13 replies to this topic

[chrcol]

exception of vettel as he had pace to pull away, what were the 2 mercs and webber thinking? they said no a to a free pit stop.  I worked this out as soon as I seen it why cant these huge teams work it out?

[Diablobb81]

What i don't understand is why wasn't Merc pushing after the SC.

[MortenF1]

We were discussing it during the race yes, but I wasn't more concrete than "can that really be the right decision?"

Perhaps it would've taken more pacing from Mercedes, but Alonso showed that pitting during was the right thing to do.

[Mackey]

What i don't understand is why wasn't Merc pushing after the SC.

They were pushing, it´s just they don´t have 2 seconds a lap to spare like the RB

[sopa]

It depends on tyre wear rates. Look at McLaren, they dropped off terribly. Perhaps Mercedes would have needed to pit anyway and couldn't have a 30-lap stint, so they thought they'd better keep track position

[nookie]

it is obvious that the top 4 guys had already passed the pit entry and could not pit. this is the reason they told vettel to pull away but rosberg could not match the pace and everyone behind suffered because of it.

[SpaMaster]

Did not think muppets, but I thought what they were doing was a bit unusual even before P10 car pulled in. Vettel is one thing, he could come out of any situation. But in hindsight, Mercedes had no chance against Alonso and Raikkonen. Their tyres simply would not have lasted.  Alonso and Raikkonen had the capability to go non-stop from there. So, if you look at it, all the top 4 would have cleared other drivers. So more than getting the strategy wrong, I think it played to the respective strengths and weakness of the cars/drivers in terms of tyre preservation. Once SC happened, this result was inevitable.

[chrcol]

I am not saying they should have tried to 2 stop, I am saying they should have took the free pit stop.  They would have been able to push more after with less laps to do on newer tires.

 

Also in recent races their deg has been fine, where has this information been sourced from that merc were incapable of 2 stopping?

[SpaMaster]

Hamilton was complaining about tyres 7 laps before his intended stopping lap. Button could not manage it. He slid back in the end. Same with Perez. Massa who pitted ended up ahead of Button. So all indications are tyres not-lasting would have been the norm. Only Lotus and Alonso could make it work. May be they could have got Raikkonen, but Raikkonen had lot of pace and they really had to hope there was a slow car like Button that held him up.  Under normal circumstances, I don't think those other than Vettel would have been able to build 20s gap over others.

[Oho]

it is obvious that the top 4 guys had already passed the pit entry and could not pit.

 

Well I rather think not, given that Alonso (was he in top four, I think so) and Grosjean who was not far did pit without loosing track positions. It was more about expectation of not having tires to last the distance.

[Gorma]

It is obvious that Mercs and Red Bulls should have pitted. They could have gone for hards and taken super softs for the last stint.

[V3TT3L]

Nico had a radio talk with the pits broadcasted before the SC in lap.

There was a misunderstanding whether to pit in or not under SC.

So Mercedes goofed.

 

Vettel was the last to stop after the first stint, so he had plenty of rubber to burn and clean air to race.

For RB it was the best call. Grand Chelem.

Edited by V3TT3L, 24 September 2013 - 05:33.

[apoka]

I think for Vettel it somehow made sense. His rubber was still fresh (6 or 7 laps on mediums), so the timing of the SC not that fortunate and for him it wasn't really a free stop - he would have to pit once more anyway. With the shiny fresh soft he saved in qualy, I think he could have recovered from almost any situation.

 

For Merc I was surprised as they were on 2 laps older rubber compared to Vettel and they really could have split strategies. That's what you usually do when you have two drivers in the mix.

 

Webber could have pitted as well. He was one of the first to do his first pit stop.

[baddog]

Merc will always do the wrong thing. Well not always,  maybe 85% of the time. other teams just have to watch merc to see what not to do.