2018 United States GP

[rage2]

Any bets on how Vettel fucks up today?

Crash and spin. Who would’ve thought.

[revelations]

what? what pressure was there on him anymore? the WDC was 99.999% over before the race began

[ganesh]

Good race. To bad LH couldn't close the deal today.
Was killing myself laughing when Kimi asked Lewis did you win the championship....

[phreezee]

39 year old wins the US GP!!!
Never been happier to be wrong, Go Kimi Go!!

[tonytiger55]

Just watched the mini highlights on youtube.

Looks like Kimi ran a good race.
I think the battle between Hamilton and Max was good. But I think Hamilton was smart and played it safe. Well thats all I could tell from the mini highlights.

WTF happened to Vettle and his spin?
Anyone have input to why Ricardo retired..? Was it because of the collision with Count Von..?

[npham]

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Just watched the mini highlights on youtube.

Looks like Kimi ran a good race.
I think the battle between Hamilton and Max was good. But I think Hamilton was smart and played it safe. Well thats all I could tell from the mini highlights.

WTF happened to Vettle and his spin?
Anyone have input to why Ricardo retired..? Was it because of the collision with Count Von..?

Battling with Danny and when deep into the corner(oversteer), touched front wheels and put him into a spin. Then his engine/PU went dark on him...which lead him to punch a hole in the wall. Hard to blame him though, it seems like RB is just using him to test new parts/ideas/software and he hasn't had a reliable car in ages.

[rage2]

Revisited live timing to see what Merc could have done in hindsight. They expected Hamilton to finish the race on the softs, did not expect the rears to blister so early. Tried to drive through it then gave up. An alternate strategy would have been to punish those tires hard after Kimi pits, pull a 20s gap and pit once more for safety. That would’ve been higher risk than making the softs last till the end so at the time it would have been an unnecessary gamble. Pitting earlier when drop off started wouldn’t have been an option. The softs blistered and dropped off 20 laps into the stint. Mercedes needed to run out that stint before pitting so the 3rd set of softs will finish the race under 20 laps (it did 19). As a comparison, Kimi ran 35 laps with the softs without dropping off.

Unpredictable rear blistering that only affected Mercedes handed the win to Ferrari. Bottas tried to save his tires by driving a slower pace and dropped off 30 laps into the stint, allowing Vettel to pass.

[schocker]

Great race, glad Kimi was able to hold on. Also weird penalties for Ocon and Magnussen. Will be interesting to see what comes with those as they are pretty odd as FIA would find out super easily.

[chongkee_]

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Revisited live timing to see what Merc could have done in hindsight. They expected Hamilton to finish the race on the softs, did not expect the rears to blister so early. Tried to drive through it then gave up. An alternate strategy would have been to punish those tires hard after Kimi pits, pull a 20s gap and pit once more for safety. That would’ve been higher risk than making the softs last till the end so at the time it would have been an unnecessary gamble. Pitting earlier when drop off started wouldn’t have been an option. The softs blistered and dropped off 20 laps into the stint. Mercedes needed to run out that stint before pitting so the 3rd set of softs will finish the race under 20 laps (it did 19). As a comparison, Kimi ran 35 laps with the softs without dropping off.

Unpredictable rear blistering that only affected Mercedes handed the win to Ferrari. Bottas tried to save his tires by driving a slower pace and dropped off 30 laps into the stint, allowing Vettel to pass.

Thanks for looking into it.
I was wondering about it as well what would've happened if Lewis opted for the 2-stop.
Pitting earlier when the drop off started I think would've released him into traffic.

[rage2]

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Pitting earlier when the drop off started I think would've released him into traffic.

Nope. That would've dropped him between Kimi and Max, but would've had to run a 20+ lap stint. Problem is Merc wasn't confident those tires can do that without blistering early again.

[BerserkerCatSplat]

Is this the first time Merc (or any team, really) has run into the early blistering problem?

[rage2]

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Is this the first time Merc (or any team, really) has run into the early blistering problem?

Nope, but it typically happens more often at the earlier parts of the season when the teams are still trying to understand the tires. If I had to guess, the lack of dry running in free practice probably forced the team to do some guesswork on setup, which didn't pay off.

IIRC Ferrari had blistering problems at Monza this year too, and FP was also rain affected.

[schocker]

Was it anything to do with mercedes modifying their wheel design after ferrari inquired?
https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/co..._holes_in_the/

[revelations]

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Was it anything to do with mercedes modifying their wheel design after ferrari inquired?
https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/co..._holes_in_the/

Definitely a chance - especially if they were using it to cool their wheels as they apparently were.