planetf1.com

From motorsport.com. The below passage by Hamilton really puts into context how hard drivers are working around the lap to get maximum efficiency out of their packages.

ON COPING WITH CONSTANTLY CHANGING SETTINGS...
"Yeah, that's probably the hardest thing. It is strange because I look at a lot of other drivers, and all of us F1 drivers look at the onboard laps of the other drivers in the previous years.

"A lot of the drivers don't spend time with manoeuvres in terms of the adjustments. I think Ferrari has a flick on the back of their steering wheel, but I move a lot.

"In each corner there’s a limitation to what you can do. If you're going to be [at] very high speed, you have a lot of downforce on some of the corners, so you have more slip when the brake balance is further forward at the front end. Or at some corners you have more on the rear end, like Brazil for example. Let me take you through a lap of Interlagos.

"So Turn 1 I have the brake balance I think like 56%, and we have brake migration and engine braking. So I have those three all set. I go through Turns 1, 2, 3 and coming out of Turn 3 I adjust my engine braking one step up, move my brake migration one step forward. And then I'm going to move my brake balance forwards and really, really quick.

"Then you go through Turns 4, 5, 6, and 7, and just before you get to Turn 8 I move the brake balance rearwards because you put a lot of temperature in the front tyres as you come through, so you don't want front-locking.

"Then go through Turn 8 and 9 and, as you go from Turn 9 to 10, you have to move the brake balance rearwards again, and also the migration rearwards because this is a really tight corner.

"Then coming out of Turn 10, through Turn 11 and down to Turn 12, I move the brake balance forwards. As we come into the last corner, again it's all about the exit.

"I'm constantly trying to explore. You have to be able to focus on hitting the apexes and the braking points perfectly, and adjusting these things has taken a lot of time to practice. You have to have extra bandwidth, you know, in your focus region, to be able to do those and get them perfect."

This is a pretty cool insight. If only Sky dedicated some time giving technical insights to their 100 minute pre-race show rather than their usual shenanigans.

I found it interesting that, contrary to Lewis's usual pattern, Hammer Time came at the start of the year with Lewis winning six of the first eight races. Usually Lewis goes on a tear from the summer break on, but he had some real competition this year from Max, Charles, and Valtteri.

I don't know if that bodes well for next year that other drivers where strong when Lewis is usually strong, or some other dynamic.

Lewis will be fine, as long as Merc give him a car that is there or thereabouts. He could have had a lot more wins this year if there wasn't such a straight line speed discrepancy between the Merc and Ferrari. He was by quite a good margin the fastest driver car combination during the races. The many times he was outqualified, he always pushed the car he started behind of on race day and that includes the flying dutchman as well. To me Lewis is far ahead of the field, not only he has the talent but he has gobs of experience and of course Merc gives him a tremendous car. Challengers should realistically look at 2021 for a chance at dethroning him when there is going to be a major shakeup. I'll be surprised if he doesn't walk it next year again.

I would agree and your forecast for next year is probably a pretty safe prediction. Any serious challenge to Lewis in 2020 will be somewhat of a surprise to me.

Yes, the teams will spend most of their resources for the 2021 changes, no apple carts will be hugely upset next year. It feels like it will be a copy of this year, maybe the teams will experiment/test with some 2021 parts, but I don't see any major changes.

I found it interesting that, contrary to Lewis's usual pattern, Hammer Time came at the start of the year with Lewis winning six of the first eight races. Usually Lewis goes on a tear from the summer break on, but he had some real competition this year from Max, Charles, and Valtteri.

I don't know if that bodes well for next year that other drivers where strong when Lewis is usually strong, or some other dynamic.

I found it interesting that, contrary to Lewis's usual pattern, Hammer Time came at the start of the year with Lewis winning six of the first eight races. Usually Lewis goes on a tear from the summer break on, but he had some real competition this year from Max, Charles, and Valtteri.

I don't know if that bodes well for next year that other drivers where strong when Lewis is usually strong, or some other dynamic.

Was Lewis actually slower in qualifying in 2019? Or was his qualifying average and score against Bottas basically the same with the only difference being the timing of performances, with Bottas being timely on occasions where the car had chances for pole, and Hamilton putting one of his hottest stretches of qualifying in whilst Ferrari were faster and Leclerc was knocking it out the park...??

Anyone got the stats for average qualifying gaps over the 2017, 2018 and 2019 seasons between Hamilton and Bottas?

2017
Hamilton > Bottas 0.2s (12-6)

2018
Hamilton > Bottas 0.16s (13-5)

2019
Hamilton > Bottas 0.12s (14-7)

Nice one.

Do you attribute this to Hamilton getting slower, Bottas getting faster, a bit of both, or just natural variance within the bounds of "error" so to speak?

It could just be natural variance or simply Bottas working hard to close the gap on the back of studying Hamilton's data as he himself as intimated, to that end next year should throw more light on what might be the case?

What might interest you is if we compare Bottas with Alonso, Massa was teammates with Bottas for 3 years and teammates with Alonso for 4 years, from these years we get this:-

Alonso > Bottas 0.11s

This gives you an idea of Bottas' level so Hamilton's level in 2019 isn't really that shabby.

2017
Hamilton > Bottas 0.2s (12-6)

2018
Hamilton > Bottas 0.16s (13-5)

2019
Hamilton > Bottas 0.12s (14-7)

Given that Hamilton was settled in the team I'm guessing it has more to do with Bottas improving than Hamilton declining. The main thing Bottas managed to do this year though was take advantage of genuine opportunities for pole. We can see that the general score between them is pretty much the same.

And yeah, that's a very interesting comparison. I figured Hamilton probably has the edge on pace over Alonso, at least over one lap. Not that it's an exact science but here there's many years of data with the same pairings to go by. It also shows that Bottas is very handy over a single lap.

If that pattern continues then Bottas will be less than a tenth behind next year which means he is more likely to beat Lewis in qualy more often than this year.

It is interesting that of the 7 times Bottas beat Hamilton, five of them he was on pole position with Hamilton directly behind him on four of those occasions. Is that just a random coincidence or something to do with Hamilton performing better when the car is more capable of pole?

Yeah I believe Hamilton was beating Bottas at the time of the Ferrari domination of qualifying, just bad timing for Hamilton, pole positions alone can't tell the full story otherwise we'd be saying that Ricciardo was a better qualifier than Verstappen last year despite the reality that Ricciardo got a bit of a thrashing.

I would say that Bottas is the best qualifier out of what we may consider the tier 2 drivers, that's drivers below the top 5, the only exception to that might be Russell?

Yeh, we have no reliable benchmark yet for Russell but it's still noteworthy that he whitewashed his teammate. I suspect he's very quick but the jury is still out. Who knows - perhaps he'll partner Hamilton as early as 2021.

I would have thought more of the opposite that Bottas performs better when the car is more capable of pole, other than that I just put it down to coincidence.

As for the averages they tend to variance more than being lineal as such, the average is just as likely to go back up next year.

Nice one.

Do you attribute this to Hamilton getting slower, Bottas getting faster, a bit of both, or just natural variance within the bounds of "error" so to speak?

It was the usual pattern, it was just masked a bit due to a competitive Ferrari and Red Bull. His performance was stronger against Bottas as the year went on.

He had his traditional slow start, both he and Bottas had two wins and two seconds in the first 4 races. Bottas out qualified Hamilton 3-2 in the first 5 races. After 10 races that was 4-6 in Hamiltons favour

Hamilton has crushed Bottas post summer break...
He battled for all 9 races wins post summer break. Bottas battled for 2 wins and took them both. Hamilton out qualfiied him 7-2.

This is a pretty cool insight. If only Sky dedicated some time giving technical insights to their 100 minute pre-race show rather than their usual shenanigans.

It was the usual pattern, it was just masked a bit due to a competitive Ferrari and Red Bull. His performance was stronger against Bottas as the year went on.

He had his traditional slow start, both he and Bottas had two wins and two seconds in the first 4 races. Bottas out qualified Hamilton 3-2 in the first 5 races. After 10 races that was 4-6 in Hamiltons favour

Hamilton has crushed Bottas post summer break...
He battled for all 9 races wins post summer break. Bottas battled for 2 wins and took them both. Hamilton out qualfiied him 7-2.

The points certainly don't show this though.
Since the summer break, Hamilton has scored 25 more points than Bottas. That is despite Bottas retiring in Brazil and having a grid penalty in Abu Dhabi. Given the Ferrari's crashed in brazil as well as the other chaos, Bottas will quite possibly have sneaked up to as high as 2nd which would have given him 18 points, but just so it looks like i'm not being too generous, lets say he gets 4th which I think will have been the minimum he could have got and 12 points. Without the penalty in Abu dhabi, he will have been a comfortable 2nd or with a slim chance of a win if he'd jumped Hamilton off the start. But this race will have been a certain 18 points. So another 6 added.

Add those 18 points and he will have got 7 less than Hamilton. Even if you start adjusting a few races for Hamilton where things didn't go that well (singapore and japan for example) the points gap to Bottas in this stage of the season still will be pretty small.

Hamilton has certainly overall done better at this stage of the season, but he really hasn't crushed Bottas results wise.

If you are counting Italy as Hamilton battling for the win, you should also say Bottas battled for the win as he was closer to the winning position than Hamilton was. Bottas may not have been able to get as close, but he did at least have a few attempts. Given Hamilton in the end lost out more than Bottas, i don't think you should count this race in favour of Hamilton. Running so close for so long is what gave him a worse result than Bottas. If he held back and looked after his tyres, he likely could have at least beaten Bottas.

In Italy Hamilton performed way better than Bottas and it takes some serious mental gymnastics to try and make a case otherwise. Hamilton pressured Leclerc for half the race and was only kept behind because Charles broke the rules. Had he kept to the rules Hamilton would have easily beaten Bottas.

Points aren’t performance... Albon would have out scored Max if not for Brazil crash with Hamilton I believe. So that tells you everything about points.

But yes Italy sums it up best. Hamilton battling for the win all race with Bottas a distant 3rd all race, but through pushing the limits of his tyres to win and getting pushed off track it ended Bottas P2 and Hamilton P3. Likewise Singapore, Hamilton in for the win if they pit him at the right time but it ends P4 and P5 due to poor strategy. Spa, again Hamilton fighting for win and Bottas a distant 3rd.

Bottas has been in the fight for the win 2 times in 9 races. Hamilton 9 out of 9, I think he lead all 9 races at some point. In 6-7 of those 9 races, there was another car between Bottas and Hamilton or a large gap.

I may be the opposite, but you do seem a bit like you really try to point out Bottas's negatives at times. And not always correctly. Italy, a distant 3rd ALL race? 11 laps in he still was a fraction of a second off getting DRS from Hamilton. He didn't drop back any more that 2 seconds in this stint. As you point out Hamilton has often led a race (which isn't always down to him earning the position). Well Bottas was leading it for a few laps in this case. When he pitted, he was 8 seconds behind Hamilton in 4th. By the time he was 3rd, it dropped to 5 seconds when Ricciardo pitted during the VSC. Meanwhile, just before this, Bottas had done fastest lap. Within 10 laps Bottas had caught and passed Hamilton.

You saying Bottas was a distant 3rd all race really is not accurate.

I am fully aware Hamilton likely will have had had more pace in hand and was stuck behind Leclerc, but as other drivers like Verstappen got away with a warning at this track last year, maybe it is fair that Leclerc got away with similar first time he does it. Bottas may also have had a slightly better strategy, but he made it work pretty well and got a better result than Hamilton. You are making him look worse than he was that race. Given that Hamilton was stuck behind Leclerc, all we actually know is that Bottas could keep up with Hamilton in the 1st stint, and caught up and got by in the 2nd stint. I think this is a good enough case for me to make a point that I think bottas overall did a betetr job that race despite Hamilton putting more pressure on Leclerc and likely being quicker.

But I agree there are not many weekends where Hamilton isn't a fair bit quicker with it more clearly slowing that.

What did Bottas do better than Hamilton?

To me Italy was a perfect demonstration of a great driver Vs a good one. Hamilton pressured Leclerc and could sit in the DRS for just about the whole second part of the race. Bottas could barely get within a second of Leclerc and when he did he couldn't stay there.

I don't want to drag this out too much, but Bottas did have a bit of a disadvantage in that every time he was within DRS range of Leclerc, leclerc has DRS from a lapped driver. I also think hamilton had more of an opportunity to get by than Bottas did when Leclerc has first pitted. As leclerc didn't have DRS at this stage and his hard tyres won't have been fully warmed up and they were also a harder compound. This will have come to leclerc's advantage near the end of the race, and as Bottas said, him closing up the gap to them got the best out of his tyres and I don't think he had any more of an opportunity than Hamilton did. Plus as I mentioned, it wasn't helped that Leclerc had DRS to help out, otherwise Bottas may have had a chance. Just before the last corner of lap 50, bottas was within 0.6 seconds of Leclerc, despite leclerc getting a tow, that gap decreased slightly over the start / finish straight. This is where I feel Bottas will have got by if Leclerc was not aided by the Mclaren in front. Hamilton had more chances earlier IMO on without any lapped drivers giving Leclerc a tow. But it looked really triecky for either to get by. Hamilton could stay closer for longer, but that had a negative effect. That negative effect is the reason why i am not rating this race as a good one for Hamilton. He ruined his tyres by doing a "great job" at staying so close to Leclerc. Thn Bottas gets criticized for not doing it. This sounds pretty silly to me if I'm honest.

I still think Hamilton was quicker that race, but I don't think anything will change my mind to make me think that Hamilton comfortably outperformed Bottas on this occasion. I've given my reasons and have looked back at the race i recorded.

I may be the opposite, but you do seem a bit like you really try to point out Bottas's negatives at times. And not always correctly. Italy, a distant 3rd ALL race? 11 laps in he still was a fraction of a second off getting DRS from Hamilton. He didn't drop back any more that 2 seconds in this stint. As you point out Hamilton has often led a race (which isn't always down to him earning the position). Well Bottas was leading it for a few laps in this case. When he pitted, he was 8 seconds behind Hamilton in 4th, not 3rd. By the time he was 3rd, it dropped to 5 seconds when Ricciardo pitted during the VSC. Meanwhile, just before this, Bottas had done fastest lap. Within 10 laps Bottas had caught and passed Hamilton. Then spent the next 11 laps ahead.

You saying Bottas was a distant 3rd all race really is not accurate.

I am fully aware Hamilton likely will have had had more pace in hand and was stuck behind Leclerc, but as other drivers like Verstappen got away with a warning at this track last year, maybe it is fair that Leclerc got away with similar first time he does it. Bottas may also have had a slightly better strategy, but he made it work pretty well and got a better result than Hamilton. You are making him look worse than he was that race. Given that Hamilton was stuck behind Leclerc, all we actually know is that Bottas could keep up with Hamilton in the 1st stint, and caught up and got by in the 2nd stint. I think this is a good enough case for me to make a point that I think bottas overall did a betetr job that race despite Hamilton putting more pressure on Leclerc and likely being quicker.

But I agree there are not many weekends where Hamilton isn't a fair bit quicker with it more clearly slowing that.

I spoke about Bottas' positives, those 2 races. But there were 7 others. Of course you focus on the negatives, that's how you critically evaluate something.

Ok, lets say Bottas was good in Italy. That gives him 3 great/good performances of those 9 races. If you want to say Bottas was better in Italy then go it. He had the perfect strategy to win, Hamilton as the hare and Bottas the tortoise. He was better than I remember but there is no real race pace comparison as Leclerc held Hamilton up the entire race.

But you can't hide the fact, Bottas had a car to battle for all 9 races wins and realistically he was in the battle 2 or 3 times.

You say, IF this happend or that happened then Bottas would have equalled Hamilton in points. But IF Mercedes pitted Hamilton at the right time in Singapore and Leclerc was penalised in Italy as you would expect, Hamilton would have outscored him by 60+ points. IFs work both ways, lets not ignore that. The usual gulf in class between them was as apparent as ever. If Ferrari were not possible cheating, Hamilton would have won 6 or 7 races to Bottas' 2.

So are you saying Bottas not getting within a second of Leclerc very often was a choice? Because if not your reasoning fall downs.

IMO Hamilton was able to stay close to Leclerc. Bottas wasn't able to. It's pretty odd to try and spin that as Bottas somehow performing better.