Quote Originally Posted by Nitrodaze View Post
We agree on one thing: Both Ferraris were faster than Antonelli at some point after the VSC. But you seem to read the speed plot differently than professional drivers who have looked at this plot and are saying something quite different to you. Of course, we would never know how it would have turned out if they had reacted quicker. There is no doubt that LeClerc is quicker of the two on the same tire compound at the moment. But with the setup of the new medium to a few laps old hards, on evidence, Hamilton was quicker in that stint of the race and may have used those fresh tires to pull in Antonelli. But then again, you are very unlikely to see that. You did not factor in that both Ferrari drivers had to overtake Sainz and the effect of that on how that is represented on the plot. Or that, though Hamilton lost ground during that overtake, he quickly was on to LeClerc soon after due to the faster tires.

I expected LeClerc to be with Hamilton throughout after the swap for two reasons; Firstly, he would benefit from being towed along. Secondly, he is more efficient through the corners than Hamilton at the moment. The corners are where Hamilton loses all his lap times.Hence, LeClerc would always appeared to be faster of the pair through the corners. Even so, patience and cooperation to try out an alternate strategy were the smarter thing to do. Though LeClerc appeared faster after they swapped them back, he was not fast enough to catch Antonelli. The end of the race bears out that fact, even if we factor in time lost in the swap

Whichever way you look at it, the driver pairing did not work together cooperatively to experiment to see if an alternative approach may yield a different result. If the Ferrari pitwall thought Hamilton was too slow for the experiment of swapping them to work, they would have said so and most likely refused to swap them. On evidence, they took too long to work out the potential of the scenario.
If "professional drivers" don't understand clear data then that's on them. Numbers are absolute, and as I said in the previous post people can come up with whatever alternate reality they want. At best it results in what you stated here..... we will never know. As for the overtake on Sainz, the numbers shown are after the pass. Lewis did not lose ground at all, he made up ground on the VSC, as well as during the overtake on Sainz. Less than 1/4 second between Lewis and Charles became almost a full second though the lap. The only time Hamilton was consistently quicker during the "stint" was the brief period when he had his new mediums on a lap before Charles took the hards, prior to the second VSC.



Quote Originally Posted by Bagwan View Post
Ferrari needs to act quickly , to stop drivers second guessing instructions and denigrating the team in public .
100% agreed. Though the car is not in a good place, with communications as poor as they are they will never perform under any real pressure. They were fighting for 7th and 8th places, and the only thing that got them there was some fortune of the VSCs and who had already pitted.

Right now Ferrari are a hot mess. They have two great drivers and little else. And if they don't reel in the drivers, it will be those drivers sucking motivation out of the team.