[Team] Mercedes: Will they ever dominate again?

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by Greem

Exclusion for Russell. Schoolboy error by the team.

The error was switching to the one-stop, not under-fuelling the car. More wear was the difference.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by peebee2

The error was switching to the one-stop, not under-fuelling the car. More wear was the difference.

As in the additional tire wear lead to too much weight loss?

That’s interesting. Did he just not pick up enough marbles on his cool down or would this mean that 1 stop strategies are kinda unviable/unviable as a mid race strategy change?

Disappointing if it’s the latter.

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

As in the additional tire wear lead to too much weight loss?

That’s interesting. Did he just not pick up enough marbles on his cool down or would this mean that 1 stop strategies are kinda unviable/unviable as a mid race strategy change?

Disappointing if it’s the latter.

Not picking up enough marbles was mentioned, but Horner had an immediate comment that he would easily lose over a kg in tyre weight by doing a long stint one stop race.

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

As in the additional tire wear lead to too much weight loss?

That’s interesting. Did he just not pick up enough marbles on his cool down or would this mean that 1 stop strategies are kinda unviable/unviable as a mid race strategy change?

Disappointing if it’s the latter.

Heavily worn tyres are clearly going to weigh less then tyres that have done half the number of laps, that's for sure and also (logically) whey he ended up underweight.

There is no chance to pick up marbles, gravel etc. at Spa because there is no cool down lap - they cross the line, got around La Source and come up pit lane in reverse direction. The pickup can be worth a couple of kg so at any other circuit, he would have won, picked up marbles and been over the minimum weight.

So one stop strategies may work at some other circuits - the weight issue is specific to Spa.

[E.B]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

As in the additional tire wear lead to too much weight loss?

That’s interesting. Did he just not pick up enough marbles on his cool down or would this mean that 1 stop strategies are kinda unviable/unviable as a mid race strategy change?

Disappointing if it’s the latter.

Dont forget at Spa, due to the length of the lap and the need for the broadcasters to get the podium celebrations happening without a long delay, there is no normal full 'lap of honour' /cool down lap. They come round La Source and back into (I think it is the Endurance) pitlane rather than do the full lap. Other than a few pieces of gravel none of the tyres had any pick up of note on them because they had been through no marbled areas.


Edit: I found a photo of GR in the post race podium getters area to illustrate the point.... no pick up on the tyres.




The more usual post race look...

[PanozDP01]

Originally Posted by peebee2

The error was switching to the one-stop, not under-fuelling the car. More wear was the difference.

Nonsense. This is just salt. Teams plan for 2 or 3 stops and opt for one all the time. And never get disqualified for being underweight. Hamilton himself was literally requesting a 1 stop on his radio in the race

[PanozDP01]

Originally Posted by E.B

Dont forget at Spa, due to the length of the lap and the need for the broadcasters to get the podium celebrations happening without a long delay, there is no normal full 'lap of honour' /cool down lap. They come round La Source and back into (I think it is the Endurance) pitlane rather than do the full lap. Other than a few pieces of gravel none of the tyres had any pick up of note on them because they had been through no marbled areas.


Edit: I found a photo of GR in the post race podium getters area to illustrate the point.... no pick up on the tyres.




The more usual post race look...

But this is normal at Spa and has been that way for a long time and it is built into everyones models

[PanozDP01]

Originally Posted by peebee2

Who’s beating Hamilton? He’s top Merc this season.

Funny how hamilton and his fans were crying sabotage a month ago. "im never going to out qualify George because he's favored now wahh wah" He was also whining after todays race about how he wanted to take a one stop and then George did.

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/29252...rand-prix.html

Lewis Hamilton is irritated with his Mercedes team after the Belgian Grand Prix. He finished second behind his teammate George Russell, who was placed on a one-stop. Hamilton claims he suggested similar on the radio but pitted when he didn't want to.

Russell beat Hamilton on the track today. And he's still ahead in race and qualifying head to heads.

[S griffin]

Hamilton is not helping himself at times. He just has to accept George has the upper hand overall. He was just not as quick as George today. He got that win by default. The strategy worked to give them that 1-2. He should have driven faster

Hamilton will still have his days and it should be a fascinating battle from now on. I expect George to still be on top

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by PanozDP01

Nonsense. This is just salt. Teams plan for 2 or 3 stops and opt for one all the time. And never get disqualified for being underweight. Hamilton himself was literally requesting a 1 stop on his radio in the race

Lol. Of course it’s true. It’s a team error as they should have ballasted for either option, but the engineer wanted to maximise the initially chosen two/three stop strategy, as he thought the one-stop impossible.

Interestingly, the car was within weight overall as it had fuel left due to the less aggressive driving from Russell to save tyre life. If that was a deliberate calculation then somebody is in deep doodoo for their job as using fuel as ballast is strictly verboten.

Merc clearly knew of the problem before the FIA as it was presented with fuel still in it after the fuel sample had been taken.

I suspect somebody would have been secretly hoping HAM passed RUS as being DSQ from P2 would have been much less embarrassing than from P1.

[BTCC frog]

Originally Posted by peebee2

The error was switching to the one-stop, not under-fuelling the car. More wear was the difference.

If this is true then it makes Russell’s drive even more remarkable and should be grounds for a rule change regarding the minimum weight, because it robs the sport of historic tyre management victories like this one where the tyres are worn down to the canvas. It would have been a shame if Stirling Moss’ famous win in the 1958 Argentine Grand Prix had been followed by instant disqualification and then been discredited and forgotten about.

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by BTCC frog

If this is true then it makes Russell’s drive even more remarkable and should be grounds for a rule change regarding the minimum weight…..

What, why??????

Everyone in F1 knows the rules. Somebody here tried to be a smartarse and got caught out. If the car had been ballasted properly, the likelihood is he wouldn’t have won.

[Greem]

Originally Posted by peebee2

The error was switching to the one-stop, not under-fuelling the car. More wear was the difference.

I'm really struggling to see how you took "schoolboy error" as me suggesting that they'd under-fuelled the car, but hey ho.

It doesn't matter what the cause was - they cocked up, plain & simple. That's not a very common characteristic of Mercedes, which is presumably why Toto was quite open about it being their own error.

[E.B]

Originally Posted by peebee2

Merc clearly knew of the problem before the FIA as it was presented with fuel still in it after the fuel sample had been taken.

Yes I noticed that.... certainly seems to me that was a last ditch disguise the fact option.
Also the Toto statements "We must take it on the chin..... we made a basic error and must learn from it to ensure its never again...." type of words being said as soon as the issue was highlighted. Shock did not seem to be involved.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by BTCC frog

If this is true then it makes Russell’s drive even more remarkable and should be grounds for a rule change regarding the minimum weight, because it robs the sport of historic tyre management victories like this one where the tyres are worn down to the canvas. It would have been a shame if Stirling Moss’ famous win in the 1958 Argentine Grand Prix had been followed by instant disqualification and then been discredited and forgotten about.

Sorry, that makes no sense. Because if your strategy is to run the tire down to bare minimum, then ballast the car appropriately in advance. This past weekend was a miscalculation by the team. Either they didn't factor in tire wear for a one stop, didn't factor in the inability to gather marbles or something along those lines.

An interesting side note regarding tire weight and running tires down to bare cords. Let say the race played out differently and the last stint was on intermediate tires and those were worn way down, they would not have weighed the car using those wet tires! Because the minimum weight is based upon a dry tire. They would have put on new dry tires and then weighed the car. However for this past weekend, the tires were dry compound so they were weighed (as part of the car) "as is" without any marbles and apparently with enough wear to drop the car under weight.

Richard

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Tourer

There is no chance to pick up marbles, gravel etc. at Spa because there is no cool down lap - they cross the line, got around La Source and come up pit lane in reverse direction. The pickup can be worth a couple of kg so at any other circuit, he would have won, picked up marbles and been over the minimum weight.

So one stop strategies may work at some other circuits - the weight issue is specific to Spa.

Originally Posted by E.B

Dont forget at Spa, due to the length of the lap and the need for the broadcasters to get the podium celebrations happening without a long delay, there is no normal full 'lap of honour' /cool down lap. They come round La Source and back into (I think it is the Endurance) pitlane rather than do the full lap. Other than a few pieces of gravel none of the tyres had any pick up of note on them because they had been through no marbled areas.

Thank you guys for this info…after all these years of watching I had never noticed or realized that before!

Learn something new everyday!

[E.B]

Originally Posted by Richard C

An interesting side note regarding tire weight and running tires down to bare cords. Let say the race played out differently and the last stint was on intermediate tires and those were worn way down, they would not have weighed the car using those wet tires! Because the minimum weight is based upon a dry tire. They would have put on new dry tires and then weighed the car. However for this past weekend, the tires were dry compound so they were weighed (as part of the car) "as is" without any marbles and apparently with enough wear to drop the car under weight.

Richard

Interesting indeed and certainly something I was not aware of. Thanks for the info.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by BTCC frog

should be grounds for a rule change regarding the minimum weight

So I am going to give an alternate opinion on this. I initially said "no" and still feel that is probably correct position for simplicity perspective. But given my example of the weirdness of how "minimum weight" is defined by using a specific given weight for a dry tire and how that works if the cars finish on wet tires, I can imagine "IF" a rule change was to take place, that they can set a minimum weight for the car, but when weighed at end of race they would weigh the cars minus tires. So tire wear would not be a factor in being underweight or not.

It would be a logistics nightmare however as right now you can roll cars on and off a weighbridge and doing it minus tires would require removal and refitment of tires at some type of special weighbridge. So given the logistical changes likely being impractical, they probably should continue as they do today as it covers most all situations and doesn't try to optimize for edge case scenarios.

Richard

[chillibowl]

But then the teams lose a trick to pick up weight/marbles during the cool down lap…which of course, I now know, couldn’t happen here.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by E.B

Interesting indeed and certainly something I was not aware of. Thanks for the info.

Another interesting situation... What if a car has damage and is missing parts at the end of the race? If a team is running right at the edge of minimum weight, might the car not be underweight during the race and measure underweight at the end? Look at the bold part of Article 35.3 of the sporting regulations...

The relevant car may be disqualified should its weight be less than that specified in Article 4.1 of the Technical Regulations when weighed in accordance with Articles 35.1 or 35.2, save where the deficiency in weight results from the accidental loss of a component of the car.

So YES! A car can race and finish underweight! It seems the car can be underweight if parts come off accidently and this reduces the measured mass. I assume there is some level of judgement that is made in those scenarios to ensure the mass of what fell off is inline with what is showing when being weighed post race. Plus any other rule games that might be going one such as...

If a team wanted to play games, they just need to make heavy, but unnecessary aero bits that fall off early in the race. Or run a bit underweight and again make sure parts fall off. Of course if this is a regular occurrence it would be easily exposed and would no longer be deemed "accidental loss".

Richard

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

But then the teams lose a trick to pick up weight/marbles during the cool down lap…which of course, I now know, couldn’t happen here.

Right!

I haven't listed to much post race radio traffic recently, but it seemed that race engineers would frequently remind drivers to pick up marbles so you know they are working to ensure the car don't come up underweight.

Richard

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by E.B

Dont forget at Spa, due to the length of the lap and the need for the broadcasters to get the podium celebrations happening without a long delay, there is no normal full 'lap of honour' /cool down lap. They come round La Source and back into (I think it is the Endurance) pitlane rather than do the full lap. Other than a few pieces of gravel none of the tyres had any pick up of note on them because they had been through no marbled areas.

So... assuming Mercedes was aware before race end that they had not factored in the inability to pick up marbles. Could George have "accidently" missed the immediate return to pitlane, drove partially around the circuit picking up some marbles before parking his car "once he realized his mistake". The car would then be returned to pit and measured. Potentially having picked up enough marbles to not be underweight?

The rules allow for cars to be stopped on circuit and be classified. This allows for a car to have a mechanical issue during cool down lap. But teams used to use this as an opportunity to not burn fuel on cars that were dangerously low. Because they need to be able to provide a post race fuel sample. So the regulation changed to stop this. This was done by removing not just enough for a sample, but also however much was calculated would have been required to complete the cool down lap. If they couldn't pull that total amount then they ran into issues. But George was having not a fuel issue, but tire wear issue.

I think (A) Mercedes either didn't know they might be underweight at the end or (B) even if they had thought of my idea above, they would have had to communicate this to George over open radio and it would have exposed the ruse. But it's an interesting thought experiment. That if it had happened, would they have gotten away with not loosing the 1-2 win?

Richard

[BTCC frog]

Originally Posted by peebee2

What, why??????

Everyone in F1 knows the rules. Somebody here tried to be a smartarse and got caught out. If the car had been ballasted properly, the likelihood is he wouldn’t have won.

I know this, I am not arguing against the disqualification. Just saying it would be nice if, in future, if someone changed their strategy mid-race and drove the tyres down to the canvas, they would be able to win. But maybe that would just require the extra lap to the pits like at other tracks.

Personally, I think Russell would have won anyway with the extra ballast as it would only be a few seconds slower and Hamilton didn’t look like he was going to get him with two or three more laps to have a go, but we will never know.

[Skam85]

Alonso did a one-stop race and was at the correct weight.

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Skam85

Alonso did a one-stop race and was at the correct weight.

Was he though? Are you sure that Alonso's car was weighed? Many of the technical checks are done on a spot checking, randomised method (as we saw in Austin last year with random plank thickness checks). Would need to see the technical delegate's report to be sure that Alonso's car was actually weighed.