2019 British GP - Silverstone

[Nitrodaze]

May have. Kimi may have won the race.


Where did Lewis manage his tires better? He managed to stay behind Bottas until the pit stop, and the undercut was working. Bottas had already made up time to stay ahead before the safety car. The hards were working well for pretty much everyone after the stop, so all they could do was leave Bottas on track and hope for another safety car, since he was already on a second set of the mediums. The safety car gave the strategy advantage and the lead to Hamilton.

Not to take anything away from Lewis, as he drove a great race as well. But until the 3rd stop by Bottas, the gap was 3 seconds or so. Bottas had 2+ seconds over Hamilton on the short first stint at times, so it's not as if the two Mercs weren't fairly close to each other. Bottas would have had to pass Lewis and put the 18+ seconds on him to buy that 3rd pit stop, and the dicing early in the race pretty much showed that the cars were too close together in pace to even think that might happen.

I think Bottas had to stop for tyres when he did because he had chewed up his tyres, unfortunately, he had to do so before the safety car was sent out. Hamilton was able to run a longer first stint because he managed his tyres better. In the first stint, Hamilton was all over Bottas but occasionally had to pull back to cool the car down and was able to catch up to Bottas soon after cooling, quite easily.

Without the safety car, chances are that Hamilton may have pitted and come out behind Bottas. But with three or four laps fresher tyres. I think Bottas would have been vulnerable towards the end of the second stint because he is harder on his tyres, hence he wears them down faster than Hamilton, who would be on four laps fresher tyres when Bottas begins to struggle with tyre wear. Judging by how determined Hamilton was for the win, l struggle to see how Bottas would have kept Hamilton behind when he started to suffer from tyre wear at the closing stages of the race.

Bottas' weak point this season is his poor tyre management. That said, he drove a very respectable race today but l could not see him winning this one.