Episode 18 of the 2017 Strategy Podcast: by Apex Race Manager provides insight & analysis of strategic decisions made during the 2017 Mexican Grand Prix.

Our host Michael Lamonato is joined by Terry Saunders from For F1’s Sake

If you like the podcast, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

For full written report about the strategy plays in this race, and detailed data (including all the stints and tyre choices) click here. All of our previous F1 Strategy Report Podcasts are here.

APEX Race Manager – it’s out now on iOS & Android.

Contact us on twitter @strategyreport.

31 Oct 2017

Race 18 – 71 Laps – 4.304km per lap – 305.354km race distance – low tyre wear

Mexican GP F1 Strategy Report Podcast – our host Michael Lamonato is joined by Terry Saunders from For F1’s Sake

THE OUTLOOK

The 2017 Mexican Grand Prix decided the drivers championship in Lewis Hamilton’s favour, but it was far from the straightforward affair the permutations predicted before the race.

With a 66-point lead Hamilton needed only to finish fifth if Vettel won from pole or ninth if Vettel finished second, but a first-lap tangle between the two protagonists sent both hurtling down the order. Though the Ferrari demonstrated blistering pace in its recovery, it wasn’t enough to score the necessary points to take the championship one more round.

PRE-RACE EXPECTATIONS

Had you played a drinking game for the number of times TV commentators referenced the thinness of the air at the altitude of Mexico City (approximately 23 per cent less oxygen at 2250 metres above sea level, for the record), you’d have been well cooked by the end of the race. That said, the lack of atmospheric pressure does have a bearing on the race.

In thinner air the turbocharger must work harder to keep the engine generating the same amount of power, and this task is made even more difficult because the lack of air mass makes cooling more difficult.

Further, despite the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez being a power circuit, cars are configured for maximum downforce because so little aerodynamic performance can be scavenged in the thin air — and even then drivers still complain of poor grip.

Ferrari and Red Bull Racing were tipped to do well given their preference for high downforce tracks, and practice and qualifying proved this the case, putting Mercedes on the back foot.

This track is extremely easy on the tyres. The soft had endurance to last the entire race, and the ultrasoft and supersoft compounds could easily reach half distance.

THE RACE

First-lap chaos forces strategy calls

The first-lap melee decided the complexion of the race. By lap four Hamilton, Vettel, Sainz and Massa had all stopped with various damaged parts, setting themselves up for compromised one-stop races by switching to the soft tyre. Pascal Wehrlein also made an early switch — a favourite tactic of Sauber’s to attempt to finish the race with a ‘no-stop’ strategy.

The lack of tyre degradation meant both Massa and Wehrlein were able to finish the race without pitting behind the VSC, which earnt them three and two places respectively by the end of the race.

Vettel and Hamilton, however — as we’ve learnt this season from numerous back-of-the-field recoveries — have the pace to essentially run their own races and still pass the midfield, so both switched behind the VSC. Vettel took new ultrasofts, but Hamilton had only a new set of supersofts available, taking the red-marked tyres instead.

For Vettel this was the optimum outcome — he lost no positions after his pit stop and continued his climb afterwards, setting the fastest lap in the process. Hamilton likewise befitted from the stop, moving from 16th to ninth in the final stint.

Elsewhere, Räikkönen suffered a poor start, losing positions to both Force India cars and to Nico Hülkenberg. He recovered them only when the Renault retired and Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez made early pit stops.

Inversely, Ricciardo and Magnussen both made sizzling starts, making up nine and five places respectively in the opening four laps. Ricciardo’s ultimate pace will remain a mystery, however, after he retired on lap five, but at least Magnussen converted his start into points.

Overtaking difficult due to altitude

Managing an overheating car was a critical part of the race — Red Bull Racing was constantly warning Max Verstappen against pushing for the fastest lap, a command the Dutchman cheekily refused — and this undoubtedly contributed to Renault’s three in-race power unit failures.

Hamilton’s struggles in the first stint of the race were also testament to this. On the hardest tyre and with a damaged diffuser he didn’t have the pace to make a pass on Carlos Sainz — following another car always robs a driver of downforce, and on a circuit where downforce is at a premium, Lewis found himself stuck without any pace differentiator.

VSC was decisive for early gamblers

The lap-31 virtual safety car, triggered by Brendon Hartley’s smoky Toro Rosso, was the decisive strategic element in this race. For some — in particular those who stopped in the opening laps — it paid off, allowing them to gain places while their nearby rivals stopped.

However, Force India found the VSC poorly timed.

Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon had stopped from fifth and third on laps 18 and 20 respectively in an effort to make it to the end, but because they were the only ones to do so — other than Nico Hülkenberg, who retired shortly after his stop — they lost their shot at competing with Kimi Räikkönen for the podium.

Instead Ocon finished fifth behind Vettel and Perez came home two places further back, the duo separated by Williams’s Lance Stroll

Stroll, on his 19th birthday, benefitted greatly from the VSC. After moving up four places in the opening lap, Williams held its nerve, choosing not to pit the Canadian with his Renault and Force India rivals. He made up three places when they stopped and lost only one place, to Ocon, during his own stop under VSC.

Marcus Ericsson also lost out from the VSC, losing a top-10 place when he stopped three laps before Hartley’s retirement — but the Swede retired with an engine fire on lap 55, rendering the argument purely hypothetical.

McLaren fumble on points

McLaren had a mixed day despite fielding a surprisingly competitive car — Fernando Alonso put the performance down to the chassis, but the Honda power unit also looked relatively feisty.

Alonso’s supersoft-ultrasoft strategy way racy and delivered the goods with P10, but Stoffel Vandoorne missed a chance to back him up in P11 after a particularly slow pit stop — the Belgian was called in late due to the timing of the VSC and lost five seconds and a position to Felipe Massa as a result.

Michael Lamonato @MichaelLamonato

ESSENTIAL STATS

Pole position:    Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Winner:               Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Strategy:               One-stop — Ultrasoft – Supersoft
Fastest lap:         Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari — 1:18.785 (lap record)

RACE DATA

Thanks to Pirelli Motorsport

STINTS BY DRIVER

Episode 17 of the 2017 Strategy Podcast: by Apex Race Manager provides insight & analysis of strategic decisions made during the 2017 United States Grand Prix.

Our host Michael Lamonato is joined by Nathan Harper from Beermogul Games

If you like the podcast, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

For full written report about the strategy plays in this race, and detailed data (including all the stints and tyre choices) click here. All of our previous F1 Strategy Report Podcasts are here.

APEX Race Manager – it’s out now on iOS & Android.

Contact us on twitter @strategyreport.

24 Oct 2017

Race 17 – 56 Laps – 5.513km per lap – 308.405km race distance – medium tyre wear

US GP F1 Strategy Report Podcast – our host Michael Lamonato is joined by Nathan Harper from Beermogul Games

THE OUTLOOK

The 2017 championships hurtled towards their inevitable conclusions at the 2017 United States Grand Prix, with Mercedes claiming the long-assured constructors title and Hamilton as good as taking home the drivers trophy with a cruisy first-place finish.

Though Ferrari stood both its drivers on the podium, the 2017 Austin race was one of the team’s most painful defeats, knowing as it does that Vettel’s title hopes have been all but snuffed out by a Mercedes rediscovering the mojo that abandoned it in Asia.

PRE-RACE EXPECTATIONS

The Circuit of the Americas is an all-round favourite of Formula One. Not only is Austin an immensely popular destination, but the track itself, a Hermann Tilke design, is technically challenging but open enough to allow overtaking.

Temperatures were warm when it wasn’t raining, which pushed the race into two-stop territory given the ultrasoft and supersoft tyres are low working range compounds.

Lewis Hamilton won with a one-stop strategy, however, and though two-stop races played a major part in the top five, only four drivers committed to the two-stop and for none of them did it have any great effect.

Verstappen carried an engine penalty that had him start at the back, and he qualified on the supersoft tyre in Q2 to give him a strategic way back to the front in the race — though as has been the case in previous races, his car’s pace was more than enough to float him back to the top regardless of strategy.

THE RACE

Tyre conservation was key

The grand prix was a marginal race between one and two stops thanks in part to the conditions pushing the tyres and the relative ease of overtaking.

Though Mercedes was concerned with the viability of a one-stop, Hamilton, given he was largely untroubled, made his lap-19 stop for softs last. His secret, he said, was simply not pushing so hard, something Vettel didn’t have the luxury of doing.

“I could see him pushing,” Hamilton said of those first six laps behind Vettel. “I’m thinking, ‘I’m pretty good on my tyres right now, and he’s going too quick through that corner so he’s going to kill his tyres’, and that’s what he did.”

Vettel’s Ferrari simply wasn’t fast enough to keep the Mercedes behind on equal terms, which pushed the team into an unlikely two-stop race that almost, if temporarily, delivered the goods.

Ferrari almost undercut Hamilton

Pitting from five seconds behind Hamilton and calling it an undercut was ambitious, but Mercedes and Hamilton wanting to extend the first stint as far as possible to mitigate the risk of running out of tyres by the end almost lost them the lead, albeit.

Vettel set two fastest laps in succession on new tyres to cut the gap to just 0.8 seconds as Hamilton emerged from his pit stop two laps later.

Hamilton jumped on team radio to query why he was allowed to fall so far back — and indeed Vettel almost outsmarted Mercedes by blitzing his final third sector by taking generously wide line out of the last turn — but in reality it was perfectly judged to give Hamilton an extra lap of tyre life.

All season Hamilton has been comfortable with the soft tyre, and by the end of his out lap he was already 1.5 seconds ahead of Vettel and only grew the gap from there.

Verstappen’s rise to the top triggers the second stops

Max Verstappen started on the supersoft tyre from P16 and made up 10 places in the first 10 laps to put himself on the tail of the frontrunners. When teammate Daniel Ricciardo retired and the remaining five podium contenders made their stops, he led the race, pushing his opening stint to 24 laps in an attempt to complete the classic one-stop contrastrategy in the style of Vettel’s recovery in Malaysia.

His pace on the soft was good, but 13 laps later he switched to a new set of supersoft tyres — Ricciardo had struggled on the ultrasofts early in the race and Verstappen had shown good pace on the supersofts at the start of the race anyway — in an effort to shake the tree ahead of him.

Ferrari, unable to catch Hamilton ahead but panicked by Verstappen, pitted Vettel to cover the Dutchman, emerging 1.6 seconds up the road.

In retrospect it wasn’t necessary, however — Vettel finished further behind Hamilton than he was before the stop and Verstappen was held up by Räikkönen, leaving him what would have been four seconds behind the Ferrari, excluding the time lost via penalty for passing Kimi off the track.

The loser in this battle, however, was Bottas, who languished on soft tyres that rapidly degraded due to all the fighting. He was forced to change to new tyres on lap 52.

Force India’s team orders

Force India again enacted team orders to prevent its drivers from clashing, but this week it lost points in doing so.

Not for the first time Perez proved faster in race trim than Ocon, but with the latter having qualified higher, the Mexican found himself stuck behind his teammate halfway through the race and lapping around 0.8 seconds off his potential pace. Perez called to be allowed past, but the team was sticking fast to its no-racing policy since the pair’s skirmishes earlier in the season.

The result was that Carlos Sainz, on tyres seven laps younger, closed by a couple of tenths a lap until he was able to pass Perez on lap 33, though the new Renault driver was unable to pass the Frenchman ahead.

Perez gradually fell behind the battling young guns and into the clutches of Felipe Massa, who had made his sole stop on lap 29 for ultrasoft tyres — and ambitious plan that paid dividends — though the Brazilian was unable to get the job done in the final five laps they sparred.

Michael Lamonato @MichaelLamonato

ESSENTIAL STATS

Pole position:    Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes — 1:33.108
Winner:                 Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes — 1:33:50.991
Strategy:               One-stop — Ultrasoft – Soft
Fastest lap:         Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari — 1:37.766 (lap record)

LONGEST STINTS

Ultrasoft: Vandoorne (30 laps)
Supersoft: Massa (29 laps)
Soft: Magnussen (48 laps)

RACE DATA

Thanks to Pirelli Motorsport

STINTS BY DRIVER