CoopsII wrote:AustralianStig wrote:So it's looking like we might be keeping the elimination quali format for Q1 and Q2 then reverting to last year's system for Q3.
Can I be the first to admit I no longer know what the fudge is going on?
Basically, Williams and Force India both tried to veto the decision to revert back to the old qualifying format from last year - Force India in particular were especially vocal, because it seems they think they can gain more of an advantage from this system than they could under the old qualifying format.
What then happened is that both of those teams then put forward this proposal for a hybrid format, where they keep the elimination format for the first two parts of qualifying and then revert to a shootout format for the top 8 (i.e. both teams are still trying to keep the free tyre choice advantage they think they can get from keeping the elimination format going).
Now, initially it seems that Todt was not keen on that idea and sided with the teams that wanted to revert back to the old format - however, peculiarly, just as Force India and Williams were persuaded to drop their suggestion and to revert back to the original qualifying format, Todt seems to have changed his mind and swung his support behind the proposal they've just ditched.
Miguel98 wrote:Wehrlein pitted quite early, and it was reported his SS tyres weared out fairly quickly. Bear in mind, that after the red flag period, he still ran a lot of time ahead of Nasr, and had to pit again for softs.
I don't think the Manor has good tyre wear, which leaves me worried.
It looks like perhaps Manor's car can bring its tyres into the temperature window quickly, hence why Wehrlein could go on the attack in the opening laps and gain a lot of places, but pays for that with high wear and very poor lap times in the latter stages of a stint.
If you compare Wehrlein's times with those of Nasr, whilst Nasr's times progressively improved over his final stint (going from mid 1m35's to mid 1m32's), Wehrlein's times were the exact opposite - he went from a 1m32.67s (which was actually the 12th best time in the race) to 1m37's by the end of his stint, making him slower in the final 10 laps of the race than he had been in the opening 10 laps on full fuel.
It perhaps suggests that, given Bahrain is known to be quite hard on rear tyre wear, either they will have to run a two stop race on the medium tyre and hope that it is as competitive as it was last year or, if they want to use the softer tyres, they'll have to go for a three stop race. Either way, it looks like tyre management could be their weak spot - especially given that Melbourne is not the hardest track for tyre wear either...
AxelP800 wrote:Check out @TimCoronel's Tweet:
https://twitter.com/TimCoronel/status/7 ... 41121?s=09Hmm I think Verstappen could avoided Grosjean despite he would end up in St. Devote exit barrier while Alonso's move came in sync with Guti, rendering it's close to impossible to avoid. Opinion?
To be fair to Alonso, there are mitigating circumstances for his crash in comparison to Verstappen's clash with Grosjean in Monaco.
Haas have said that the energy recovery systems on Gutierrez's car malfunctioned and kicked in before he'd reached the braking zone, suddenly slowing the car down (which was why it looked to some as if Gutierrez might have braked early) - neither Gutierrez nor Alonso could have reasonably expected that to occur, which seems to explain why Alonso misjudged the closing speed.
By contrast, whilst Verstappen claimed that Grosjean had braked early in the Monaco GP, the GPS data released by Lotus showed that, on the contrary, Grosjean started to brake 3m later than he had done on the previous lap. In his case, Verstappen could and should have expected Grosjean to brake where he did and ultimately should have judged the situation better.
Read: Nascar's high-drag package.
