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I'm a hardened Hamilton fan boy, but even I had to applaud Vettel's drive at the Bahrain GP - it was exceptional race management.

But make no mistake Mercedes could have won that race in 2 or 3 different ways. Last year (behind closed doors) I think Mercedes made the decision to throw their weight behind Hamilton mid-season as it became apparent they were up against it with a Ferrari favoured Vettel. The new season results in a reset and we find Mercedes back in the de-facto position of providing their drivers an equal opportunity, and while admirable, this is ultimately flawed.

Assume for a moment that during the Bahrain GP the Ferrari team found themselves in P2 (Kimi) and P3 (Vettel) and it was Hamilton leading. Without question they would have pushed Kimi as hard as possible in an attempt to burn out Hamiltons tyres (and Kimi's in the process) knowing full well Vettel would swoop in and take an easy win. They would sacrifice a potential Kimi victory for a guaranteed Vettel win. Mercedes didn't do that - although I assume it occurred to them since it occurred to me. Simply, they end up handicapping themselves in the interests of driver fairness. That along with complacency (going slower than they were capable of and banking on a Ferrari stop) gave Ferrari the win. And winning is all that matters.

But, I think the penny has dropped again after Bottas' lacklustre performance. Ferrari are a bigger threat than last year - expect to see Hamilton anointed numero uno. Mercedes fans' just be glad it's happened 2 races in.

P.S. Pierre Gasly?!? The boy looks half decent.

I don't think you're giving Bottas enough credit for his drive last week.

Yes, he couldn't make the pass on the 1 lap he had the chance to, but until 10 laps to go when he started pushing he was driving to his given delta fully expecting Vettel to have to pit again. Mercedes strategy was sound for the given circumstances and it was only Vettel making his tyres last that denied Bottas and Mercedes the win.

He was always gong to have a hard time making the pass (Hamilton would've too) against a similarly performing car, with possibly a slightly better aero package, in a car that is not good at following.

The other thing you seem to be missing is that although you yourself are a elf confessed Hamilton cannot, as is Lauda to be fair, the team don't want to sacrifice Bottas for a Hamilton win. They wanted the 1, 2 for the team. And with the strategy they were using, that was fully possible, it just didn't work out that way because Ferrari altered their strategy in response to the mercs and Vettel made it work.

I'm definitely no Vettel or Ferrari fan (in fact I genuinely dislike Vettel from a sporting perspective), but you have give credit where credit's due. Bottas and Mercedes didn't lose the race, Vettel and Ferrari won it!

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I know I am a Hamilton fan, but I also a fan of accuracy. Vettel didn’t make his tyres last. The tyres were good for 30 laps and by lap 28 he said his tyres were finished, as early as lap 26 his tyres were pretty much gone. Laps 33-38 his times were awful and the tyres completely gone.

Vettel did well to not make a mistake once his tyres had gone, that is his achievement. The press and pundits decided to go with the story that is was a tyre saving masterclass and the Ferrari is once again good on its tyres.

Look at the data, look at the times. The Ferrari was poor on its tyres in both stints and in both stints Vettels times dropped off slightly earlier than the tyres were expected to go.

An "expectation", though, is not an exact determination. Expectations can or can't come through in the real actual world. Vettel had to find the optimal balance between preserving them to go the full distance, and driving fast enough to fend off the Mercs that would hold a fast rhythm until the end of the race. And he did just that.

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"good for 30 laps"; what does this mean? With what kinds of speeds under what kind of circumstances? To what degree of accuracy? If you're a fan of accuracy and make the claim Vettel didn't make the tyres last, you should have an answer.

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Räikkönen - Vettel - Bottas
Thank you Nico - You´re the champ!

PF1 Pick 10 Competition 2016: CHAMPION (2 wins, 8 podiums)

Personally I think Merc should have split the strategies. Got Bottas to push Vettel on a 2 stopper and then have Hamilton give Vettel a potential headache with a 1 stopper.

I for one cannot fathom why Kimi stays in F1. It's clear to all and sundry that he is indeed Vettel's bitch and seemingly no matter what he does in the car they will get Seb in front of him somehow.

Last year Lewis made a big thing about 'winning the right way' - ie not playing Ferrari's game, it would seem a bit hypocritical to make Bottas a defacto number 2 wouldn't it?

Mercedes prime objective is to win the Constructors Championship, and making Bottas number 2 is not going to motivate him to perform is it?

Even so, I must admit I was surprised they didn't make the switch... I can only assume it was because Bottas had a shot at the win and Lewis didn't.

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Though nothing of the sort was done in Australia. Kimi was not told to move aside and was put on the prime strategy. Vettel got very, very lucky there.

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It seemed to me Merc stuck to Pirelli's guidance over tyre life on the softs and advised both drivers to drive to deltas to keep life in the tyres expecting Vettell to pit again and come out on much faster tyres. They focused so much on this they allowed Vettell to drive at a pace that prolonged the tyre life enough to get him to the end of the race.Multiply times on the comms you herd them tell Hamilton Vettal's tyres would go off and advising him of the time Vettal would lose pitting so just keep going at steady pace

In hindsight Bottas should have been told to push like hell from get go Vettal would have had to push harder on tyres and forced him to put rather than let Ferrari dictate the pace

I was surprised that they waited so long for both drivers to push - it gave Seb the opportunity to save tyres as best he could.

yes, they were knackered by the end of the race, but if Bottas had pushed harder earlier, it may have forced Seb into a stop to get 3rd at worst, or at least pushed him back in to the clutches of Lewis.

I think Merc dropped the ball again this week.

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He won the race but that does not mean he did a great job with the tyres, he destroyed the tyres and won largely because the Mercedes pit wall completely misjudged the race and backed way off to save tyres for an expected Vettel SS push at the end. That is what won him the race. He did not do a good job in keeping his tyres alive, his pace at the end was terrible. Yes he still won the race, but Kimi would have won it if he got out the pits - that's how bad Vettels S tyre stint was - that a car that was 5 seconds behind him could beat him by stopping with 20 laps to go. If that did happen, would we all be saying how good Vettels soft tyre stint was? No. The headlines would be he destroyed them. Headline writers are so fickle. Ironically if Kimi stayed in the race Vettel would have likely been 3rd too, because Bottas (knowing Kimi was coming) would not have slowed down so much for 10 laps and caught Vettel a lot earlier.

Pirelli recommendation was that they could do 30 laps. The same recommendation they issue every race which is nearly always conservative, so if they say 30 you can usually get away with a bit more.

For example they recommended 20 laps for the SS and Vettels started to fall away at about lap 12 and significantly dropped off at lap 15. Bottas' on the other hand where still in the slight drop off phase at lap 19 and never significantly dropped off.

This Ferrari seems harder on its tyres than the Merc, which is a big surprise to me.

But they did do 30 laps, many more in fact?

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Räikkönen - Vettel - Bottas
Thank you Nico - You´re the champ!

PF1 Pick 10 Competition 2016: CHAMPION (2 wins, 8 podiums)

The recommendation is before significant drop off. They don't expire or explode on 30 laps. Vettel himself said after 26 laps on them "these tyres are done"

I guess it's how you judge things. You cannot prove he didn't do a good job because when it comes to it, all comes down to how accurate that Pirelli claim of 30 laps was.

What is factual, is that he drove the speed required to win the race, all things considered.

edit: also I'm not sure how you rhyme "the Ferrari seems harder on his tyres than the Mercedes" with "Vettel didn't do a great job with the tyres". If the Ferrari is, in fact, harder on its tyres than the Mercedes, then maybe he did a mega job. Even more impressive than people are judging it to be.

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Indeed, but if you somebody is saying he did a good job with regards to tyre life then you are using some level of expectation of tyre life to draw that conclusion too right? So the only thing you can really go from is the data Pirelli release. That is standard practice, to use that figure Pirelli release to judge how well a driver managers the tyres. During 2012, Pirelli would say they can do 25 laps and Perez took them 35. He was deemed great with the tyres due to the expectation created from Pirelli's information and the fact he took them longer than any other driver and maintained great pace in doing so. Likewise during certain races in 2017, Vettel did similar things. But Bahrain was not an example of some kind of special tyre management.

Yes, he had enough speed to still win but not by some impressive tyre management but by Mercedes misreading the race and backing off to give him a 9 second lead (thinking he was going to stop again). Vettel was significantly slower in the last 5 laps than the first 5 laps with 100kg of fuel, he limped home basically. Nice driving to not make a mistake but not an example of good tyre management.

lamo, that is a superb summation.

This entire attempt to rationalize giving Hamilton all the toys so early in the season (even with Schumacher's days Ferrari waited until a few races later) is a fan's desperate desire to see Hamilton win the title.

The race was interesting, but discounts the tactics and strategy if Raikkonen, Verstappen, and Ricciardo had better races and not retired. All three were in front of Hamilton when they had problems that led to their retirement.

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The discussion is of the tactics from the moment of Raikkonens pit stop which had only 1 or 2 possible outcomes from that point. The discussion from the start of the race with both Red Bulls in it, literally has millions of different outcomes and would be wild speculation.

From the moment Kimi pitted a few things were guaranteed -

1) Bottas would have had to stay on a 1 stopper since the under cut was huge and if he pitted the lap after Kimi he would be behind him so Mercedes had no choice.

2) If Vettel did not pit the lap after Kimi, he too would have been undercut.

So the only two outcomes are 1) both Ferrari's hunting down Bottas on SS or 2) Kimi hunting down both Bottas and Vettel with his SS.

I think Ricciardo had a chance to win the race if he stayed in it, but that is a whole different story.

But Pirelli have over- as well as underestimated tyre life before.

Again looking at the facts of the day, it seems in this case Pirelli overestimated the soft tyre life. Take a look at this page: https://www.racefans.net/2018/04/08/201 ... and-tyres/

Nobody came even remotely close to using the softs as long as Vettel did.

Of the 18 soft sets that were bolted on a car during the race, half of them were changed before they'd even done 20 laps, and 15 out of 18 sets were changed by lap 26.
Only Sainz and Magnussen reached Pirelli's recommendation of 30 laps (and changed them then) but that's still 9 laps off what Vettel did. And despite going 9 laps less far as Vettel, they also saw their lap times worsen considerably by that time.


On this evidence I can only conclude the sweet spot of the softs was even below 25 laps, Pirelli's estimations were well off and Vettel did one hell of a job.

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Vettel did 38 laps, but that is not the point. You could do 50 laps on them if you wanted. Its about what speed you maintain doing that. That is the point.

Nobody done anywhere near 30 laps on them because only 3 cars did a 1 stop and if you are 2 stopping your Max stint is around 20 laps. But K-mags pace is decent over the stint, with normal drop off. Comparable to Vettels to drop off.

K-mag was lapping about 1 second slower after 30 laps, the tyre held up great. Also have a look at Hamiltons first stint for how long Softs last and that was on full tanks, his dropped off at lap 25 + qualifying. Actually they didn't drop off, that lap was slow because Vettel overtook him.

The site is wrong? Will check live timing when I get home.



So apparently most thought that a one-stopper with SS-S wasn't a good way to go. Maybe because they didn't think the S would hold up long enough?



Vettel was only lapping about 7 tenths slower after 30 laps. You're kind of making my point here.



Vettel ran 50% longer than Hamilton. Not even comparable.

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I was comparing Hamilton at 25 lap old to Vettel at 25 laps old. Hamilton also ran qualifying on them so that it more like 26-27 laps old and was running at a pace that was fastest on track in that stint.

Hamilton on 27 lap old tyres was about +0.4 to +0.6 off his early clean air pace. Vettel was about +0.8- 1.0 down at the same point.

Yes, most went 2 stopper because it was quicker. I am not saying Vettel was poor in that stint,he just did nothing special. He wore out his tyres at around the time Pirelli predicted and limped home.

That is not a very fair comparison. Hamilton knew how far he would have to go on them, he didn't have to stretch their life so could drive faster. Additionally he know that then quitting on him one lap earlier than devised wouldn't be too big of a problem as he could then stop one lap earlier.

Vettel knew as soon as Bottas pitted that he would have to do 39 laps on them. And that he didn't have the luxury to "stop one lap sooner if needed", they had to go 39 laps and not one less.

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Again there's more data pointing to Pirelli being too optimistic than there is pointing to them being right.

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Why were Pirelli optimistic?

The tyres always degrade, times are expected to get slightly slower through the stint. That is standard in Bahrain. We only have 3 data sets of long Soft runs and in all of them, each driver was in a pretty good shape around 28 lap phase, Hamilton pitted but was still in good shape. Losing 1 second over 30 laps is good going.

My point is - I don't get which part of Vettel's stint was the impressive bit, if he done the 39 laps and only had a 1 or 1.2 second lap drop off over that distance then I would say yes that is good driving and he has done well to maintain pace whilst increasing stint length but what he did was increase stint length and slow drastically. Only 3 drivers took the softs around 30 laps and Hamilton had about a 0.7 drop off at that phase, Vettel about 1 second and K-mag seemed about 1 second too. That is expected and all pretty similar.

However, at 34 laps + Vettel had a 1.5 second drop off and 36/37+ laps more like 2 seconds drop off. Is that impressive? I genuinely do not know, nobody knows that is why its hard to call it impressive. He was losing loads of time and we haven't seem somebody take these that far to know how good that performance was. The tyres are expected to drop off once they reach the end and they did. He didn't perform a miracle and maintain great pace on them, he was slow once he went past there expected life.

Again that's not correct.
- Vettel had about .65s drop-off around 30 laps.
- Magnussen had about 1.4s drop-off after 29 laps.

So he had MUCH better drop-off than Magnussen. He also had much better drop-off than Sainz, who was already dropping off 1.5s by the time he had 25 laps on these tyres, which went to 2.5s by the time he had 30s on them. And all that during a stint in which Vettel knew he would have to go much longer than anyone, and much longer than Pirelli recommended.

As late as lap 52, so 33 laps into that stint, he still had only .7s drop-off.



But your numbers are off... all of them. At 36 laps he had 1.082s drop-off. At 37, 1.2s. After that he drives tactical, deploying his hybrid power on straights in order to defend. Defense over lap time at that point.

So that's what we have.
After 33 laps, .7s drop-off
After 36 laps, still only a second
After 37 laps, 1.2s

All of these are considerably better than Magnussen at 29 laps (1.4s) and Sainz at 25 laps (1.5s) or 29 laps (2.5s!).



OK so you state we cannot know how good the performance was but earlier you had no issues saying:
- he didn't do a good job in keeping them alive?
- "Ferrari was poor on its tyres in both stints" - when in fact compared to the data we have (Sainz, Magnussen) it actually did a whole lot better in the second?
- "Vettel's times dropped off slightly earlier than the tyres were expected to go" - when in fact you literally say Magnussen had normal drop-off after 30 laps and I demonstrate Vettel's drop-off after 30 laps was better than Magnussen's (after 29) by 7 tenths?

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I think people mostly ignore his laptimes at the end of the race, because he kept in front of Bottas. That's the only important thing.

K-mag is not a great comparison because he was not pushing at the end, he was coasting the car home at the end. No car finished within 15 seconds of him, ahead or behind, so his times are pretty meaningless for the last stint. But he popped in a 35.7 late on to show his tyres still had speed.

You also can't use his very first lap out the pits as it was under cut max engine mode all out lap to undercut Alonso. I used his pace in the 3-4 laps after that as they are a fairer reflection of his true pace which was high 34's, low 35's and he did a 35.7 on 29 lap old tyres at a phase where he had no reason to push.

Sainz was also 1 second behind Ocon for 15+ laps being held up. So no comparison either really with him.

Indeed, that is exactly my point really and as most people here may already know I always concentrate more on the performance than the actual result. Not that Vettel had a bad performance at all, it was a good performance. It is just there is no real evidence of anything special done with the tyres which grabbed all the headlines and praise.

OK so you state we cannot know how good the performance was but earlier you had no issues saying:
- he didn't do a good job in keeping them alive?
Yes I stand by this, the laps don't show him doing anything special with the tyres. I welcome you to point a specific phase where he did.


- "Ferrari was poor on its tyres in both stints" - when in fact compared to the data we have (Sainz, Magnussen) it actually did a whole lot better in the second?
As I pointed out above. K-mag was coasting home. Sainz was being held up by Ocon following him by 1 second for most that stint.


- "Vettel's times dropped off slightly earlier than the tyres were expected to go" - when in fact you literally say Magnussen had normal drop-off after 30 laps and I demonstrate Vettel's drop-off after 30 laps was better than Magnussen's (after 29) by 7 tenths?

I should not have referenced K-mag as I did not realise he had no reason to push. But his 35.7 on 29 lap old tyres was good pace for his car, so his tyres were in good condition for there age at that point.

So in summary, Vettel didn't do anything special, nor did Kimi, Max was a ****head, Bottas didn't race Seb hard enough, and Mercedes screwed up Lewis, leaving Hamilton as the both the victim and the hero.

Have I got that right?

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Yes, 1:35.7 meaning a drop-off of 1.4s after 29 laps, as I said.



This is starting to look very much like you're cherry-picking your data.



Sainz was in front the entire stint except for the last 3 or so laps.



No, no. Be fair. You say I cannot know whether he did great, but if that's the case you cannot do the reverse either i.e. saying he did not do a good job.



As I pointed out above, Sainz was in front of Ocon for almost the entirety of that stint.
And you ignoring Magnussen is cherry-picking your data. You had no issues comparing Vettel and Magnussen yourself earlier, but now that I've given the correct figures all of a sudden I can't use it anymore as it apparently wasn't representative.



Well, if by your admission that was good pace for his car, then I don't see why we can't use the drop-off from this data point, and it is considerably higher than Vettel's.

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Vettel's skill was in keeping the car on the track and not being all over the place with tires that were done. He himself said they were done with 10 laps to go, so we know for a fact he didn't do a stellar job of saving them. His skill came into play after they tires were shot.

That said, his win was down to Bottas' incompetence as a driver and an overtaker than Vettel's abilities.

Wondering why I make that kind of posts full of relevant data for it to then be brushed under the carpet with a blanket statement like that. No, we don't know that for a fact, the facts as posted above point towards him doing a great job on them.

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A good job on the tyres is generally considered taking them further than anybody else whilst maintaining a very solid respectable pace. For example what Vettel did in Australia 2017, he went further than anyone and still kept pumping in great lap times when everybody else had slowed down.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree, because Vettel did the first part of the that (taking them further) but not the later and was slow. How slow, we won't ever know because there was no one to properly compare him too. But so slow that if he had pitted 5 laps from the end onto SS he would have completed the race quicker than he actually did limping home on worn out softs. Literally if Bottas pitted with 5-6 laps to go he would have re-caught him up and won, that's how horrible his pace was.

If he stayed in the high 34's or maybe even low 35's I would get on board as it something special, but he gradually fell from there to the mid 35's, to high 35's into the lows 36's by the end. The great part of his drive was not sliding off like ReservoirDog says.

The impressive part is where he is driving around on a set of onions, makes negligible errors under pressure with little grip when perfect car placement is required to keep Bottas behind him, and still manages to harvest the energy to keep the mighty Mercedes engine behind him in the DRS zones.

If he had lost that race nobody would have blamed the driver in that situation. It would have been blamed on the Ferrari pitwall.

I think you are forgetting that the original plan for Vettel was to do a 2 stopper. He had to change his strategy on the fly. When Raikonnen went down, he got the message that the strategy was changing. So you can't blame him for running out of tires at the end. He probably was pushing harder than necessary early in that second stint, anticipating to stop again. It was obvious, because he was very agressive with Lewis, once he came upon him. But once Raikonnen went down, it became 1 versus 2 for Ferrari, so their only chance at winning the race was to let Vettel try the one stopper.

I think Ferrari also got caught out with how quick the mercs were on the medium tire.

Nor did they go over the cliff. What's significant? And on which lap did the significant drop off occur? For accuracy's sake I hope you won't be using a radio message as evidence.

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Thank you Nico - You´re the champ!

PF1 Pick 10 Competition 2016: CHAMPION (2 wins, 8 podiums)

I was thinking the same actually Blake. So far Vettel has won two races with doing... nothing at all? I wonder why he even bothers turning up...

Come on guys, no two tyres are the same. The 30 laps is indicative; a very good indication indeed, but still it is indicative. How many times have we heard that a tyre underperformed greatly and they were going to investigate it? It also varies depending on being in dirty air, under pressure, driving to a T, etc.

So Vettel starting his stint with a 2-stopper in mind and then having to change strategy and nurse the tyres he had already raced hard, that is impressive on it's own merit.