Lamag are you debating with yourself? There is no discussion of who was the better driver over the year.
Aren't you the guy with the score after quali and race that everyone ignores? Now you want to debate?

what is there to debate? rosberg has the most points he has obviously managed to do better this year.

does that make him better than the old MSC? i dont think so and i bet alot of f1 drivers would agree.

does that make rosberg better than MSC at this current point in time? based on the last few races im not so sure although its obviously very close, maybe to close to tell until next year.

My first post here. I use to read but never felt confortable with so many experts around.


Decided to post after reading this topic for some days and feel that there is something i must have missed and i wish you could explain to me.


Nico R was never more than 2.5 seconds behind Michael, wich i think we agree is a safe margin for saving tires. We could say both were lapping at the same race pace, altough we don´t know if Nico could go faster, agree?


Michael race pace - He was 3.2 seconds behind Lewis H in lap 16, 3.6 seconds in lap 17, 3.9 s in lap 18 (Michael set his fastest lap, 1.17.6, at that moment and still Lewis was pulling away) and kept this gap in lap 19 when Lewis made a mistake in sector one). After that, Lewis and Michael made their pitstops.

As soon as Michael pitted, Nico set faster laps than Michael´s fastest lap (1.17.6) in 5 out of 6 laps (1.17.5 in 21, 1.17.6 lap 22, 1.17.3 lap 23, 1.17.3 lap 24 and 1.17.4 lap 25) before he pits in lap 26.

Some could think the reason Nico was so fast was because the cars were slightly lighter, wich is almost reasonable. Problem is that once you compare Rosberg pace to Alonso´s or even Button´s (newer tyres), you´ll notice Nico´s pace was closer to these drivers in faster cars, than Michael´s.

My question is, why didn´t Michel went faster when he was behind Lewis and in front of Nico Rosberg?? As soon as Michael was no longer in front of Nico, the later set a new race pace, faster than Michael´s previous one.

Besides, after Michael´s pitstop, Sutil was lapping for some 10 laps at 1.18.0 - 1.18.5. Nico Rosberg was doing 1.16´s laps. Some here assume that Michael could even go faster than this, if he had clean air.

Sutil´s top speed was only 2 kph faster than Michael´s.

Why didn´t Michael (who, some assume could go as fast or even faster than Nico - 1.16 something) overtake Adrian Sutil as we are not talking about Monaco here. Maybe Nico was once again faster than Michael?

You mean Rosberg was faster than Schumacher in clear air? Sure, I can buy that.

The gap between Rosberg and Schumacher remained as static as when they were together during the race (8th and 9th IIRC) as it did between Schumacher and Hamilton.

That suggests that in clear air the car is able to go faster as opposed to being held up (even with a 2-4 second gap) to the car in front).

At this point in time, Schumacher and Rosberg are fairly matched on race pace.

Like someone else said, there is no fear here, not sure where you're getting that. I'm a big MSC fan but I'd be borderline psychotic to suggest that Nico is not currently the #1 driver in MGP. The gap has closed recently, but he's still clearly better adapted to the car than Michael and just a quick driver in general anyway. About your list- Heikki and Jarno are IMO too close to call, though Heikki has had better luck with reliability. As for Senna, considering he's been outpaced by several teammates who've received far less seat time than him in the same car, I'd say the team might favor him because of $$$ and name recognition, but Chandhok and Klein have a better chance of landing a "real" seat on a good team than Bruno.



If you think that anyone here is a real expert that would intimidate you and keep you from posting, you're comically mistaken. Just read through any of these "driver A vs driver B" threads to discover how childish and uninformed this board can be. Not to say there aren't reasonable posters, but it can get out of hand sometimes.




Your point about Nico lapping faster relative to the other cars is a vaild one, he did seem quicker in the dry by a slight margin. As for MSC not being able to pass Sutil... I can't explain that other than Sutil driving a very aggressive defensive line and maybe MSC had visions of Adrian's destruction derby in Korea in his head when he decided repeatedly to not force the issue. I'd bet that Sutil was running a lower downforce setup as well, as he had no problem pulling away out of the final corners onto the uphill straight, so Michael never had a chance to get alongside into T1, though I kept having visions of him juking one way and then diving down the inside with no room to spare like 2006 on Kimi.

1) sutil's top speed was 2kmph faster then schumacher when he was in FI's back? Maybe he was on the limitter again..
he didn't have any trouble passing Button earlier and certainly didn't have 2 sec a lap advantage on Jenson. Maybe Sutil was just fast on the only parts where you could pass and very slow in the tricky part?

2) I don't understand what you are comparing there

Michaels last 6 laps decreased from 1m18.1 to 1m17.6
In the next 6 laps Nico went from 1m17.6 to 1m17.3...not extremely fast improvement isn't it? especially if you assume he was backing off to save tyres.
He did a 1m17.6 backing off and 6 laps latter a 1m17.4 pushing?


so if 2.5 sec is a good margin for saving tyres..where is the effect of the tyres that were saved? 0.2 secondus over 6 laps with fuel burning?

Wait...

That´s the problem! Where did you find that Schumacher gap to Hamilton remained static???!!!!!

Hamilton had the Hulk in front of him, NH went to pits, LH overtook a backmarker in lap 15 and then:

1.17.523 against 1.17.939
1.17. 382 against 1.17.849
1.17.271 against 1.17.604
1.17.688 against 1.17.645 (Nico was fastr than both in this lap)

Does it really seem static for you? I could bet i read somewhere (maybe in this same topic) as an evidence that MS was faster than Nico because he was hundreds of seconds faster in laps where Nico was less than 2.5 seconds behind Michael.

Now, an increasing gap up to 4 (FOUR) seconds in Interlagos (!!!???) is being held up? You don´t beleive so, do you?



Lewis and Michael were pushing hard but Lewis was faster, way faster.

Erm, I don't know why you compare Schumacher's laptimes before he pitted and Rosberg's after Schumacher made his pitstop. Obviously the cars are getting lighter and lighter, as you've shown, Rosberg has been to lap 1, 2 tenths quicker than when Schumacher had yet to pit. But (1) Rosberg was not held up, nor was he 'saving' the tyres, he was 2s behind, not half a second (2) Rosberg had to push as well if he wanted to get in front of Sutil, Hulkenberg, etc., so he had nothing to do but to push. So both were in free air and Schumacher was slightly faster overall, and eventhough it can be a bit meaningless because the comparison only lasted a couple of laps, it still shows that Schumacher was really on the pace, like he was in Japan.

I am the one who didn´t understand what you are comparing. Decreasing time? What for?

My point is that MS was lapping at rate x and had enough reasons to push hard as the guy in front of him was opening a gap. Michael push but was doing 1.17. 6 (his best laptime) to 1.18.0 lap times. As soon as nico didn´t have Michael in front of him, Nico was faster.

I was trying to understand how someone could think Michael was faster than Nico in this race based on laptimes. He wasn´t. Crystal Clear

What? During the last laps before the pitstop Michael's lap times decreased as much as Rosberg's decreased after Michael pited.

Let´s be honest here. Nico wasn´t 1,2 tenths quicker as you say.

He was 0.1 s faster, than 0.3 s, 0.3 and 0.2 faster than Michael´s fastest lap till that moment.

If Rosberg, even beeing 2.0 seconds behind Michael was not beeing held, as you say (we disagree) neither was Schumacher in comparison with Lewis. Schumacher was way slower than Lewis while Rosberg was much closer. The same amount of gas.

I agree Michael´s race was not a disaster but saying he was as fast as Rosberg is not accurate at all.

Tyres.

That´s why i posted Nico´s relative performance to Lewis AND Alonso. Nico set faster times than Michael´s as soon as Michael pit AND was posting lap times closer to Lewis and Alonso than Schumacher.

Wow. Rosberg was faster because his pace improved by him staying on track. And he improved by the same amount Michael was improving before pitting. You forget Michael pitted or what?

And you do realise Lewis pitted in the same lap as Michael iirc?

And the fact that Alonso's pace stayed constant after lap 18 while the Merc pace improved?

I'm glad we are on a "who was faster based on what" discussion and way past the "Schumacher is slower thank Nakajima" phase. Makes me think Schumi is going in the right direction, even if at a slower pace than expected.

From lap 20 to 22 his laptimes are: 17.706, 17.587, 17.626.

That's no better than what Schumacher did on lap 18 and 19.

Then Rosberg is lapping from lap 23 to 25: 17.314, 17.390, 17.400

But isn't that only normal stuff that he's found some tenths since the cars are getting lighter? There's nothing hard to understand here. See Schumacher's laptimes for example. After lap 17 he's lapping 2 tenths quicker on his last 2 laps before his pitstop. Again that's just normal stuff, the cars are getting lighter, and therefore the laptimes are quicker. And Hamilton should not be thrown into this debate. You just have to compare the laptimes of Schumacher and Rosberg and when they are in free air. Otherwise your comparison is totally meaningless.

]

Yes, they both did their pit in lap 20. Why didn´t Lewis stayed on track IF his pace was going to improve by staying on track? Becuse both him AND Michael couldn´t go faster than that, tyres issues. MS last laptime before his pitstop was slower than the previous one. The same for Lewis On the other hand, Rosberg was faster immeaditly afetr MS pitted. Alonso was lapping way faster than MS but could not be that faster compared to than Rosberg.


This is just another evidence that Rosberg had a better race pace compared to MS.



MsF,

At the beggining of lap 20, Nico was still behind MS and did his best second sector (39.8) in Lap 21 he was faster than MS´s best lap.

Like i already told you : Alonso's lap times didn't improve either after lap 18. But he stayed on track. Lap times themselves are meaningless in the decision to pit (except, of course, if the pace drastically falls). They are only important in regards to others.

Small variations in lap times is also normal.

But if you look at how the options behaved on the MErc you will see improvement of 0.2-0.3/two laps. Which is the pace Michael improved and it's the same pace Rosberg improved.

And so, what? On lap 20, Rosberg was two seconds behind, he was not held up then, and he was not saving his tyres or anything... yet he wasn't quicker.

So now your argument is that as Rosberg has beaten Schumacher's best lap at the time, three laps later, by 0.017s, shows that he was faster? Wow.

where did you hear michael had tyre issues?
his laptimes were still improving when he pitted, where doesn this nonesense come from?

Realy wrong thing. You had already lap-times for both drivers ( before MS pit ). As you see Schumi as fast as Rosberg there but for good amount of laps is bit faster.
also I see you use live-timing for that race . But why you don't provide us these figures:
lap 21 (at the end of lap MS will have pit-stop)
sector 1
MS 19.4 (green)
Rosberg 19.4 (green too)

sector 2
MS 39.8 (not green but his best sector time is also 39.8 )
Rosberg 40.0

So you see Schumi is bit faster on this lap that Nico, his tyres is also in fine conditions as he is able to set best or almost best sector times.

Calm down.

The fact he beat MS´s best lap time three laps later has nothing to do with anything. Nico was immeadiately faster than MS as soon as he had a "free track".

You were very clear. A driver who was less than 2 second behind for many many laps and who was immeadiately faster as soon as he has clean air wasn´t beeing held. That´s your opinion, ok.

Still, how could Mercedes GP have thought that MS, with new tyres, wouldn´t be able to overtake a driver who was lapping at 1.18.0 to 1.18.5? They, MS and AS, had about the same max speed, Interlagos is quite easy to overtake and the car was able (at least in rosberg´s hands) to lap at 1.16 something. Did any other "top driver" had similar problem for so many laps? Do you have an opinion about this too? I would like to hear.


MikeTekRacing,

I assumed as i think MS should be on a better race pace if not for tyres issues.

this is just utter rubbish what are you talking about? hamilton pitted because button was going faster on new tyres than hamilton was, scumacher wasnt infront of button enough for him pitting to make any difference and he was going faster than sutil so it made no sense for him to pit when he did.

your comparing rosbergs soft tyre times to hamiltons hards? i should hope he is much closer to hamiltons times when hamilton is on hards that arent yet up to temprature.

schumachers lap times would have carried on improving at the pace they did if he would have stayed out and that was faster than rosberg...

because michaels laptime is 0.045 seconds slower your saying his tyres have gone off? you cant even blink that fast

i cant get the brazil race times to load anymore to check hamilton but i expect its another tiny fraction slower , did someone get lapped by them? because it wouldnt surpise me.

everyone knows how hard the force indias are to overtake on a fast track it was the only car to retake vettel in spa because it was even faster in a straightline than the redbulls , it has the exact same engine as the mercedes so it accelerates just as fast, i dont understand why you think its easy to overtake in brazil because the overtaking points are both at the ends of straights if that force india is faster than you down the straight how are you suposed to overtake it?

I think you are confused. In lap 21 Michael Schumacher had new tyres.

Man, Rosberg was already in clear air from lap 15 onwards. Was he faster than Schumacher? No.

The last two laps from Schumacher before his pitstop: 17.604, 17.645

Rosberg's laptimes the three laps following Schumacher's pitstop: 17.706, 17.587, 17.626

Sorry, that's not what I call being "immediately faster". When he was behind Schumacher, without being held up, he wasn't quicker. When Schumacher made his pitstop, his laptimes weren't any quicker than what Schumacher did on lap 18 & 19. It's that simple really.



That's another debate, and yes it was disappointing to see Schumacher not being able to overtake Sutil while he's been able to do it with Button at the beginning of the race. I don't have an explanation for this really, I was expecting better on that side.

Ok. Michael would have been faster IF...and then, after the pits Michael would... May i ask you something? In this imaginary world, would Michael Schumacher, with new tyres, overtake a much much slower car in a track like Interlagos? If you say yes, you would make the same mistake MGP did.


Not true for Interlagos:

AS´s Force India max. speed Interlagos: 311.5 kph
MS´s Mercedes GP max. speed Interlagos: 309.5 kph



BTW, i have all lap times. What exactly do you need?

yea hards that shouldnt have even been up to temprature and he was still almost matching rosberg in those sectors who aparently had been holding a gap and saving his soft tyres

it gets even funnier

just pressed "1" instread of "0" others figures and things are correct

So correct phrase is

lap 20 (at the end of lap MS will have pit-stop)
sector 1
MS 19.4 (green)
Rosberg 19.4 (green too)

sector 2
MS 39.8 (not green but his best sector time is also 39.8 )
Rosberg 40.0

So you see Schumi is bit faster on this lap that Nico, his tyres is also in fine conditions as he is able to set best or almost best sector times.

Nope, Michael was faster on the options. You have no valid argument against and you changed your "argument" twenty times now.

I will try to make myself clear.

Nico was LESS than 2 seconds behind MS from lap 16 to lap 20. They both completed lap 19 and at the beggining of lap 20, MS enters the pit. Nico sets his fastest lap (end of 19, beggining of 20). His first sector of lap 20 is his best one too. His first entire lap withou MS in front of him is again, Nico sets his best second sector at 39.8 and finally his best lap at 1.17.587 in lap 21. That is immediately faster.

As i said, i do not think it was a bad race for Michael. I beleive, as many here do, he is way closer to Nico than he was. But in Brasil, Nico was better and faster again.

I thought someone would come with something like a "broken whatever for Michael" and that would make sense for his impossibility to overtake Sutil and that is what i expected to read here. But at the end of the day, Nico was in a diferent level and made us beleive the car was really fast. As fast as the Mclarens.

so because 3 laps later he beats schumachers 1:17.604 with a 1:17.587 nico was obviously faster?

3 laps and only 0:0.017 faster? each lap of fuel is usually worth a few tenths which would mean schumacher would have easily had a 1:17.550 or better on lap 21 if he stayed out...

Again, you are wrong. In lap 21, when MS´s tyres were not working at the ideal temperature, as you say, Ms´s 2nd sector time was 40.3 against Nico´s 39.8... Not exactly "matching rosberg" agree?

How the hell it could be immediately faster if Nico had the same lap-times as Michael ( just before pit-stop ) for next few laps
lap 20 17.706
lap 21 17.587 (just mid sector 39.8 is green others two aren't best)
lap 22 17.626

These "3 laps later" you invented and call me ridiculous?

Nico was faster as soon as Michael was not in front of him. Check the lap times. Don´t have idea why you are so sensible with this,

hard tyres vs softs....

but because it took rosberg 3 laps to find .017 hes was obviously much faster than schumacher yea i get it now in suzuka rosberg was much faster than schumacher aswell

lap 18
lap 19 , 20 , lap 21

thats 3 full circuits of the track he end of lap 21 when the time is set is exactly 3 laps after schumacher set his time

Posts have been edited. Please cut out the personal attacks. If you consider a poster is trolling, report them and let us deal with it.

IT DID NOT TOOK 3 LAPS. The first lap NICO did without Michael in front of him, he was faster and was faster and faster and faster. Wich part of it you didn´t undesrtand?



Michael Schumacher, with new tyres, took 14 laps to set Koba´s laptime, in a very inferior car. Should we ignore Sutil was in front of him?

It seems like you don't want to understand; I've already told you several times now why everything you've been saying doesn't show that Rosberg has been faster than Schumacher... Again, the gap being between 1.5 and 2 seconds, you can't say he has been held up during those laps; and he hasn't shown then that he was faster than Schumacher. And it's not because Rosberg has on one occasion lapped 0.017s quicker than what Schumacher did three laps earlier that will convince anyone to say that Rosberg was the quickest of the two. That's not a valid argument I'm afraid.

Count again...

Lap 19 MS in on track, racing. He completes it and start lap 20. Till the end of this lap (beggining of lap 21)he is in front of Rosberg. So, the FIRST full lap Rosberg had without MS blocking him is lap 21. Again, as soon as MS is out of his way, Rosberg set the best Mercedes laptime.

MSf,

Rosberg was more than 0.3 s faster than MS after 4 laps withou MS blocking him. BTW, why don´t you look the laptimes?

Yeah, 4 laps after... when the car was lighter. Which is only normal, right?

By the way, if Rosberg was "blocked" by Schumacher (by the way, being 1.5-2s behind is not being held up), why wasn't he faster just after Schumacher pitted, and not 4 laps later?

Are you kidding me?

1.5-2 seconds is a huge cap in f1 terms

im not going to respond to this anymore sep you can believe whatever you want it doesnt matter to me what you want to believe.

facts speak for themselfs

gap 1,5-2 secs is blocking ?

It's like talking to a wall. Do you understand that the lap time progression is the one expected?

You do realise that under normal circumstances the more they drive the faster they go?

Here is a graph to help you http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/charts/201018rl34.html

NICO ROSBERG
"I had a strong start today and when Michael pitted ahead of me, I had clear air and was able to make up positions thanks to our good strategy. From then, it got a little chaotic but the team made a great call to get me on new rubber when the safety car came out. Unfortunately Jenson did the same and there was a lot of chaos with lapped cars so I wasn't able to make up any further positions. Michael let me past which was nice as he was on used rubber against my new tyres."

MICHAEL SCHUMACHER
"I had quite a good start today gaining two positions which unfortunately I lost again directly afterwards following my exit on the grass because of the fight with Robert. We then had good pace but with hindsight, my pit stop was maybe a little too early which left me stuck behind Adrian. Towards the end, I let Nico past when he was on fresh tyres as he had the better chance to fight Jenson in front of us. I look forward to Abu Dhabi now where I hope to have another encouraging race."

SEP explain why Michael needed to overtake AS, it was just question of time AS to pit. Michael wasn't fighting him , and all his competitors were behind him. Nico is not Michael competitor. For me this is clear now. And as you said FI was 2 km faster on the straights.

So MS´s competitors are only the ones behind him? So sad for a multiple champ.

You ask me why he had to overtake AS? Gee, you and some here were mad at Mercedes due to MS´s chosen strategy, as he spent most part of the race behind a much slower car!

So, basically you also think Michael shouldn´t attack Hamilton, who was right in front of him, pushing hard and pulling away and afetr his pitstop AND you think MS should just wait and wait and wait and wait till AS does his pit?
Either MGP tried to help Nico and destroy MS´s race or they simply didn´t expect AS´s tyre to last that much. You can´t have it both ways.

Im my humble opinion, MGP thought AS was going to stop right after MS´s return and even if he stayed longer than expected, MS, with new tyres, would set laptimes around 1.16 and by doing so, would overtake a very slow AS (wich was doing 1.18 + ) easily. It did not happen.

Why not to expect AS tyres to last long? He start with hard tyres and this was not surprise to the MGP. AS was suppose to stay long. So it is helping Nico ,when sacrificing Michael because AS was suppose to stay on the track for long stint. Your humble opinion(MGP thought AS was going to stop right after MS´s return and even if he stayed longer than expected) is wrong. And again you don't overtake people who will pit sooner or later. Why to risk, he could use AS mistake , but without mistake why risking. And how you overtake somebody faster than you? He get what team wanted,so everything is OK.

Sorry Ivan but you lost me...

You don´t overtake people who pit at different time than you? Then that must mean that the only overtaking takes place between drivers on exactly the same strategy - are they allowed to overtake during the pitstop or only on track? In Brazil GP I saw several overtakings and then drivers pitted at different times.

And now Sutil was faster than MS - how come? For what I saw he was catching AS but then got stuck behind him. You´re really not doing any favors for MS by explaining that his lack of success is because MGP wants to deliberately stuff his races. Come on...

he means faster on the straights by 2km which is a big difference and where are the overtaking points at brazil?


looks like the end of 2 long straights to me , everywhere else is to tight and twisty and just lapping someone can be difficult in the twisty sections

dont forget the cars have the same engines aswell so acceleration will be pretty much identical , and the cars cant follow closely around twisty sections without losing loads of downforce on the front

I am talking to this specific situation only. What will Michael gain if he overtake AS? He will be still 7th. And yes , I mean as numbers show that AS has faster top speed. I also see overtaking on Hulk and Lewis. But, this was because they didn't stay on racing line. They made mistake. Michael overtake Button as we see. Again. I don't think Michael target was to pass AS at all cost. He have target to get 7th. Mission accomplish. If you can gain something with the pass, you pass. If you don't gain, you don't do it only for overtaking manoeuvre. No body count them. Everything count on the final only. And you can miss the final easily with some stupid move. I don't think Michael was catching AS, because he came 1 sec behind him, so he catch him form the pit stop. But, sure if there was distance between them he would catch him for sure. And if team wanted Michael ahead of AS , they could arranged it very easily if they keep him out for 1-2 laps more. It was easier than making tea in microwave.

A position.

So why was he TRYING to overtake SUT then if there's no gain. Didn't he know, as you did, that there was nothing to be gained?