Duth GP '22 Merc startegy

[geoff]

Great strategy for a change. Until suddenly it returned to the more
common inept calls, or lack of by the team.

geoff

[Matt Larkin]

Which part was inept? They abandoned a 2-3 finish, definitely, but
tried for a 1-2 or 1-3. I can't really fault them for that.

You could argue that they didn't give Ham priority and force Rus to
act as a wingman, but that's never really been the team's approach
and whilst there is no title on the line I'd be even more behind a strategy
of "let them race".

Hamilton could have made Russell's call if he'd wanted to settle for
2nd place.

[Mark]

Matt Larkin <matthew...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Monday, 5 September 2022 at 01:33:13 UTC+1, geoff wrote:
>> Great strategy for a change. Until suddenly it returned to the more
>> common inept calls, or lack of by the team.
>

> Which part was inept? They abandoned a 2-3 finish, definitely, but
> tried for a 1-2 or 1-3. I can't really fault them for that.
>
> You could argue that they didn't give Ham priority and force Rus to
> act as a wingman, but that's never really been the team's approach
> and whilst there is no title on the line I'd be even more behind a strategy
> of "let them race".
>
> Hamilton could have made Russell's call if he'd wanted to settle for
> 2nd place.

It's a bit of a difficult call, which is why (really) the team needs to
make it (or at least help make it) as they don't have the driving to
worry about.

The inept bit was to split the strategy. If both stayed out, there was a
chance (as you say) of getting a win...but I seriously doubt it could
have been 1-2. The best I expected was 1-3, and even that would have
required some heroic defending from Russell. If they wanted to change
tyres, they had to change both and that needed a call; both on fresh
rubber had a (small) chance of taking Verstappen on (or shortly after)
the restart.

Hamilton on cold, worn, medium tyres was always going to get mugged by
Verstappen on warm, fresh, soft tyres...and there was no way he was
going to get it back...which proved to be the case.

1-3 (43 points) or (more likely) 2-3 (33 points) is clearly better than
2-4 (30 points). It is a team sport and they need to be proposing the
right strategy even if (as happens) drivers overrule the pit wall. In
this case, they left *both* drivers hanging and Russell took the right
(for him) call while Hamilton (under much more pressure being at the
front) held position in the absence of other advice. Easy to say he was
wrong (or bottled it), but I didn't hear him get the kind of input I'd
expect. That *could* be just that it wasn't passed on via the feed I
had.

[Bigbird]

Two points for consideration.

1. We don't know what had been discussed with Lewis prior to George
stopping. If he was given the impression they would both stay out he
was duped.
2. Would Lewis have done the same as George in his place? Damn right he
would.

[Bigbird]

geoff wrote:

> Great strategy for a change.

Demonstrated a little self-belief at least.

> Until suddenly it returned to the more
> common inept calls, or lack of by the team.
>

Meh! I'm not sure what else they could have really done. My only
question is what were the discussions with the drivers when the SC came
out. Was Lewis hung out to dry given misleading information or did he
just not make the right call and George did (I haven't seen much post
race).

All in all it was a really good race that demonstrated a lot of what is
going right with F1. The SC's were unfortunate from some perspectives
but both seemed to be the right call. A case of "that's the way the
cookie crumbles".

[Alan]

Before every gets too up in a dither, the word appears to be that
Hamilton himself botched the restart by using the wrong engine mode:

<https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a41082330/hamilton-was-in-the-wrong-engine-mode-when-verstappen-passed/>

As they say:

'In the end, this likely changed little. The faster car with the fresher
tires and a similarly great driver was always going to win out in the end.'

...but it does show that there was enough blame to spread around.

[geoff]

On 6/09/2022 3:20 pm, Alan wrote:
> On 2022-09-04 17:33, geoff wrote:
>> Great strategy for a change. Until suddenly it returned to the more
>> common inept calls, or lack of by the team.
>>
>> geoff
>>
>
> Before every gets too up in a dither, the word appears to be that
> Hamilton himself botched the restart by using the wrong engine mode:
>
> <https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a41082330/hamilton-was-in-the-wrong-engine-mode-when-verstappen-passed/>

Yes, but by then the damage was already done for HAM personally, and
for Merc.

>
> As they say:
>
> 'In the end, this likely changed little. The faster car with the fresher
> tires and a similarly great driver was always going to win out in the end.'
>
> ...but it does show that there was enough blame to spread around.

Well no, it would likely have been closer in many aspects.

geoff