[Official] Team of the Grand Prix: United States Grand Prix 2021

[Born Racer]

Who gets your vote?

[BTCC frog]

Red Bull gets my vote, as they beat Mercedes in a tense battle between the two.

[chillibowl]

Not sure if the team strategist is still Hanna Schimtz, but regardless someone there made an inspired call and the driver delivered...great team win!

[bjohnsonsmith]

RBR, getting the win and both drivers on the podium.

[Neil22]

RBR Honda.

[AndreasDavour]

Mercedes, have you heard the concept of track position and how hard it is to overtake? Not even Lewis can do the impossible, but he almost did. RBR outsmarted this race.

[GT6]

RBR for me, right tactics, two on the podium and no problems

[Aysedasi]

RBR. 1st and 3rd and better strategy.

[TrapezeArtist]

Red Bull. The cars were quick (both of them!) and the strategy was sharp.

[Adam43]

Ultimately I think Red Bull would have won this race whatever their strategy (within reason). A simple undercut to give them track position was enough and they had two chances at that. Mercedes did well to challenge towards the end, but Red Bull would always have the, covered.

[broadrun96]

MB tried to go longer and longer since they weren't ready for the early Max stop. 2 more laps and maybe he had Max but you know how long the race is and how strong the undercut has been so Red Bull by a nose.

I would have argued for some of the midfield making the most of it but they all seemed to fade late, it doesn't have to be the team who won but made the most of their day. But today that was Red Bull

[Adam43]

I was impressed how it didn’t fluster Red Bull, they stuck to their race and had confidence that they could make it work with their star driver. Well played.

[E.B]

RBR by a short nose.
They went with a marginal strategy and the drivers delivered on it, making it an all round team effort that led to a win and double podium.

[chillibowl]

While the undercut is a fairly standard play, the earliness of bringing Max in while leaving LH out there in clean air but then combined with Perez being given a 2nd set of mediums, ostensibly in an attempt to keep Lewis from really running long, was i thought a very unorthodox strategy call.

Typically the front running team opts for the same strategy when their drivers are up front...or at least has been during Merc's reign.

[Aysedasi]

Perhaps I'm just being naive, but I still don't understand that once they saw that Max was coming in, why didn't Mercedes cover it by bringing Lewis straight in? Conceding a hard-fought lead as they did when they eventually did bring Lewis in, their chances of getting Lewis back in front at any point thereafter seemed minimal to me.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

Perhaps I'm just being naive, but I still don't understand that once they saw that Max was coming in, why didn't Mercedes cover it by bringing Lewis straight in? Conceding a hard-fought lead as they did when they eventually did bring Lewis in, their chances of getting Lewis back in front at any point thereafter seemed minimal to me.

just my guess/how i saw it playing out, but i think Merc were caught unprepared by the earliness of Max's stop/undercut attempt. and at that point, even if Merc had responded with their own pit stop on the following lap, Max still would have successfully effected the undercut (i think after Max's outlap the deficit had closed near to or under 20s). essentially, LH failed to break away enough in those early laps to negate this. rather at this early point, a direct response would have changed nothing for Lewis.

thus Merc decided to keep LH out in the hopes that by the end of the race he could make it back by virture of being on a set of tires which were several laps newer (and potentially faster) then where Max would find himself.

not much else to do when you are in the slower car i suppose was the logic.

for me what, changed things was when Perez pitted for another set of mediums. this meant had LH stayed out longer during that first stint, he now risked potentially exiting the pits closer to Perez who would have then had on a faster compound heated up to racing temps. and from what we have seen, Perez can extract a lot out of those long stints.

imo, RB confused the heck out of Merc!

that or Merc realized finishing 2nd was better then 3rd and of course there could always be a mistake, DNF, or a SC to upset RB's lead.

[E.B]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

While the undercut is a fairly standard play, the earliness of bringing Max in while leaving LH out there in clean air but then combined with Perez being given a 2nd set of mediums, ostensibly in an attempt to keep Lewis from really running long, was i thought a very unorthodox strategy call.

Typically the front running team opts for the same strategy when their drivers are up front...or at least has been during Merc's reign.

I think of influence with the mediums call was that pre race I heard Sergio only had one set of new hards available whereas others (including Max) had 2 (new) sets available. So it was always going to be 2 sets of mediums in Sergio's race, but obviously the timing of when to use the second set of mediums was flexible between second and last stint.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by E.B

I think of influence with the mediums call was that pre race I heard Sergio only had one set of new hards available whereas others (including Max) had 2 (new) sets available. So it was always going to be 2 sets of mediums in Sergio's race, but obviously the timing of when to use the second set of mediums was flexible between second and last stint.

had Perez fitted the hards at his first stop, could he have made it to the end i wonder? surely the hards could have lasted longer then Max or LH had used them for?

RB's willingness to implement 2 different weekend programs and race strategies for their drivers is a direct challenge to Merc's rules of engagement. obviously Merc need VB to do more to break things up at the front/give them some more options.

bit of a side thought...

of course they still have the lead in the constructors, but i do wonder that with the budget cap in place, it is surely not as important to win the constructors. rather with a smaller budget does the prize drop from 1st to 2nd matter as much?

maybe even be to the point where the marketing benefits of winning the drivers title while losing the constructors outweighs the decrease in prize revenue?

[TrapezeArtist]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

Perhaps I'm just being naive, but I still don't understand that once they saw that Max was coming in, why didn't Mercedes cover it by bringing Lewis straight in? Conceding a hard-fought lead as they did when they eventually did bring Lewis in, their chances of getting Lewis back in front at any point thereafter seemed minimal to me.

Thinking on it some more, covering Verstappen's stops would have place Hamilton in second, and it's very unlikely he could have passed Verstappen on the same rubber. By going longer they also accepted the second place, but at least were left with the hope of a Safety Car giving them a free stop.

[E.B]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

had Perez fitted the hards at his first stop, could he have made it to the end i wonder? surely the hards could have lasted longer then Max or LH had used them for?

Perhaps the run on mediums was to try and undercut Lewis or at least try to force Lewis to stop earlier / ensure he stopped.

.....maybe even be to the point where the marketing benefits of winning the drivers title while losing the constructors outweighs the decrease in prize revenue?

I think it was Horner was alluding to just that pre Austin.

Edit: In fact to that end just reading that Horner considered pitting Sergio at the end (and giving up his podium) for the sole purpose of taking fastest lap and taking that FL point away from Lewis.... but finally decided giving up the podium for that reason was too brutal on Sergio.
I think it was Silverstone where they sacrificed Sergio's points finsh to pit him very late and get F/L just to stop Lewis from taking the point, even though by stopping he dropped out of the top 10, losing those points and of course with that not getting the benefit point for getting the F/L

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by TrapezeArtist

Thinking on it some more, covering Verstappen's stops would have place Hamilton in second, and it's very unlikely he could have passed Verstappen on the same rubber. By going longer they also accepted the second place, but at least were left with the hope of a Safety Car giving them a free stop.

Maybe. But it just seemed to me that pitting later only meant that they were further behind Max, instead of being much closer. We saw that Hamilton could eat into Verstappen's lead later. Mention was made of Hamilton being in the slower car, but I didn't see too much evidence of that. He was comfortably able to keep Max at bay during the first stint and would probably have caught him at the end him given another 3-4 laps. Of course he did have newer tyres then. But surely a top team shouldn't be caught napping by their main rival's early tyre stop? That's my point.