That was pretty cool. A lot of others seemed to give up too easily; Verstappen hasn't got the memo yet. Also 10/10 for Rosberg for the do and die final attempt, at least from an entertainment perspective.

I think people over-estimate how much of Mercedes' performance is the engine; i.e. they underestimate how good the car is overall. Certainly in the race Vettel and Hamilton looked more or less even, but until he can regularly get on the front row it's not looking even overall.

 

I agree on the over estimation about the engine - the next best customer Mercedes team is behind both Ferrari and Red Bull.

Hamilton won comfortably in the end, I think. In the early laps he was driving a smart race, biding his time and looking after his tyres, not getting too close to Vettel.

Vettel missed the chicane 3 times in total (maybe 4?) which shows how hard he was pushing. Even on much fresher tyres, he was only able to take small bites out of Hamilton's lead with Hamilton responding as necessary in order to maintain a comfortable gap.

 

The Mercedes has some very clever aero. The front wing is very complex and once they managed to get the mounting through the FIA tests (the front wing joins the nose via what appear to be impossibly small mountings) Mercedes managed to optimise the front aero, taking full advantage of the siamesed lower wishbones which minimise turbulence in an area which is critical to guiding the airflow around the lower sidepods which in turn helps to energise the diffuser.

The sidepods are slimmer than other cars because the intercooler is smaller, as are the radiators. This is the benefit of splitting the turbo, keeping the compressor side, and consequently the intake air, cooler.

As a complete package the car is so much better resolved than anything else on the grid. Mercedes outflanked even their own engine customers when the hybrid formula came into being, and only delivered the customer engines late in 2013, giving the likes of Williams and McLaren insufficient time to change their designs to take advantage of the benefits offered by the engine and turbo configuration.

But a Formula 1 car is designed and optimised to run in clean air, and we saw with Rosberg on Sunday that when it's running in traffic the car's advantages are largely nullified.

With regard to my earlier comment on the engines largely having equalised, here is a link to the FIA figures for the event. Take a look at the speed trap figures from qualifying:

http://www.fia.com/events/fia-formul...-information-7

(For some reason it doesn't like being copied and pasted - sorry!)

Allowing for the fact that the Red Bull chassis produces more downforce than the others, and downforce = drag, there's little to choose between the Ferrari and Mercedes engines, and the Renault is right up there.

Next weekend is Baku, in a country steeped in motorsport history and culture, Azerbaijan. Sorry, that should read a country prepared to spend whatever is necessary in order to undertake some preening on the world stage by hosting a Grand Prix. Parts of the circuit look interesting. Parts of it don't.

 

Yes except that downforce doesn't equal drag and far from it.

 

Here you go (interesting that Hamilton was fourth slowest showing that lap times are really about braking performance and cornering speeds, remember, you are spending a lot of time going through a slow corner, so any slight improvement there results in a proportionally greater time saving.
What would be more relevant is the minimum speeds through various corners.


Pos....Driver............Speed

01.....F. MASSA..........336.7

02.....V. BOTTAS.........336.6

03.....S. VETTEL.........335.4

04.....P. WEHRLEIN.......334.9

05.....K. RAIKKONEN......334.4

06.....N. HULKENBERG.....333.3

07.....N. ROSBERG........332.9

08.....C. SAINZ..........332.2

09.....M. VERSTAPPEN.....332.2

10.....S. PEREZ..........332.2

11.....E. GUTIERREZ......332.0

12.....D. RICCIARDO......331.6

13.....M. ERICSSON.......331.2

14.....R. HARYANTO.......331.0

15.....J. PALMER.........331.0

16.....R. GROSJEAN.......331.0

17.....D. KVYAT..........330.9

18.....L. HAMILTON.......330.9

19.....F. NASR...........327.6

20.....J. BUTTON.........327.0

21.....F. ALONSO.........325.3

 

Although this is a video game, it gives a nice representation of the baku layout. Easier to enjoy a race when you are familiar with the circuit.
I liked this video better than that F3-car cruising around the track.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZuStK4qUq8[/media]

 

I'm not convinced by Baku. Too many 90 degree turns around concrete blocks. It makes me think of Valencia and Korea.

Qualifying starts at exactly the same time as LeMans. And the race starts at exactly the same time LeMans finishes. They couldn't have done it worse really.

 

Pirelli are concerned that the length of the main straight will result in tyre problems through the phenomenon of "standing waves"

There's an explanation here: http://www.etyres.co.uk/glossary-tyr...=standing-wave

Pirelli and the FIA have done a good job in preventing the teams abusing the tyres to gain an advantage in recent seasons, and you can be sure that they will instigate some very strict controls and checks at Baku.

 

You see exaggerated standing waves in dragster tyres ...

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyhW-6629UA[/media]
(From 0.54)

 

Serious question, how does a team abuse tyres to gain an advantage?