2017 Gran Premio de España Thread

[watka]

I really enjoyed this race. For a long time it wasn't obvious who would come out on top and it was good to see an overtake for the win rather than a "pass in the pit lane" to decide it. Also enjoyed Mercedes tactics of using Bottas as the "rear-gunner" - I was reminiscing of the days of Schumacher and Irvine at Ferrari watching that.

It would have been interesting to see if Vettel could have done anything about Hamilton in the last few laps if he hadn't got tangled up with Massa - I would suspect not as I don't think the mediums had that much advantage over Hamilton's softs given the low fuel loads towards end of the race. Actually, makes me wonder actually why the default strategy for any team wouldn't be to run the harder tyre in the middle stint of a 2-stop strategy, as softs will wear less in the final stint and are advantageous in the first stint to get off the line at the start and make overtakes in the early laps.

[Londoner]

Not content with almost ruining Wehrlein's race, the stewards have just handed Force India a suspended fine for not having big enough CAR NUMBERS. Utterly bizarre and quite frankly more than a little bit petty.

[tommykl]

Not content with almost ruining Wehrlein's race, the stewards have just handed Force India a suspended fine for not having big enough CAR NUMBERS. Utterly bizarre and quite frankly more than a little bit petty.

The rules may be a tad stupid, but them's the rules.

If anything, it's more bizarre that Force India failed at correctly adding a few stickers. An actual penalty would have been ridiculous considering the offense, but a suspended fine is about as light as it can get. Just enough to serve as a reminder that it's not just a suggestion.

[Peteroli34]

While the Force India numbers are not that clear. Red numbers on a pink car. What i don't get is that Force India were only reported to the stewards for this after the race. Had nobody looked at a Force India all weekend or something.

[DemocalypseNow]

Not content with almost ruining Wehrlein's race, the stewards have just handed Force India a suspended fine for not having big enough CAR NUMBERS. Utterly bizarre and quite frankly more than a little bit petty.

The rules may be a tad stupid, but them's the rules.

If anything, it's more bizarre that Force India failed at correctly adding a few stickers. An actual penalty would have been ridiculous considering the offense, but a suspended fine is about as light as it can get. Just enough to serve as a reminder that it's not just a suggestion.

I have to agree with this. Suspended fines are almost symbolic in nature, it is a sign of good will that teams will be given time and co-operation to get the implementation of the rules right, but at the same time making clear to teams that a blatant disregard for the rules won't be tolerated. If an individual were to find even this action an overreach, one would be forced to assume they are against the concept of rules entirely, and leaning towards the ethos of anarchy.

[mario]

I really enjoyed this race. For a long time it wasn't obvious who would come out on top and it was good to see an overtake for the win rather than a "pass in the pit lane" to decide it. Also enjoyed Mercedes tactics of using Bottas as the "rear-gunner" - I was reminiscing of the days of Schumacher and Irvine at Ferrari watching that.

It would have been interesting to see if Vettel could have done anything about Hamilton in the last few laps if he hadn't got tangled up with Massa - I would suspect not as I don't think the mediums had that much advantage over Hamilton's softs given the low fuel loads towards end of the race. Actually, makes me wonder actually why the default strategy for any team wouldn't be to run the harder tyre in the middle stint of a 2-stop strategy, as softs will wear less in the final stint and are advantageous in the first stint to get off the line at the start and make overtakes in the early laps.

Given that Hamilton set the best lap of the race only two laps from the end, I doubt that it made any real difference - if anything, Vettel had been dropping back slightly over the final stint and only gained a little bit when Hamilton started encountering traffic, which then evened out as Vettel then had to deal with it himself (although it was easier for him to pass Massa, Hamilton had previously lost out when he lapped Massa).

With regards to why most teams didn't run the mediums in the middle stint, I think that in this race most teams didn't want to run that strategy because there was a very large performance offset between the two tyres.

Pirelli expected that most teams wanted to only run the mediums for between six to fifteen laps in total (corresponding to three stop and two stop races respectively), and the pre-race modelling runs indicated it was faster overall to stretch out the middle stints on the softer tyres rather than running a longish stint on the mediums.

I think that a lot of teams were caught on the hop by the mid race virtual safety car, which pushed them into having to make an earlier than planned stop to fit the medium tyres. Added to that, I think that perhaps there was an element of a lot of teams, having gained track position through that period, then wanting to hold onto that rather than putting on new tyres - perhaps because, as has traditionally been the case in Barcelona and at other circuits in the past, that track position was more important (though, ironically, this race seemed to show that overtaking was in fact much easier than has been the case in the past around here).

If you look at it, effectively there were only three drivers who ended up running a strategy that was close to the two stop race Pirelli thought would be best, which was Hamilton, Bottas (though it came to naught when he retired) and Ricciardo - interestingly, Red Bull were the only other team to run the mediums in the middle stint, and that is a strategy that they have done in the past as well.

Speaking of Red Bull, despite the fact that he did end up on the podium at the end, Ricciardo's performance in the race was a bit disappointing - even though he ran a strategy that should have been the fastest one available, he was not even remotely capable of matching Ferrari or Mercedes this weekend.

Given that Red Bull had talked up how big and important their upgrade package would be before this race - though it has to be said that both Ferrari and Mercedes, having both been very quiet beforehand, promptly blew Red Bull out the water with far more significant upgrades - they were even further behind today (over 70 seconds behind Hamilton and Vettel) than in Russia, despite their claims that Russia would be a weak track for them and they'd be much stronger here.

I do suspect that, if Verstappen had been in the race, he might have finished closer to them - Ricciardo did seem unusually off the pace this weekend in relation to him - but at the moment they seem to be making no headway against those two teams in terms of development.

It's nice to have a year where the two leading championship contenders are from different teams, and seem to be fairly well-matched, regularly fighting each other at the front for race victories. It promises to be an exciting title battle!

And I know it was a blatant and slightly cynical PR move in some respects, but it was nice that that little Raikkonen fan got to meet him.

I agree that it is a good championship battle at the moment as Vettel and Hamilton are very evenly matched, perhaps because they are both driving cars which are closely matched over a lap whilst having quite different handling characteristics that compliment their drivers.

Vettel seems to enjoy the stability under braking and high speed cornering balance of the Ferrari, whilst we saw in the final sector that Hamilton was able to exploit the better low speed traction of his car to gain time there and, ultimately, help him get past Vettel after being able to close up enough to Vettel in that sector.

That said, there have been a few issues this season that might help to tip things in Hamilton's favour over the longer run. We saw in Barcelona that Vettel had to make an unscheduled engine and MGU-H change after hitting problems in FP3 due to a water leak - although it was just a precaution and Ferrari can reuse the engine later in the season, it means they had to us a third engine for qualifying and the race. It now gives them just one chance to introduce engine updates without penalty, which does tie their hands a bit in a longer term development race against Mercedes.

What might be more of a worry for the team is that Vettel is already onto his fourth turbocharger, as they also had to change that component before the race. Again, whilst they can cycle the previous units around to manage wear, I would not be surprised if Vettel has to take a penalty later in the year - and, with the FIA making it impossible for teams to stockpile components, component penalties will have a more significant impact this season.

[dinizintheoven]

While the Force India numbers are not that clear. Red numbers on a pink car. What i don't get is that Force India were only reported to the stewards for this after the race. Had nobody looked at a Force India all weekend or something.

They're not that clear because they've chosen to slap them on an upwards-facing surface on the nose and the sidepods - I just managed to spot one, once, during qualifying. The size isn't a problem, seeing as Esteban Ocon's 31 is so unnecessarily huge that the 1 is spilling off the side of the car, even if the choice of colour is far from ideal.

I wonder why they haven't chosen to do what Ferrari and Sauber did in 2012 and slap the numbers right where the ugly step is in the nose - it's not as if painting the car pink has disguised it...

[Wallio]

They won't have to worry about fines once Bernie buys the team, if the rumors going around are true.

[Enforcer]

They won't have to worry about fines once Bernie buys the team, if the rumors going around are true.

I really hope they're not.

As much as I'd like to see the Force propelled up the grid by his vast wealth, he'd probably only buy them to try and get his finger back in the pie by reforming FOCA or FOTA.

One would hope he's realised he's too old for that sort of carry on now and this is just baseless speculation.

[CoopsII]

They won't have to worry about fines once Bernie buys the team, if the rumors going around are true.

Why dafuq would Bernie buy Sauber? Guilt? Running out of ways of spunking his money away so his daughters don't inherit it?

[Wallio]

They won't have to worry about fines once Bernie buys the team, if the rumors going around are true.

Why dafuq would Bernie buy Sauber? Guilt? Running out of ways of spunking his money away so his daughters don't inherit it?

No idea, but I've seen more than a few stories about it. Big E allegedly even met with the team behind closed doors. Of course when asked he only said "Maybe" or some coy answer. I think Explorer maybe right and he might want to replay the 1980s again.

[dr-baker]

They won't have to worry about fines once Bernie buys the team, if the rumors going around are true.

Why dafuq would Bernie buy Sauber? Guilt? Running out of ways of spunking his money away so his daughters don't inherit it?

No idea, but I've seen more than a few stories about it. Big E allegedly even met with the team behind closed doors. Of course when asked he only said "Maybe" or some coy answer. I think Explorer maybe right and he might want to replay the 1980s again.

It was very recently (in the past few weeks) that David Brabham was being asked on Twitter if Brabham was returning to F1 (presumably based on some rumour or other). But I suppose that it may be possible that Bernie was trying to bring Brabham back rather than Brabham himself? (I personally would like to see Brabham bring back Simtek myself...)