Pit stops and advantage in France

bogaTYR

Points Scorer
one of the interesting things of magny-cours is the short pit lane. i seem to recall there have been instances of 4 pit stops. when you think about it, this is one of the places where LH might get a wee bit of an advantage. another interesting point is where to overtake? there is mentioning of possibilities in the adelaide hairpin but if thats it, then it doesn't look too hot.

so where does the advantage lie? if you plan lots of pit stops, ok... you'll be light and faster but whats the point of that if there are so little places to overtake? so i have a light car but i cannot overtake. maybe you can make only one or two pits stops. and then try to pass the rest by simply staying on the track longer then the rest. but then there might be tyre problems.

plus monaco and canada were serious flukes and the chances of something like that again are not that big. so how do you make up say, 6 or 8 places? it seems more and more like a real tall order to me. maybe a SC situation, but that night make things even worse. cos suppose one is light then a SC could make a serious dent cos all fuel strategies go out of the window. plus the field will become compact again. another problem cos you cannot make easy progress in a tight pack.

so where does the advantage lie in magny-cours? and i am not so much talking about LH but in general.
 
Historically Magny-Cours has had very severe tyre wear, plus low fuel consumption this meant in the past that cars were quicker AFTER their pit stops than before. So it was better to be heavy with new tyres than light with old tyres - pretty much unique among all F1 tracks.

In 2004 Ralf Schumacher was called in to the pits early to take advantage of this and prevent team-mate Montoya from passing - an incident that led to Montoya ending up at McLaren.

So all that means that there is less of a penalty for making more stops than there would be at other tracks.

Having said all that of course, it's no good running light if you're stuck behind heavier cars for a large part of the race, and of course boga you're quite right, overtaking is not easy at all.

So making three stops might be a possibility if you think you can qualify on the front of the grid, or preferably on Pole. So either of the Ferraris, BMWs or Kovalainen might be tempted to try it.

As for Hamilton, they'll accept the reality of the situation and do what all teams outside the top 10 do - fuel heavy and hope to make up time at the stops, while simultaneously praying for a Safety Car or rain to mix up the order for them a bit.
 
last time a mclaren won in magny-cours was in 2000 (DC), schumi won there 8 times. last year LH was almost 32 secs behind the winner KR. nando actually was 10th on the grid last year and ended in 7th place, jenson went from 12 to 8. plus there were 5 DNF but those were all down the field apart from maybe trulli. so that shows its indeed difficult to pass, even nando in a mclaren had problems plus its not a real mclaren track, any idea why that is? and last yar the mclaren was the car to beat. more then this year.

so you're right GM, the only advantage will be either rain or a SC. don't think SC will be an issue so it seems we're left with rain.
 
It's gonna be very interesting seeing the tactics LH uses in France.

I do feel the 10 place penalty for him and Rosberg was a little bit harsh but rules is rules. Really, I would think he has to push hard for pole so that he can start 11th on the grid but the idea of just missing out from quali 3 .. which would effectively make him last on the grid but with the ability of being able to choose his own fuel load also has some merit.

Whatever happens on Saturday, its sure to make for an interesting race on Sunday and it will be great to see Lewis fight his way past other cars on track (hopefully)!

But a win? .. think thats very doubtfull from 11th or later .. maybe this will be Heikki's chance to shine?

It will also be cool to see how Renault get on in their home GP with the new "package" of aero modifications.
 
ah yes, rosberg.... i think he did not deserve a penalty at all. to me it looked like he was almost forced to make an error by LH. but since rosberg accepted the penalty. what can i say?

oh salti... check your email!
 
and look here:
"It doesn't really (change the approach)," Hamilton told a news conference. "It's a race, I'm here to win and so I approach it the same". http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/68412

could be me, but just maybe this is not the right thing to say. not so much from an intention point of view, if he wants to try then fine by me. but from a perception management point of view, cos this increases the chance people might be disappointed. LH is not doing himself a favour with remarks like this.
 
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