what happened to hamilton's pace at the end

[The Pits]

one minute he's catching massa by 2 secs a lap (both on inters) then nothing?

what happened? was he going to run out of fuel and had to turn the wick down?

[10 Pence Short]

His intermediate tyres went off. If you noticed, Webber and Massa's also went off towards the end, too. Hamilton seemed to wear them much faster, as per usual.

[FourWheelDrift]

10 Pence Short said:

Hamilton seemed to wear them much faster, as per usual.

In this case he was pushing hard not too lose time or positions after taking his (if it had rained as expected) unnecessary 2nd tyre stop for intermediates. He was on a one stop strategy and would have finished 2nd. If laptimes had been similar and taking off his pitstop would have placed him 9secs behind Vettel, 3secs ahead of Heikki.

[german tony]

He seems to have knackered his tyres by playing sill buggers with other drivers. Or he used them up getting back into the points, you chose.

[The Pits]

sorry, none of this explains why he was gaining on Massa at 2 seconds per lap for him to close right up to massa on the track then back off so dramatically. are you suggesting massa was taking it easy? also inters don't go off any where near as dramatically as full wets do on a drying track, that's the whole point of inters, they are intermediate!

[VladD]

The Pits said:

sorry, none of this explains why he was gaining on Massa at 2 seconds per lap for him to close right up to massa on the track then back off so dramatically. are you suggesting massa was taking it easy? also inters don't go off any where near as dramatically as full wets do on a drying track, that's the whole point of inters, they are intermediate!

Didn't Webber have the same issue. He caught up to Lewis very quickly, had one attempt at overtaking and then it was pretty much game over. I'd say that the tyres had gone through their sweet spot.

[thestig84]

The Pits said:

sorry, none of this explains why he was gaining on Massa at 2 seconds per lap for him to close right up to massa on the track then back off so dramatically. are you suggesting massa was taking it easy? also inters don't go off any where near as dramatically as full wets do on a drying track, that's the whole point of inters, they are intermediate!

Yes it does. Massa was being held up by Heidfeld and not taking too much out of his tyres. LH shot right up to the back of him in clean air but in those quick laps overheated the inters. A few laps later even the people like Massa and Webber who werent so hard on thiers started to slow to same pace as LH (edit for bit I forgot) Lewis said on his quick laps he didnt look for the water to cool them....even being inters with the large operating window they cant take too much of a pretty much dry pounding

Edited by thestig84 on Monday 15th September 15:29

[The Pits]

i thought that was because Hamilton found a bit more pace towards the end and was again closing the gap on massa! my guess is that fuel was an issue as he only stopped once for fuel and was cutting it fine to make it to the end. when they knew it would run to the end he was able to get back on it. i never heard of inters going off so dramatically before.

[thestig84]

They went of pretty dramatically in China last year to arguably cost LH the championship. It was still damp then but he had managed to wear the rears to the canvas!

[E30M3SE]

The Pits said:

i thought that was because Hamilton found a bit more pace towards the end and was again closing the gap on massa! my guess is that fuel was an issue as he only stopped once for fuel and was cutting it fine to make it to the end. when they knew it would run to the end he was able to get back on it. i never heard of inters going off so dramatically before.

I don't think fuel was an issue, as when he stopped for the inter's, which was approx 5 second, or thereabouts, they could have pumped a few seconds of fuel into the car at the same time........... but maybe your right and it was fuel.

[10 Pence Short]

The Pits said:

i thought that was because Hamilton found a bit more pace towards the end and was again closing the gap on massa! my guess is that fuel was an issue as he only stopped once for fuel and was cutting it fine to make it to the end. when they knew it would run to the end he was able to get back on it. i never heard of inters going off so dramatically before.

All the cars were fuelled the same at that point (Hamilton didn't take on any fuel in his final stop). All that happened was that Hamilton overheated his tyres and by the time he caught Massa, they weren't anywhere near their best. As has been said, once Webber had caught Hamilton, he suffered the same problem, as did Massa once he'd gone through a period of trying to keep Hamilton behind.

Once all 3 drivers were on tyres of a similar state, it was Hamilton crawling up to the back of Massa, as was the pattern.

[Derek Smith]

LH isn't profligate with his tyres. He husbanded them in the first part of the race and, despite having half a race's fuel load managed to make them last until his, expected only, stop. When he was on inters he had to push if he wanted to make up positions and it was really a case of go for it.

Whilst many, me included, have criticised his choice of inters for Q2, one wonders if it was forced on him due to the fact that he had alrady burnt out one set and couldn't afford to do the same with another, leaving him just the one set for the race. It's all a case of judgement.

Given his race times, had he had access to three sets of full wets he could have gone for a two stopps and, with the extra early pace, have been in contention at the finish regardless of what the weather did.

[Fivepercent]

It is his loose driving style.
This is very entertaining to watch.
It is also hard on the tyres.

This gives him the advantage in cold and wet situations like Silverstone and the end at Spa when he can get more heat into his tyres and so more grip.

However it has caught him out a few times when he has cooked his tyres and lost grip.

[flemke]

Fivepercent said:

It is his loose driving style.
This is very entertaining to watch.
It is also hard on the tyres.

This gives him the advantage in cold and wet situations like Silverstone and the end at Spa when he can get more heat into his tyres and so more grip.

However it has caught him out a few times when he has cooked his tyres and lost grip.

I think you will find that, this year, Hamilton's tyre wear problems are on the fronts, not the rears.

[anonymous-user]

The pace dropped off for a while which helped Webber catch him, then the tyre came back to him. From then on he couldn't be arsed arguing his case with the Stewards in Italy when they give him a penalty for passing Massa, so settled for a loss of one point, he'll take the fight to them at the next race where he expects he wouldn't cock up in qualifying, so shouldn't have to risk anything.