The Official 2016 German Grand Prix Thread **Spoilers**
Discussion
Date(s): Friday 29 July - Sunday 31 July 2016
UK Broadcast Timings (and local time)
All sessions are live on Sky F1, with highlights of qualifying and race shown at Channel 4.
Hockenheimring, Baden-Württemberg
Live timing for all sessions available here:
http://www.formula1.com/content/fom-website/en/f1-...
Info such as lap times, PU use, technical reports, stewards decisions etc for the weekend will appear here:
http://www.fia.com/events/fia-formula-one-world-ch...
Weather forecast:
http://www.myweather2.com/Motor-Racing/Germany/Hoc...
The tyre choices requested by the teams:
Pirelli nominated tyres are Medium and Soft for the race.
Some extra info from Pirelli:
2014 Qualifying
2014 Race
Fastest Race Lap: 1:19.908 (L53, L. Hamilton; Mercedes)
The German Grand Prix returns after a gap year. What can we expect? More of Hungary, except a more competitive Williams, perhaps?
Pirelli have gone conservative at this race compared to other races this year where they brought a softer compound to previous years--they brought the Soft and Super Soft for the 2014 race. So, the pace improvements seen this weekend will be mostly due to car developments. I’m predicting pole in the low 1:14s. Tyres wise, only Force India have ordered extra mediums to run in the practice session. Will be interesting to see if they can work that tyre into their strategy plans.
A good all rounder is necessary to go fast at this track, i.e. you need a Mercedes. The track rewards good stability under braking, with some fairly heavy braking events through the lap and the one big braking zone into T6. The Verstappens of the world rejoice! More time to defend vigorously.
The track also has good power sensitivity due to the amount of acceleration from low speed, with good traction and low-medium speed cornering performance also helping a great deal. The downforce requirements is said to be at the medium level for this track. I’m waiting to see the size of the barn door Red Bull will run regardless. Joking aside, there’s a lot of time to be gained in S1 and S3, so probably a good compromise is necessary.
Looking at the sector times from 2014, Williams had the quickest car in S2 whilst Red Bull had the second best car in both S1 and S3, and not far off the Mercedes. I’m hoping that Red Bull can take the fight to Mercedes this weekend. I suspect this year’s race will reveal how far Williams have fallen since the heady heights of 2014. Back then, McLaren also had a decent car in Sector 3; it will be interesting to see how far they have improved or regressed, with Sector 2 also being a good indicator of aero efficiency/low speed grip/traction.
Cool conditions are expected, with some rain around in Friday and Saturday.
UK Broadcast Timings (and local time)
All sessions are live on Sky F1, with highlights of qualifying and race shown at Channel 4.
Session | Day | Sky F1 | Channel 4 | Session Start | Local Time |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Practice 1 | Fri | 0845 | - | 0900 | 1000 |
Practice 2 | Fri | 1245 | - | 1300 | 1400 |
Practice 3 | Sat | 0945 | - | 1000 | 1100 |
Qualifying | Sat | 1200 | 1730 | 1300 | 1400 |
Race | Sun | 1130 | 1800 | 1300 | 1400 |
Hockenheimring, Baden-Württemberg
Live timing for all sessions available here:
http://www.formula1.com/content/fom-website/en/f1-...
Info such as lap times, PU use, technical reports, stewards decisions etc for the weekend will appear here:
http://www.fia.com/events/fia-formula-one-world-ch...
Weather forecast:
http://www.myweather2.com/Motor-Racing/Germany/Hoc...
Session | Comment | Air Temp (°C) | Cloud Cover | Rainfall (mm) |
Practice 1 | Partly Cloudy | 23-25 | 56% | 0.0 |
Practice 2 | Partly Cloudy | 26-27 | 53% | 0.1 |
Practice 3 | Cloudy | 24-25 | 74% | 0.0 |
Qualifying | Light Rain Shower | 25-26 | 88% | 0.2 |
Race | Thundery shower possible | 25-27 | 83% | 0.1 |
The tyre choices requested by the teams:
Pirelli nominated tyres are Medium and Soft for the race.
Some extra info from Pirelli:
2014 Qualifying
Pos. | Driver | Constructor | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 |
1 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1:17.631 | 1:17.109 | 1:16.540 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams-Mercedes | 1:18.215 | 1:17.353 | 1:16.759 |
3 | Felipe Massa | Williams-Mercedes | 1:18.381 | 1:17.370 | 1:17.078 |
4 | Kevin Magnussen | McLaren-Mercedes | 1:18.260 | 1:17.788 | 1:17.214 |
5 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull Racing-Renault | 1:18.117 | 1:17.855 | 1:17.273 |
6 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull Racing-Renault | 1:18.194 | 1:17.646 | 1:17.577 |
7 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1:18.389 | 1:17.866 | 1:17.649 |
8 | Daniil Kvyat | Toro Rosso-Renault | 1:18.530 | 1:18.103 | 1:17.965 |
9 | Nico Hülkenberg | Force India-Mercedes | 1:18.927 | 1:18.017 | 1:18.014 |
10 | Sergio Pérez | Force India-Mercedes | 1:18.916 | 1:18.161 | 1:18.035 |
11 | Jenson Button | McLaren-Mercedes | 1:18.425 | 1:18.193 | - |
12 | Kimi Räikkönen | Ferrari | 1:18.534 | 1:18.273 | - |
13 | Jean-Éric Vergne | Toro Rosso-Renault | 1:18.496 | 1:18.285 | - |
14 | Esteban Gutiérrez | Sauber-Ferrari | 1:18.739 | 1:18.787 | - |
15 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus-Renault | 1:18.894 | 1:18.983 | - |
16 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1:18.683 | no time | - |
17 | Adrian Sutil | Sauber-Ferrari | 1:19.142 | - | - |
18 | Jules Bianchi | Marussia-Ferrari | 1:19.676 | - | - |
19 | Pastor Maldonado | Lotus-Renault | 1:20.195 | - | - |
20 | Kamui Kobayashi | Caterham-Renault | 1:20.408 | - | - |
21 | Max Chilton | Marussia-Ferrari | 1:20.489 | - | - |
NC | Marcus Ericsson | Caterham-Renault | no time | - | - |
2014 Race
Pos. | Driver | Constructor | Laps | Time/Retired | Grid |
1 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 67 | 1:33:42.914 | 1 |
2 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams-Mercedes | 67 | +20.789 | 2 |
3 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 67 | +22.530 | 20 |
4 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull Racing-Renault | 67 | +44.014 | 6 |
5 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 67 | +52.467 | 7 |
6 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull Racing-Renault | 67 | +52.549 | 5 |
7 | Nico Hülkenberg | Force India-Mercedes | 67 | +1:04.178 | 9 |
8 | Jenson Button | McLaren-Mercedes | 67 | +1:24.711 | 11 |
9 | Kevin Magnussen | McLaren-Mercedes | 66 | +1 Lap | 4 |
10 | Sergio Pérez | Force India-Mercedes | 66 | +1 Lap | 10 |
11 | Kimi Räikkönen | Ferrari | 66 | +1 Lap | 12 |
12 | Pastor Maldonado | Lotus-Renault | 66 | +1 Lap | 18 |
13 | Jean-Éric Vergne | Toro Rosso-Renault | 66 | +1 Lap | 13 |
14 | Esteban Gutiérrez | Sauber-Ferrari | 66 | +1 Lap | 16 |
15 | Jules Bianchi | Marussia-Ferrari | 66 | +1 Lap | 17 |
16 | Kamui Kobayashi | Caterham-Renault | 65 | +2 Laps | 19 |
17 | Max Chilton | Marussia-Ferrari | 65 | +2 Laps | 21 |
18 | Marcus Ericsson | Caterham-Renault | 65 | +2 Laps | PL |
Ret | Adrian Sutil | Sauber-Ferrari | 47 | Spun off | 15 |
Ret | Daniil Kvyat | Toro Rosso-Renault | 44 | Oil leak | 8 |
Ret | Romain Grosjean | Lotus-Renault | 26 | Water leak | 14 |
Ret | Felipe Massa | Williams-Mercedes | 0 | Collision | 3 |
Fastest Race Lap: 1:19.908 (L53, L. Hamilton; Mercedes)
The German Grand Prix returns after a gap year. What can we expect? More of Hungary, except a more competitive Williams, perhaps?
Pirelli have gone conservative at this race compared to other races this year where they brought a softer compound to previous years--they brought the Soft and Super Soft for the 2014 race. So, the pace improvements seen this weekend will be mostly due to car developments. I’m predicting pole in the low 1:14s. Tyres wise, only Force India have ordered extra mediums to run in the practice session. Will be interesting to see if they can work that tyre into their strategy plans.
A good all rounder is necessary to go fast at this track, i.e. you need a Mercedes. The track rewards good stability under braking, with some fairly heavy braking events through the lap and the one big braking zone into T6. The Verstappens of the world rejoice! More time to defend vigorously.
The track also has good power sensitivity due to the amount of acceleration from low speed, with good traction and low-medium speed cornering performance also helping a great deal. The downforce requirements is said to be at the medium level for this track. I’m waiting to see the size of the barn door Red Bull will run regardless. Joking aside, there’s a lot of time to be gained in S1 and S3, so probably a good compromise is necessary.
Looking at the sector times from 2014, Williams had the quickest car in S2 whilst Red Bull had the second best car in both S1 and S3, and not far off the Mercedes. I’m hoping that Red Bull can take the fight to Mercedes this weekend. I suspect this year’s race will reveal how far Williams have fallen since the heady heights of 2014. Back then, McLaren also had a decent car in Sector 3; it will be interesting to see how far they have improved or regressed, with Sector 2 also being a good indicator of aero efficiency/low speed grip/traction.
Cool conditions are expected, with some rain around in Friday and Saturday.
Edited by Dr Z on Wednesday 27th July 12:36
Looking at the 2014 data, this wouldn't be an awful place for LH to start from the back of the grid. Expect he'd rather build up (or at least try to) a bigger championship lead first though, so he can take his penalties and still be leading the championship assuming he can finish in the top 5.
It's an interesting theory re LH taking the penalty early. I can understand wanting to increase the lead into the summer break but let's be honest, that's not guaranteed. Nico could be on form or LH's Merc could st itself.
If I were LH, I think I'd rather take the punishment now and get it over with. Everyone expects NR to experience some reliability issues before the end of the year but it doesn't work like that does it? And if he doesn't I'd want as many races as possible in which to score good points
If I were LH, I think I'd rather take the punishment now and get it over with. Everyone expects NR to experience some reliability issues before the end of the year but it doesn't work like that does it? And if he doesn't I'd want as many races as possible in which to score good points
I'm sure this is obvious, but what is the point of nominating a single set of the Medium tyre? I don't see what you could possibly do with a single set.
Is it simply that they have to nominate three different tyres, and they actually don't expect to ever use the Medium, so bring 1 set and "lose" the minimum number of sets on that nomination?
Is it simply that they have to nominate three different tyres, and they actually don't expect to ever use the Medium, so bring 1 set and "lose" the minimum number of sets on that nomination?
EnglishTony said:
I read it that they have to use 1 set of medium fir the race in addition to a set of soft.
Why you'd only want one set of the medium and thus not have a set for for testing long runs with I don't know.
Perhaps they feel that they have enough data on the mediums
Each driver must run one of the nominated tires in the race, so here, at least one set of medium or soft tires.Why you'd only want one set of the medium and thus not have a set for for testing long runs with I don't know.
Perhaps they feel that they have enough data on the mediums
This years rules related to tires I think have really spiced things up.
suffolk009 said:
I see James Allison is leaving Ferrari, with immediate effect.
He'll be in demand.
I believe he has some personal family issues to deal with? Read it in an article linked in the last thread.He'll be in demand.
Edit: His wife died in March With three children perhaps working in Italy was too far away.
Edited by AndrewEH1 on Wednesday 27th July 09:31
AndrewEH1 said:
I believe he has some personal family issues to deal with? Read it in an article linked in the last thread.
Edit: His wife died in March With three children perhaps working in Italy was too far away.
Correct, he will most likely choose to spend time with his kids for awhile so I wouldn't get too excited about him going somewhere else immediately. He has left Ferrari for family reasons.Edit: His wife died in March With three children perhaps working in Italy was too far away.
Edited by AndrewEH1 on Wednesday 27th July 09:31
suffolk009 said:
Wouldn't it make more sense for HAM to start at the back in Monza or Spa. They're both big power circuits, so even if he starts from the back, he's likely to end up top four. Surely?
His main hope though must be that Nico doesn't get pole on that day.
It more than likely would but I think LH has been pretty canny at playing NR since monaco 2014. LH has 3 possible outcomes this weekend....His main hope though must be that Nico doesn't get pole on that day.
1/LH beats NR fair and square which puts LH in a good frame of mind for the summer break although he knows he will take a penalty on the return to racing
2/NR beats LH fair and square which puts NR in a good frame of mind as he knows LH will take a penalty on the return to racing.
3/LH takes his penalty now which lets NR beat him, but crucially lets him beat him on his own terms.
No3 for me emphasises to NR he's only got the lead in the championship due to the long game LH is playing. Sports physcology is an incredibly interesting subject, though I'm maybe looking into things a little too much
FurballS2000 said:
Fantastic thread opener as always :P
Looking forward to this one, going over to Germany to see it!
First Grand Prix
Thanks, hope you have a good one, but I'm not too optimistic for the race! Looking forward to this one, going over to Germany to see it!
First Grand Prix
tertius said:
I'm sure this is obvious, but what is the point of nominating a single set of the Medium tyre? I don't see what you could possibly do with a single set.
Is it simply that they have to nominate three different tyres, and they actually don't expect to ever use the Medium, so bring 1 set and "lose" the minimum number of sets on that nomination?
Is it simply that they have to nominate three different tyres, and they actually don't expect to ever use the Medium, so bring 1 set and "lose" the minimum number of sets on that nomination?
You got it. Plus, it's a back up in case something goes very wrong during the race due to unforeseen tyre degradation etc. However, there is one thing not clear from the info out there:
EnglishTony said:
I read it that they have to use 1 set of medium fir the race in addition to a set of soft.
Why you'd only want one set of the medium and thus not have a set for for testing long runs with I don't know.
Perhaps they feel that they have enough data on the mediums
The link below seems to suggest that teams will have to use one set of Medium and Soft in the race, but I have never seen this info repeated anywhere else. Pirelli have never nominated two compounds to be run in the race like this during this year, so I'm confused. Even though the Super Soft and Medium are low working range tyres, it is very strange for 10 out of 11 teams to be so confident of racing the Medium tyre without even having a look in the practice sessions. Something doesn't quite add up.Why you'd only want one set of the medium and thus not have a set for for testing long runs with I don't know.
Perhaps they feel that they have enough data on the mediums
http://www.pirelli.com/corporate/en/press/2016/05/...
slipstream 1985 said:
Force india cleary thinking on a 1 stopper.
Did a quick analysis of the tyre strategies employed in the 2014 race:Super Soft | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th |
---|---|---|---|---|
No. of drivers | 18 | 4 | 5 | 9 |
Minimum laps | 1 | 2 | 8 | 6 |
25th Percentile | 12.75 | 5 | 9.5 | 12.5 |
Median | 14 | 15.5 | 11 | 14 |
75th Percentile | 15.25 | 19.25 | 16.5 | 17.5 |
Maximum laps | 20 | 20 | 21 | 24 |
Soft | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th |
No. of drivers | 3 | 17 | 15 | 4 |
Minimum laps | 20 | 15 | 12 | 16 |
25th Percentile | 20 | 16.5 | 16 | 16.25 |
Median | 24 | 21 | 22 | 19 |
75th Percentile | 26 | 25 | 27 | 21.75 |
Maximum laps | 26 | 28 | 30 | 22 |
From this data, the quickest for a top 10 car looks to me, a 2-stopper: 15 laps on the Super Soft followed by two stints on the Soft tyre 24 and 28 laps long. To do a viable 1-stopper, you are asking more than 40 laps on the mediums and that's assuming you're starting on the Softs to do a reasonably aggressive 1st stint. The strategy is worthless if you start on the Super Soft, having to baby them for 25-odd laps to make the 1-stopper work, IMO.
Looking at the tyre life teams got out of the Softs at the 2014 race, I'd say 20% more race distance out of them in the 3rd stint compared to the 2nd stint. So, a 1-stopper on the Medium tyres is essentially asking 1.5 times the race distance of the Soft in the 3rd stint. It's should be do-able dependent on the pace advantage of the Soft vs Medium at this track, can be anywhere from 0.5-0.8s/lap. Pit stop time is around 18 seconds here, a bit touch and go-I feel between a 1-stopper vs 2-stopper. Depends how long the 2-stopper can lean on the Soft tyres to make up that time lost in the pits, especially this being a rear-limited circuit due to the traction demands.
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