Why were Mercedes so slow in a straight line?
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Throughout this weekend the Mercs straight line speed has been poor and that carried through to the race. In the first speed trap, Hamilton was 3rd from bottom whereas the Red Bull’s were amongst the quickest. It just seems bizzare that Mercedes who are renowed for their straight line speed seemed to suffer from just that this weekend. Either they made a setup compromise early on antiscipating a wet race, or they genuienly struggled with thier straight line speed. Anyhow Spa and Monza require one-off packages and which ever team almost lucks into the best compromise between straight line speed and downforce do best and that was clearly RBR spa.
I think the speed trap was placed at the top of Eau Rouge rather than at the end of a straight, so the speed trap figures were a long way from representing the cars’ top speeds. Can anyone confirm this…?
Mercedes were not slower. Speed trap is at the top of Eau Rouge. RBR were very fast through there and Mercedes very poor. S1 detection is at the end of the Kemmel straight and the speeds of the cars through there are available: HAM – 316,9; VET – 314,2. Was DRS activated at the time? Most likely. Fastest through there is Sutil with 322,2; Alonso managed 320,3.
Mercs were running more wing than anyone else, and for Vettel to be still slower than Hamilton, despite having a cigarette paper for a rear wing really does suggest that Merc wasn’t slow at all.
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