Bottas were marginal at the end of the race but it would appear he only just made it over the line!
Merc's Spanish debrief
Merc's Spanish debrief
https://youtu.be/3wlhqBkTWwo?t=5s
Judging by this video Grosjean really did f
k this one up. Had he not lit the tyres up he would have simply stopped off the track. What a dumb ...
Judging by this video Grosjean really did f
k this one up. Had he not lit the tyres up he would have simply stopped off the track. What a dumb ...Mr Pointy said:
There's a possibility othere teams will protest the Ferrari battery system at Monaco:
https://www.gpguide.com/News.aspx?articleId=MXwwNS...
With any luck it wil be declared as cheating & Ferrari will lose all their WC points accrued so far.
Never going to be points removed. Probably a fine if anything. They have shown in the last few years they are more concerned about the championships being close than applying the rules fully.https://www.gpguide.com/News.aspx?articleId=MXwwNS...
With any luck it wil be declared as cheating & Ferrari will lose all their WC points accrued so far.
HighwayStar said:
4 posts up.
Derek Smith said:
Can one take much notice of the lap times? There must be many factors at play here. I assumed Ferrari were concerned about tyre wear (the early stop for Vettel) and so rapid lapping was not an option early on.
Yes, we can look at the lap times. Vettel was pulling away from Raikkonen at around 3 tenths per lap in the 1st stint but never managed to dip in to the 1m21s, which is what Hamilton was doing from the off. Meanwhile Bottas was sitting fairly comfortably around 1.5s from Vettel which is within the undercut range and Vettel was driving faster and faster every lap wearing out his tyres. The RBs were also sitting at a similar gap behind Raikkonen. The Ferraris simply didn't have the pace.Fearing an undercut at any moment, Ferrari pulled Vettel in, believing it's going to be a 2-stop race. When Bottas was behind Vettel after the first pitstop, again the same story from the first stint was repeated forcing Ferrari into a 2-stop and Merc decided to take track position and hope Bottas makes it to the end than stopping again and fall behind the RBs who were looking comfortable to do a 1-stop. Maybe Ferrari were fighting shadows but the fact is they couldn't live with the Merc cars' pace in the race.
Some onboards from the race:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05LvdB45hZ4
Includes Danny Ric's spin
Heard that the FIA are thinking about scrapping blue flags.
Have they lost the plot??
Teams and drivers hate the idea but the FIA and Charlie Whiting are saying they are still looking into it.
Can't find the piece I read it but this guy mentions the same
2:13
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BGGzNoa6g0
Have they lost the plot??
Teams and drivers hate the idea but the FIA and Charlie Whiting are saying they are still looking into it.
Can't find the piece I read it but this guy mentions the same
2:13
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BGGzNoa6g0
Notionally I think it’s a good idea to ditch blue flags but the last time we didn’t have them, back markers were a lot slower and you needed a much smaller lap time differential to be able to pass. I’m not sure what the effects would be at a track like Barcelona where it’s near impossible to even get close. Leaders would ruin their tyres trying to lap someone?
travel is dangerous said:
Notionally I think it’s a good idea to ditch blue flags but the last time we didn’t have them, back markers were a lot slower and you needed a much smaller lap time differential to be able to pass. I’m not sure what the effects would be at a track like Barcelona where it’s near impossible to even get close. Leaders would ruin their tyres trying to lap someone?
Many tracks would not be an issue but can you imagine Monaco?Another issue could be teams telling their second driver who may have had an issue to hold up the leader to allow their number one driver to catch.
I think it's a great idea. It should close up the racing and show who can really overtake. If they can't overtake a backmarker, how do they ever expect to be able to pass a car for position. F1 is not a fking kindergarten where everyone wins a prize for being special, so show us you're worth the millions you get paid for racing and stop whining.
king kindergarten where everyone wins a prize for being special, so show us you're worth the millions you get paid for racing and stop whining.Jabbah said:
London424 said:
I saw a pic of the tyres from the test yesterday and the rear left one was ruined. Down to the canvas type hole. I can't find it now though!
"He now understands Pirelli's decision to alter the tread depth of tyres for the Spanish GP, having suffered severe blistering when testing the normal compounds on Tuesday at the Circuit de Catalunya.
wear.
... after using the original specification on day one of the first in-season test of 2018, Vettel acknowledged the correct call had been made.
"I think it's pretty straightforward," Vettel said. "Obviously you don't get the chance to revisit these kind of decisions that are made but we did it today and the result is that if we used the normal tyres on Sunday, it would have probably been worse, so it was the correct call.
"And it was our fault for not having the same tyre wear or life as other people.""
Edited by Graveworm on Thursday 17th May 14:51
Edited by Graveworm on Thursday 17th May 14:52
suffolk009 said:
On balance, I'm in favour of ditching the blue flags.
but thats my fave bit of marshalling the GP - when i get asked to be on the Blue flag for the GP 
Big buzz when you get the flag out at the right moment - as most of the time you only have a fraction of a second to gauge the gap and display the flag. Race control can only guide so far over the radio... you have to be right in the race to know who is where at all times, without any help from electronic devices.
Blue flag marshalling must be incredibly hard if you want to also watch and enjoy the race.
The ones that reall impress me are the Le Mans 24-hours teams. I have watched a team change shift, pick up the flag and immediately be on it, with cars that were no where near each other on the previous lap
.... and you do it all for free!
The ones that reall impress me are the Le Mans 24-hours teams. I have watched a team change shift, pick up the flag and immediately be on it, with cars that were no where near each other on the previous lap
.... and you do it all for free!
Graveworm said:
Interestingly they were the "Old" tyres. Here is what Seb was reported to have said
"He now understands Pirelli's decision to alter the tread depth of tyres for the Spanish GP, having suffered severe blistering when testing the normal compounds on Tuesday at the Circuit de Catalunya.
wear.
... after using the original specification on day one of the first in-season test of 2018, Vettel acknowledged the correct call had been made.
"I think it's pretty straightforward," Vettel said. "Obviously you don't get the chance to revisit these kind of decisions that are made but we did it today and the result is that if we used the normal tyres on Sunday, it would have probably been worse, so it was the correct call.
"And it was our fault for not having the same tyre wear or life as other people.""
its cool that this has been done, as it silences the tin foil hattery."He now understands Pirelli's decision to alter the tread depth of tyres for the Spanish GP, having suffered severe blistering when testing the normal compounds on Tuesday at the Circuit de Catalunya.
wear.
... after using the original specification on day one of the first in-season test of 2018, Vettel acknowledged the correct call had been made.
"I think it's pretty straightforward," Vettel said. "Obviously you don't get the chance to revisit these kind of decisions that are made but we did it today and the result is that if we used the normal tyres on Sunday, it would have probably been worse, so it was the correct call.
"And it was our fault for not having the same tyre wear or life as other people.""
Edited by Graveworm on Thursday 17th May 14:51
Edited by Graveworm on Thursday 17th May 14:52
Was this something intended as a reaction by liberty/Pirelli or incidental?
rdjohn said:
Blue flag marshalling must be incredibly hard if you want to also watch and enjoy the race.
The ones that reall impress me are the Le Mans 24-hours teams. I have watched a team change shift, pick up the flag and immediately be on it, with cars that were no where near each other on the previous lap
.... and you do it all for free!
On the contrary.... i am far more into the race than i ever am watching it: typically i'm timing the leading cars by stop watch, tracking their laps, noting how quickly they are catching the back markers: then working out how many laps its going to be before i'm out with the flag. I'll be trying to memorize the order of the cars - I'll have an earphone with the track commentary in under my radio headset, I've found over the years it just gives you that extra little bit of insight over and above the messages from Race Control... The ones that reall impress me are the Le Mans 24-hours teams. I have watched a team change shift, pick up the flag and immediately be on it, with cars that were no where near each other on the previous lap
.... and you do it all for free!
but yeah... i'm not "watching" the race passively but it is really enjoyable - the killer is if i have a flaggie on yellow who talks during the race... ruins your concentration.
Endurance racing like Le Mans is a whole different ball game - your looking out for colour of headlights. I did the WEC last year at silverstone... you don't think really - you just spot an LMP1 car's headlights and put a blue flag out for anything in front of it because of the speed differential.
I seem to remember last year it took me about 3/4hr to figure out the order of the porsche and toyotas, as they were both white/black/red blurs with blinding headlights
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