[Official] Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2015: Weekend Thread

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by steve nielsen

the BRDC president was one of the stewards so Max got penalties for both incidents with BRDC members Button and Hamilton, ridiculous.

Warwick clearly wasn't impartial there.

I saw 1 shot of Hamilton waving behind the Toro Rosso, but he was not even close at that point.

Are you genuinely questioning the intregity of Derek Warwick?

Originally Posted by littleman

Not only that, but in Abu Dhabi, Rosberg finds a whopping 0.742 seconds between Q2 and Q3,while Hamilton, on the other hand, finds 0.144 secs.

Analyse that Mercedes!

There can be no other possible explanation. Are you genuinely saying they hampered Hamilton's chances on purpose?

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by littleman

And I used to believe that Volkswagen produced cars with very low carbon dioxide emissions........it's all in the software.

Hamilton cruises to his third World Title with 3 races still to go, then suddenly gets blown away over what's left of the season.

Not only that, but in Abu Dhabi, Rosberg finds a whopping 0.742 seconds between Q2 and Q3,while Hamilton, on the other hand, finds 0.144 secs.

Analyse that Mercedes!

So if I am counting correctly, for Hamilton to Rosberg wins in 2014 it was 11 to 5 and in 2015 it was 10 to 6 with the two "generally" only having a single place difference between them. The last three races Lewis is "blown away" by his second place finishes by being how far back from the winner? Eight seconds at Abu Dhabi, eight seconds in Brazil and 2 seconds in Mexico. Maybe Lewis should just give up and retire now as he clearly is not even close to this upstart Rosberg fellow?

I am reading an interesting book right now that talks a good bit to statistics and randomness ("The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives" by Leonard Mlodinow). I haven't done the math, but given these two are relatively close to each other (yes, Hamilton has the measure of Rosberg on average, but Rosberg can still win against Hamilton), I suspect that there is no statistical significance to a series of three wins for Rosberg! In fact it probably is to be expected. Check for yourself. Write a simulation in which Hamilton wins 11 times (69%) to Rosberg's 5 (31%) over an entire season. See how many seasons it would take for Rosberg to string together three. Remember Rosberg had two in a row earlier in the season and it would have been three in a row except for Hamilton won in Canada and split the three.

Congratulations to Nico for some good end of season performance and I hope he keeps Hamilton honest next year, but don't read too much into this people!

Richard

PS: Off to adjust my tin hat and hide under my desk from the black helicopters.

[littleman]

In Q1 and Q2 Hamilton was two tenths quicker than Rosberg, about what we've come to expect.

Meantime, Rosberg goes Q1:1.41.111 Q2:1.40.979 Q3: 1.40.237 !!!
Hamilton goes: Q1:1.40.974 Q2:1.40.758 Q3: 1.40.614

How does one driver in an "identical" car suddenly find 0.742 seconds?

Teams like Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren would spend millions finding that sort of performance gain. Rosberg did it between qualifying sessions....I don't know how you can do that.....

[The Snout]

I think Nico has made a great effort in the last three races in improving himself in setting up for the 2016 season.

I think Lewis is a worthy champion who simply has given a lot of achieve the title this year and as soon as the pressure as off after Austin has dropped his game on the off the track just slightly which has shown in the results.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by littleman

In Q1 and Q2 Hamilton was two tenths quicker than Rosberg, about what we've come to expect.

Meantime, Rosberg goes Q1:1.41.111 Q2:1.40.979 Q3: 1.40.237 !!!
Hamilton goes: Q1:1.40.974 Q2:1.40.758 Q3: 1.40.614

How does one driver in an "identical" car suddenly find 0.742 seconds?

Perhaps Kimi could tell you? Or Perez, or Massa. They all found a good chunk of time between Q2 and Q3.

Perhaps the real question is - how does a driver not make a greater improvement between Q2 and Q3?
Given that they have a free set of tyres for Q3, the only driver who failed to improve their time was Carlos Sainz Jr.

[GT6]

Well IMHO if Lewis spent more time working with the engineers and aero people then he would have more input into changes, but he has better things to do so Nico perhaps has the greater input, if lewis wants to be seen as the modern day Senna then perhaps he should look at how he spent his time when not racing.

[gert]

Originally Posted by littleman

In Q1 and Q2 Hamilton was two tenths quicker than Rosberg, about what we've come to expect.

Meantime, Rosberg goes Q1:1.41.111 Q2:1.40.979 Q3: 1.40.237 !!!
Hamilton goes: Q1:1.40.974 Q2:1.40.758 Q3: 1.40.614

How does one driver in an "identical" car suddenly find 0.742 seconds?

Teams like Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren would spend millions finding that sort of performance gain. Rosberg did it between qualifying sessions....I don't know how you can do that.....

I think Nico did not give it 100% in Q2. Neither did Lewis, Nico just drove slower than Lewis.
He also did that in Brasil.

Why? There's no need to drive 100%, the only important thing is to get into top 10. The main thing is to conserve your tires as much as possible since that will be your race set.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by littleman

In Q1 and Q2 Hamilton was two tenths quicker than Rosberg, about what we've come to expect.

Meantime, Rosberg goes Q1:1.41.111 Q2:1.40.979 Q3: 1.40.237 !!!
Hamilton goes: Q1:1.40.974 Q2:1.40.758 Q3: 1.40.614

How does one driver in an "identical" car suddenly find 0.742 seconds?

Teams like Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren would spend millions finding that sort of performance gain. Rosberg did it between qualifying sessions....I don't know how you can do that.....

If you look at the overall largest delta within qualifying (Max Q time - Min Q time) you can see even larger differences (past three races as I don't have the time to show a larger sample)....

Race	Driver	Q1	Q2	Q3	Max	Min	Delta
Abu Dhabi	Hamilton	100.974	100.758	100.614	100.974	100.614	-0.36
Abu Dhabi	Rosberg	101.111	100.979	100.237	101.111	100.237	-0.874
Brazil	Hamilton	71.682	71.665	71.36	71.682	71.36	-0.322
Brazil	Rosberg	71.746	72.213	71.282	72.213	71.282	-0.931
Mexico	Hamilton	80.808	79.829	79.668	80.808	79.668	-1.14
Mexico	Rosberg	80.436	80.053	79.48	80.436	79.48	-0.956

What can you glean from this? I am not sure. I guess you can say that maybe in general Rosberg tends to have a wider range between his fastest and slowest Q times while Hamilton has a smaller range. That 1.14 seconds in Mexico is huge. A much larger than difference than Rosberg in Abu Dhabi. Rosberg also did 0.93 in Brazil. What does that mean? Are big Q delta's unique or even important?

The point is... For the reasons mentioned in the posts above, if you understand how qualifying works, it becomes clear that it is likely a mostly pointless value if you are trying to come to large conclusions. There is no doubt that interesting data can be extracted from practice, qualifying and race timing data, however this metric is likely of low value.

Richard

[Mike Harte]

For those interested in statistics, it is interesting that, considering that the car is believed to be one of the slowest of this year's crop, the McLaren of Alonso managed to achieve the 3rd fastest lap of the race (lap 52), just 0.279 of a second slower than Hamilton on lap 44.

And during today's tyre test, Vandoorne in the McLaren was fastest on 1min 44.003s, which was nearly half a second quicker than Hamilton's time on Sunday. Surely it means that the McLaren can't be all that of a dog, can it?

[gert]

I don't know why but the McLaren seemed pretty competitive in Abu Dhabi.
Alonso was fast in practice as well, but sadly couldn't prove it in qualifying (puncture) or in the race (1st corner accident)

Button was hanging in near the top 10 and never got embarrassed.

So, it's not really a surprise that Vandoorne is fast too?

If it is only working at this track, that would be a shame for them.
Otherwise, they have probably made some genuine progress.

[littleman]

Hamilton himself is now saying he's lost 0.5 second.

I don't think he believes this for one moment, it's far more serious than that.
I'm no Hamilton disciple, but when a driver starts to have trust issues with his team, then it becomes a psychological problem that's very hard to cure.

If Rosberg starts next season how he finished 2015, then I fully expect fireworks in the Mercedes camp......even to the point where Hamilton quits.

[S griffin]

I'll reserve judgement till next year. If he's being beaten, I'll put it down to the fact he has won the three titles he is after and so doesn't need another one

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by littleman

Hamilton himself is now saying he's lost 0.5 second.

I don't think he believes this for one moment, it's far more serious than that.
I'm no Hamilton disciple, but when a driver starts to have trust issues with his team, then it becomes a psychological problem that's very hard to cure.

If Rosberg starts next season how he finished 2015, then I fully expect fireworks in the Mercedes camp......even to the point where Hamilton quits.

We all know Hamilton has a sulky, petulant side to him if things don't go his way. Hopefully, with three WDCs under his belt and this year's being pretty much gifted, he has grown up and can take the rough with the smooth.

The alternative is Rosberg quitting, if he has to play second fiddle to Hamilton, again.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

We all know Hamilton has a sulky, petulant side to him if things don't go his way. Hopefully, with three WDCs under his belt and this year's being pretty much gifted, he has grown up and can take the rough with the smooth.

The alternative is Rosberg quitting, if he has to play second fiddle to Hamilton, again.

I really believe that Mercedes are just manipulating the results and some engine maps are different from the others despite having the same values on the dash.
Motor Racing fully corporatized!

[Adam43]

When did they start doing this and who decided to do it?

[John Turner]

[wnut]

Originally Posted by Adam43

When did they start doing this and who decided to do it?

http://au.eurosport.com/formula-1/wo...54/story.shtml

When asked whether Mercedes could keep a lid on the simmering tensions between its drivers, Wolff said: "Yes. Absolutely. They are part of a very large organisation and I have 110 per cent confidence that it will not be to the detriment of the team."


Monaco 2014, Mssrs. Wolff and Lauda protecting their investment would be my guess.

Funny how there was plenty of needle and Rosberg regularly outqualified Hamilton till this point, then fell off despite them being allowed to race one another.

The change in form at the end of the season, proving to the WDC that he is expendable if necessary.

Still that is only my opinion.

This is the worst case of a team dominating F1 we have ever seen, 15 consecutive front row lock outs, unheard of.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by wnut

This is the worst case of a team dominating F1 we have ever seen, 15 consecutive front row lock outs, unheard of.

Assuming that is true (haven't looked up the stats) and I see no reason to doubt it...

Then the question is... Why would Mercedes risk being discovered embarking upon a level of shenanigans (running different levels of engine code than what is being presented during scrutineering) that would have potential huge championship implications (loss of points with many teams pushing for exclusion from championship) all to stroke driver egos? Explain the risk vs. reward on that one.

It makes zero sense. Especially as there is a ton of other ways to "fix" the performance of the cars to favor a driver (of which I highly doubt happened anyhow) without running afoul of the FIA.

It still amazes me that people gravitate to the "conspiracy theory" solutions when the straight up fact is that nobody is going to be on their "A" game at all times. And that competition is high in this sport. Are we to next question ANY of Rosberg's wins? Clearly something is up that he managed to out qualify and beat Hamilton on occasion?

We don't just need the "Is Hamilton popular?" thread, but a "Have his fan's lost their marbles?" thread. God help us if this is what we talk about during the off season.



Richard

[John Turner]

Good post, Richard.

[Adam43]

All the circumstantial evidence is kind of there. Guilty.

[bauble]

[QUOTE] [Then the question is... Why would Mercedes risk being discovered embarking upon a level of shenanigans (running different levels of engine code than what is being presented during scrutineering) that would have potential huge championship implications (loss of points with many teams pushing for exclusion from championship) all to stroke driver egos? Explain the risk vs. reward on that one.
/QUOTE]

Hmmmm! There is some previous here Richard, with German companies fooling the 'scrutineers'.

Anyway when it comes to conspiracy I am still convinced that Nico's mistake that allowed Lewis past in the USA was 'manufactured' so that Hamilton would clinch the Championship with a win. He would not have been happy winning another title by coming behind his team mate. Definite bias there.

PS; Why can you not add smileys when editing?

[dsg]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Then the question is... Why would Mercedes risk being discovered embarking upon a level of shenanigans (running different levels of engine code than what is being presented during scrutineering) that would have potential huge championship implications (loss of points with many teams pushing for exclusion from championship) all to stroke driver egos? Explain the risk vs. reward on that one.

While I have no idea if Mercedes are manipulating the power output of their driver's engines, we already know Mercedes can run 2 different levels of engine code and both of them can still be fully legal.

They would just need to use the mapping they supply to all their customer teams.

[TrapezeArtist]

Never suspect a conspiracy until you have eliminated incompetence.

In this case the "incompetence" is just a micro-level difference in driver performance. The difference between all drivers these days is minute, and between Hamilton and Rosberg it is positively nano. It may be the tyre pressure restrictions suit Rosberg more, or Hamilton has lifted off now he has the championship, or he's getting burnt out by all the extra-curricular jollying, or Rosberg has raised himself by taking away the championship pressure, or ....

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by bauble

Hmmmm! There is some previous here Richard, with German companies fooling the 'scrutineers'.

Well... Yes. But I think the potential "reward" was much higher for VW (assuming that is what you are talking about!)

Originally Posted by bauble

Anyway when it comes to conspiracy I am still convinced that Nico's mistake that allowed Lewis past in the USA was 'manufactured' so that Hamilton would clinch the Championship with a win. He would not have been happy winning another title by coming behind his team mate. Definite bias there.

Its been long enough that I can't remember exactly what all happened at the US GP (I didn't watch it live and fast forwarded through much of it). Rosberg ran wide under pressure if I remember correctly? It seemed natural enough. I think there is precedence for Rosberg having issues when under pressure.

Regardless, a driver taking a dive under command (even if not happy about it) does happen. And there is even other situations in which its not even hidden. Usually is is the "cars are on different strategy" stuff when someone effectively gets a wave by pass on a teammate.

And... we are hyper focused on those who unfairly prevented Hamilton from winning every race this year (sorry, I can't help but to keep poking), but there is also the stuff that goes on between teams such as the stuff with Audi DTM in Moscow. The entire "push him out" thing. How much of that goes on in F1 and we just don't see or notice it?

Originally Posted by dsg

While I have no idea if Mercedes are manipulating the power output of their driver's engines, we already know Mercedes can run 2 different levels of engine code and both of them can still be fully legal.

They would just need to use the mapping they supply to all their customer teams.

They could. But I expect that is too heavy handed to do within a factory team. A less overt way is things like "we only have one of the new development parts" type of stuff. But you see teams like McLaren doing what I think is round robin style in that they take turns if there is a shortage.

Is it possible odd stuff was going on recently within Mercedes? Sure. I still believe that its just more likely that Hamilton has not been on top form (he has given a few good lifestyle related examples for sure) and that Nico has been on better form.

Richard

[Adam43]

Derek Bell talks about the theories about Mercedes favouring drivers in the latest Octane magazine.