F1 Fanatic

Lots of talk after the first race about the performance of the Red Bull and McLaren. A lot of commentators and journalists are extrapolating finishing times to current performance and how the season will potentially shape itself.

A lot of the conclusions are that Red Bull is ahead, but not by a lot – since Lewis wasn’t too far behind Vettel at the end and the German didn’t ‘run away with it’. There was a lot of talk about the McLaren miracle of ‘catching’ Red Bull in so little time and after so little testing.

My own opinion is that because of the new engine and gearbox regulations, races will from now only ever be won by 10-15 seconds, and not by the 40sec or 1 lap margins that we would see in the past. Finishing with the car intact and with little wear is as important as the position you finish in.

Is McLaren really that close to a KERS-less Red Bull, or did Vettel coast home in a car that has to still run 19 more times this year.

I see your point, but I’m not sure winning margins ever meant anything. I think the only reason they were often so big is because the disparities in car performance were often much bigger than today, and also because the attrition rate was so high

Winning margins don’t mean anything. They never did. It doesn’t matter if you win by a minute or a second – you still won.

Just to clarify, I didn’t mean that they ‘dont mean anything’ from that perspective, but more about what a winning margin says about the relative performance between teams. for eg. Vettel winning by ‘only’ 22 seconds can not be used to deduce that McLaren are only 0.3-0.4s slower than Red Bull, which is what a lot of the journalists are saying. I’m saying that if Vettel had no concern for engine or gearbox, he probably would have won by a lap (ok being sarcastic, but you get the point)

So I mean that winning margins no longer mean anything in that you can’t read into performance by analyzing them. Most teams tend to coast home once their position is assured, and do just enough to secure it.

The only time we really see anybody push towards the end of a race is the battle for FLAP’s and if there is a possibility of gaining a place

@dennis exactly

@TommyB89 which is what I am saying, he wasn’t “that” far ahead because he didn’t want to be. I’m saying that the days of winning by even a 30 second margin are over not because the cars and drivers can’t do it, but because they choose not to. hence winning margins meaning nothing

I did see an interesting suggestion, some time ago, that instead of awarding points for race finishes, the championship should be decided by aggregating drivers’ race times over the course of the season. Obviously you’d have to have a clever system to factor in lapped drivers and retirements, but it would certainly make drivers push for bigger winning margins!

Hamiltons win in 2008 and was more to do with the conditions than him actually running simply running away with it. If Hamiltons clean in front by the end of the first lap he tends to try to open a gap of around 10-15 seconds and then control the race. In 08 the conditions ment the car wasn’t particularly stressed anyway, an his pace ment he’d got simply tons of heat in his tyres while everyone else poodle about on skates.

Alonso’s quite conservative an will attempt to win a race he’s dominaiting with the absolute minimum effort. Sometimes this results in him absolutley shooting off, sometimes, a good example being his masterclass in Singapore last year, this can result in him balancing infront of his nearest competitor, keeping them on the shortest of leashes but always in controll.

Vettle’s performance advantage an traditionally suspect reliability (nt any more) just results in him carting off then turning everything down.

Why stretch an F1 car if you don’t have to?

F1Fanatic Fact: Of the 80,000 components within the average F1 car around 70-100 of them tend to be malfunctioning when the line up on the grid, the number also tends to drift up as the race goes on.