The radio call is only a big deal because it was broadcasted. It was nothing otherwise.
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The radio call is only a big deal because it was broadcasted. It was nothing otherwise.
With four laps to the end, the smarter call would have been to take the risk of making it to the end of the race with the hard tyres, if after asking Hamilton this is the mutual agreement. Pitting is more risky in this situation. If a safety car was called out at 4 laps to the end of the race, chances are that the race would have finished under the safety car. There is no excuse that would explain a sensible reason to call Hamilton into the pits.
Consider this .
Lewis was asked to pit at a time when it only made sense from a fastest lap point of view .
He refused , and went fastest right away .
Toto has said that it kind of makes the data look silly in this case .
He is fast , but is he that fast ?
I think there is possibly more to it than that .
I think they are faster than they want to show , as it has had an effect on the show , itself .
I think it's most likely they were telling Hamilton that he could go for fastest lap , if , and only if , he took new tires , so as not to show the sandbags .
I think Lewis was being a bit naughty , and a little greedy when he took that point from his team mate .
I think , with harsh feedback on the sport starting to come in because of this Merc domination , the overheating issue we've seen recently , is also a ruse , designed to give the others hope in hot places , and to keep the championship fight alive in the eyes of fans .
It's what it smells like to me .
What think you cats ?
I am not sure what is going on. One thing is clear, the Ferrari has drifted backwards into the clutches of the Redbull and a clear gap has opened up between Mercedes and Ferrari. But we knew this would happen at this point of the season where we expected Mercedes to understand the W10 properly and bring parts to open the gap to Ferrari.
Bottas' pace would suggest that Mercedes is not sandbagging. I think what we saw at Silverstone was all Hamilton at his best. The pitting saga was confusing and looked and sounded very suspect. I think Mercedes were trying to manufacture an interesting finale to the race by bringing Hamilton closer to Bottas to give Bottas a chance to fight Hamilton for the win. Hamilton was not having it, plain and simple. They are back to their old games , Mercedes.
I honestly think you guys are getting too bored and chasing ghosts.
It made sense for Merc to have Hamilton pit 7-8 laps before the end of the race because no one knew how the hard tyres would last, and Silverstone is notable for tyre degradation with all its very high-speed corners. At that time of the race, Lewis had a gap to Bottas large enough to make a pitstop and still come out in front, so it was a sensible thing to do. He refused to, so they pitted Bottas first.
Keep in mind that before the race, Bottas didn't think a one-stop was possible, and apparently neither did McLaren either, as they wrecked Norris' race by failing to pit him under the SC as they didn't think that their cars could get to the checkered flag with one single stop. Hindsight is 20/20, but the teams didn't really know how well the hard tyres would last until the race was over.
Thought the commentators were talking about concerns of the tires "falling off a cliff" I personally thought the desire for the final pit by Lewis was simply the pursuit of the fast lap. The gap was there, but IMO still not worth the risk for a single point. Even if the tires did go off suddenly, it's not like they were going to lose 4-5 seconds a lap.
Hindsight is easy for us. The people making the calls had no idea that Lewis could pull off a fastest lap on those old tires when they made the call.
And Bagwan, though I can't say I agree that it's all sandbagging for the show, I do agree that most drivers are probably faster than the hand they show. But in my view, it's the tire choices that are limiting them more. With fuel stops out of the picture now, as well as tires that don't last, the multi stop races are almost gone. I think a lot of time they are running to the pace that the tires and strategy allow. It's a shame we don't have more durable tires, as I think the cars would set faster laps on a regular basis if the days of tire wars were still around.
Quite true. The tyre war between Bridgestone and Michelin really fired up some lap times. The Pirelli tyres are not good enough l think. And l find it crazy that they have to choose tyre allocations for a track, many months before the race. I find that quite pointless and only convenient for Pirelli. As you observed, the only limiting factors for the cars going faster at the moment, are the Pirelli tyres. Most teams such as Haas are unable to realize their true pace with these tyres.