2017 race 19: Brazil, 12 November : Discussion thread

It was a strange one. The car was bouncing and sparking just before the rear stepped out. You often get that with lower ambient temperatures. Moreover, I think that kind of unrecoverable slide is indicative of what we’ve seen in 2017. The much greater downforce means they are carrying a lot more speed into the corner, and, the wider cars and fatter tyres means that when the rear steps out during a corner, the driver has little ability to collect the slide. Once it gets to a certain slip angle, it’s gone. I think back to the first practice session in Canada which featured similar thing; drivers getting loose in the middle of the turn and spinning out. These are almost like IndyCar crashes on ovals, once the rear lets go at a certain angle, it is mostly unrecoverable.

At least on a road course, whether you hit anything depends on the size of the run-off area. On an oval, that is guaranteed! 

Starting from the pits is wise. Mostly for cooling for the engine and the brakes, as Hamilton will be turbulent air for 71 laps. A few weeks ago in Mexico Hamilton had to back-off several times because the car got too hot.
They might as well fit a fresh engine as well, his engine allocation might have been okay, but fighting through the pack with a fresh power unit would be advantageous, and keeping it for Abu Dhabi as well.

This is going to be an interesting afternoon....

Valteri showed little of the spirit he demonstrated while at Williams but combined with the problem at his pit stop he was never a real threat to Seb. I would have hoped he would have found his feet by now but seems to have been put firmly in his place. He just HAS to show more spirit from here on as Mercedes will not carry him for long. A real shame as I thought had talent. Nice to see the Hulk on better terms with Carlos too, a much better showing from him this time out.

I was more interested in the Hamilton-Kimi chasedown towards the end. End of Sector 3 to end of Sector 1 Hamilton was much quicker, but mainly due to DRS advantage. In sector 2 Kimi left him for dead, with Hamilton's tyres past their best and Kimi just being Kimi through sector 2 (the drivers bit). If it wasn't for the fast bit through the Junction ("Young Cow" in phonetic Portuguese) Kimi would have been out of DRS range for the pit straight and the 2nd DRS zone and Hamilton would've been nowhere near him. In essence the traffic helped Hamilton as it allowed him to slash time from him lap times due to DRS.

Brazil is always a great race and the farce in the desert next week may well be relegated in our household behind a Ben and Holly re-run.

Hamilton’s charge through the pack was impressive, it just illustrated what a difference that a race-optimised car can make, adapted for running in turbulent air. Of course, I’m not referring to the qualifying-cars of yesteryear. However, the top teams close off as many holes as possible for maximum downforce, hoping to gain the best grid position. The middle sector isn’t particularly a place to pass, but Hamilton made some impressive overtakes in unconventional places. Hamilton’s pace on the Soft compound was just sublime, so sublime, he was matching Vettel’s pace on the tyre whilst leading, despite the set being over 30 laps old, with Vettel’s set being new!
 
I think Hamilton was always going to find a Ferrari harder to overtake, a car with similar race-pace. At that point, I think the durable Super Soft compound just started to cry enough. Sector two is mostly rear-limited, precisely where Hamilton needed good purchase coming off those slow turns to position himself for the DRS zones.

However, even more impressive was Ricciardo. The accuracy in his braking is sublime, with a lack of straight-line speed he had to achieve his overtaking on the brakes. He can take deep lunges without even a hint of a lock-up, and of course perfectly making the corner. Admittedly, a fair few of Hamilton’s passes were done before the braking zone. Ricciardo had no such luxury, relying on late lunges, because even the offset with DRS, that wasn’t enough for him to get alongside.

It was a disappointing race for Bottas. There wasn’t much he could have done about Vettel at the start. Once Vettel got his front wheels alongside Bottas’ rear wheels, he lost the high-ground into the corner. One of the replays showed Bottas visibly steering right just as Vettel approached, almost like it caught him by surprise. He made a wise move, because that was Vettel’s corner. The race pace from Bottas was very poor, especially on the Soft compound, it wouldn’t be unkind to say he was nowhere on the Soft tyre. Even in clean air, he didn’t come anywhere close to achieving the same laptimes as Hamilton achieved on the same tyre, even taking into account the goodies that Hamilton had at his disposal. That race precisely illustrated why Mercedes won’t give Bottas a multi-year deal.

The stewarding was strange again. I didn’t think the accident exiting the Senna S warranted any investigation; three cars going for the same asphalt at the start of a Grand Prix, how could one have fairly apportioned blame? As for Ocon and Grosjean in Ferradura, that was strange. Ocon tried to overtake Grosjean on the outside, but Ferradura is a long, multi-apex right-hander, it was an optimistic attempt at overtaking. Grosjean got pinched to the inside and understandably lost control. I’m not sure what evidence showed that Grosjean was to blame, but it would be good for viewers to get a snapshot into the footage that determines the penalties. Grosjean doesn’t need much encouragement to crash, but in fairness, he wasn’t to blame in this circumstance – nobody was. I don’t really understand this new laid-back stewarding. Encouragingly, most incidents don’t get penalised, but every now and then, we get these random penalties for relatively minor incidents which weren’t penalised before.

A pool of stewards with a panel randomly selected for each race weekend. Stewards are far too inconsistent.

It is a good point. Other championships have a permanent stewarding panel at each race, including IMSA, Pirelli World Challenge and Trans-Am. Former drivers Wally Dallenbach Jr and Dorsey Schroeder have the respect of the paddocks in Trans-Am and PWC respectively. And don’t think that either are a walkover; Dallenbach was partly responsible for banning a driver for obscene behaviour.

The F1 stewarding panel needs three level-headed individuals who mostly let racing incidents remain racing incidents. However, they would have the discretion to penalise drivers for overly deliberate or clumsy driving. Of course, you need the right permanent panel. IndyCar knows this all too well. A person called Brian Barnhart kept making stupid decisions, and unfortunately that had the potential to happen 18 times a year. So when someone like the FIA’s Garry Connelly isn’t on an F1 stewarding panel, I breathe a sigh of relief. Imagine if he were selected for every GP, oh dear!

I would also allow the driver steward to have a binding vote in determining penalties. At present, the driver steward can offer their opinion and obviously therefore influence the outcome of investigations, but they can’t vote. So potentially the most qualified person to judge aspects such as peripheral vision can’t make key decisions, but the other two people who aren’t racing drivers can? Dallenbach and Schroeder are key players in deciding penalties, and the same status needs to be given to the driver steward in F1. Tom Kristensen would make a fantastic driver steward. He is so experienced, analytical and measured in every way. Tom isn’t affiliated to any F1 team, and he would have the respect of the F1 paddock.