[Official] British Grand Prix 2015 - Weekend Thread

[chillibowl]

but the last line also says the order only lasted two laps while the team worked out its sums (which means the computer simulation analysts back at Grove).

oddly, those two laps or around 3min at silverstone is also about how late they were in figuring out when to switch over to inters.

maybe those two laps could have made a difference.

[Lancsbreaker]

Bottas was clearly told not to "fight" Massa, and Massa was told that Bottas wouldn't be fighting him.....Bottas then complained that he was quicker and could pass, and was told after some prevarication that he could pass if it was "clean" and he could then pull away. When he was first told this it was at the end of the straight and he complained it was "too late"......

When Kravitz interviewed Rob Smedley after the race Smedley (looking very uncomfortable - his body language spoke volumes!) claimed that the discussion hadn't gone as described, and that he was very happy with how things had gone....no, Bottas hadn't been disadvantaged at all......

When Bottas was interviewed he was tactful, but a far from happy bunny

I think it would have been worth giving Bottas a shot to see if he could make a break.....

[mikuni]

Originally Posted by bauble

The argument about Bottas being faster than Massa is somewhat spoiled by the fact that even with two DRS zones on the circuit, free overtaking areas, young Valteri never looked like getting past Felipe. He made a couple of half hearted lunges when using DRS but was never close enough at the start of the straights, what on earth makes anybody think he could have done better than his team mate? Hamilton never looked like passing Bottas either in a straight race, so maybe Williams were right to leave well alone.

Facts not supposition.

After the race Anthony Davidson showed a clip of Bottas rapidly catching Massa through the fast section (corners) leading up to Hangar straight. It was clear Bottas was quicker through the faster section, and that is obviously without DRS. Check it out if you can - this was on the Sky coverage.

This is an area of contention, and it is one of those things that we will just never know. I'll accept that even if Bottas did get passed Massa, he may not have pulled away, so in that respect any argument is invalid.

One last point I will add. Bottas' team told him his rubber was looking better than Massa's after it came off both cars. Now this could have been the engineer telling porkies to try and encourage the driver, but if it were true then it is surprising that Bottas' rubber held up better than Massa's even after he was having to follow him closely for so many laps. It could suggest Massa started on slightly worse rubber (how many laps did each to in quali?), which could give an answer as to why Massa may have been slower than Bottas (it is not skill, just the car, tyres and setup at that particular moment). Massa also came out after the race and said he was quicker on the hards, so he would have had to come back past Bottas anyway, and we all know who was quicker on inters.

[S griffin]

It's a tough one, doing it for the team vs letting drivers race. The Williams way has always been racing so we should be thankful for that.

[chillibowl]

so having a bit of a rethink.

Merc are getting some grief about their dummy pit stop earlier in the race:

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/formula1/33461454

i wonder when the time came to switch over to inters, were Williams worried about being caught out by Merc repeating another fake stop or trying to protect against that scenario...perhaps spending just a bit too much time overthinking it all?