[Official] Belgian Grand Prix 2016: Grand Prix Weekend Thread

[Mike Harte]

According to most reports, and the fact that he was "awarded" Driver of the Day, it would appear that Hamilton fought a valiant battle to get from the back of the grid to take the last place on the podium. However, analysis by Motorsport dot com: http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/an...es-811254/?s=1 seems to put a different slant on his race.

Apparently, Hamilton actually physically overtook only 4 race worthy cars on the track during the whole race; all the others had either crashed, suffered damage/mechanical woes or were in the pits. Thus it was that even at the end of lap 1, he was already in 15th place, and was up to 5th when the red flag came out.

It really goes to show that the penalties he was given mean absolutely nothing. I do appreciate that no one could have predicted what would transpire during the course of the race, but it does go to show how ineffective some of the penalties are.

[chillibowl]

and for me the problem is compounded due to the size of the Merc budget.

for most teams, especially the customer teams, the price tag per engine is more than enough incentive to stay within the prescribed allotment.

but Merc can not only afford to go over their allotment, they have the ability to produce more engines when needed where as the smaller teams do not have this ability.

as for penalties, im not sure what i would like to see. at the very least, some mechanism is needed to make it financially difficult for the engine manus to produce more engines for themselves while year on year raising the price of their engines to their customers.

obviously i dont have numbers but basic economies of scale should mean the more engines produced the cheaper each unit becomes...a savings i some how doubt is being passed on to Merc's customers.

[chillibowl]

also i feel bad for Rosberg....he is still behind on points and the one advantage he had has now turned into a parts deficit to his WDC rival.

basically his team decided to spend their way into giving his team mate back the advantage.

does this show who Merc have decided to back for the title?

[djinvicta]

Agreed on that Chillibowl. Just what I thought...

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

does this show who Merc have decided to back for the title?

I don't think it shows favoritism, or at least there is not enough info to say that IMHO.

The problem is that we are past mid-point in the season and Lewis had already used more than his allocation in some areas (five TC and MGU-H, four ES and CE) while Nico has only used three across all six elements. So it was time to do this for Lewis. If Nico is in the same situation in the future, they will likely do the same (take one hit to bank some PU elements) to ensure he has enough to reach the end of the season.

In a way it might have been an ideal time for Nico to also take a penalty as well as I think part of the strategy of picking Spa was the likelihood of being able to pass and make up track position. But Mercedes likely felt there was no reason to put both drivers at the back of the grid. They would still want a good showing, so with Hamilton in the worse shape, he was selected for the back and Nico had a normal race weekend and performed as expected.

I haven't done the research, but is there a race on the horizon that Nico maybe historically doesn't do well at and also could be one in which is Spa like in that he still could fight from the back and make up positions? Dare I say Monza (probably too soon) or maybe Suzuka? If so, maybe that might be a candidate for Nico to take a penalty. The problem is that the longer he goes into the season the less options he has regarding picking the "right" time to play this game. Or he may just make it through the entire season on his four allocated set of PU elements?

Regarding the PU usage numbers, here is a link to the PU element usage document for the Belgian GP. I "think" these numbers are for the situation going into the race weekend and before Mercedes made a bunch of changes during the weekend...

http://www.fia.com/file/46789/download?token=yDjJh1vY

Richard

[wolfhound]

If you were looking for a race to take penalties I would suggest
Malaysia as it is a track that a driver can overtake on. Others that have potential are COTA and Interlagos but it would be too late in the season to take advantage. You also need the potential for a safety car and Singapore should be good for that but does not have the potential for overtaking the others have.

Oh and Malaysia also has good potential for first corner chaos.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

In a way it might have been an ideal time for Nico to also take a penalty as well as I think part of the strategy of picking Spa was the likelihood of being able to pass and make up track position....

very interesting suggestion that!

no doubt a risky chance to take but totally inspired if he could have made that work.

yeah Malaysia would be a good place for it...kind of weird how this could actually become a viable strategy lol!

[djinvicta]

Richard. Take your point, but hasn't Lewis now got the engine upgrades that Nico hasn't yet?

[TrapezeArtist]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

It really goes to show that the penalties he was given mean absolutely nothing. I do appreciate that no one could have predicted what would transpire during the course of the race, but it does go to show how ineffective some of the penalties are.

I think it goes to show how safety cars and red flags can be lucky for some and unlucky for others. Everyone who didn't stop when the safety car came out got a big dose of luck because everyone got a free tyre change during the red flag. (Perhaps there should be par ferme during a red flag.) Those starting at the back (notably Alonso and Hamilton) inevitably got a bigger share of that luck.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by djinvicta

Richard. Take your point, but hasn't Lewis now got the engine upgrades that Nico hasn't yet?

I haven't followed the Mercedes engine upgrades closely or the process for that. But if my counts are correct regarding Nico's usage of his allocations, what is stopping him (other than the team) from upgrading now or in the near future without penalty to the same newer spec? And if he needed to upgrade beyond that (with penalty) he would also have the same newer spec. For all we know he may have even had the option to switch, but if the upgrade is unproven, let Lewis try it first from last place? Again, I have no clue what Mercedes did recently. I assume they used some tokens on something.

What I don't understand is how the upgrade process (token usage) works with respect to existing allocations. Can you take a high mileage, but still functional part and "upgrade it", or is the part, once used, forever frozen in that spec. I suspect it is the later. Does the same apply for upgrades that are due to "reliability"? I don't know.

What makes all of this such an interesting topic is that above and beyond the rule tricks of Mercedes doing multiple swaps in one weekend was Lewis being able to just about effectively nullify any negative aspects of the penalty that he did receive. It was effectively a ten point penalty which would be a lot for most, but not much for Lewis given his recent win streak, position in the championship and the other benefits (pile of low mileage power units)

My guess is that prior to this past weekend Nico would not have wanted to trade places with Lewis. That a climb from the back would have been a tall order. But with 20/20 hindsight, I am sure Nico would have traded places with him! Kudos to Lewis for a bit of luck (various drivers effectively removed from contention, red flag, etc.) and some good driving.

Richard

[gert]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

In a way it might have been an ideal time for Nico to also take a penalty as well as I think part of the strategy of picking Spa was the likelihood of being able to pass and make up track position.

I don't think it would have really helped him.

While Hamilton moved to engine #6, #7 and #8 and had penalties for every one of them, the reality is he got:
* 3 fresh engines (1 used in the race, 1 with a few miles in p1, and 1 with a few miles in p2)
* only 1 real penalty

If Rosberg would also have switched 3 times, he would have used engine 4, 5 and 6 and thus:
* put a few miles on engine 4
* put a few miles on engine 5
* raced engine 6

He would have been punished only for engine 6, but the net result would be he would be next to Hamilton on the back of the grid, and still only be equal on engines.

I think a better option was to take the points and move on.
Unfortunately for Nico, Lewis finished as high as he did. Most likely, he would have been around 6th behind both Ferraris, both Red Bull and Rosberg (order to be defined)
in a "normal" race.

Furthermore, Rosberg can take an upgraded Mercedes power unit (if one becomes available) without grid penalty, where Lewis can't.

[dsg]

Originally Posted by cerdic

I thought they were booing, but my son (who has much younger ears than me!) reckons there was a bunch of people chanting "Loooo...wis"?

From what I could pick up on the Sky coverage it was a bit of both. They were chanting Lew...is when he was being interviewed but booing when Nico was talking to Mark.

[TwoSheds]

Originally Posted by TrapezeArtist

I think it goes to show how safety cars and red flags can be lucky for some and unlucky for others. Everyone who didn't stop when the safety car came out got a big dose of luck because everyone got a free tyre change during the red flag. (Perhaps there should be par ferme during a red flag.) Those starting at the back (notably Alonso and Hamilton) inevitably got a bigger share of that luck.

I believe that this will be the case from next year (2017), that tyres can't be changed during a red flag.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by TwoSheds

I believe that this will be the case from next year (2017), that tyres can't be changed during a red flag.

I remember when the 2011 Monaco GP was Red flagged and a number of drivers took advantage of it, changing tyres.

[TerryD]

Did anyone else notice? That after the Red flag, Rosberg got back in his car with his overalls undone! And at the end of the race when he got out of the car his overalls were still undone!
Check your recordings of the race and you will see!

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by TerryD

Did anyone else notice? That after the Red flag, Rosberg got back in his car with his overalls undone! And at the end of the race when he got out of the car his overalls were still undone!
Check your recordings of the race and you will see!

Maybe he got a tad hot?

Now if you had said he got back in his car, with his overalls undone and at the end of the race when he got out of the car his overalls were still done up, that would have been freaky!

[midgetman]

The important fact being that is contrary to FIA rules. People have been disqualified for less!

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

[TerryD]

[QUOTE=midgetman;3668822]The important fact being that is contrary to FIA rules. People have been disqualified for less!

Thats what I was trying to say!