Mercedes chief strategist James Vowles go through the strategy and happenings in F1 Mexico GP, especially for Valtteri Bottas.
It wasn’t the outcome Mercedes were hoping for in F1 Mexico GP, as they had only Lewis Hamilton finishing in points in second – defending well from Sergio Perez. For his teammate Bottas, it didn’t work out straight on from the start itself.
Bottas did have the best of starts from pole and got bogged down, not just to Hamilton but crucially to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who took the lead. While Mercedes conceded pace against the Dutchman and his team, they still could have pushed them on.
Vowles explains the mindset they had where Bottas was supposed to give Hamilton a tow going into Turn 1. Had he done that, Mercedes could have stretched on but they do agree that it would have been difficult to keep Red Bull behind.
Regarding the pit issue, Vowles had some idea of the problem but a larger inspection was to be done to identify it fully. He reckoned there was some debris which could have contributed towards it, as he then went on to expand on Bottas’ overtaking issues and how he lost the place to Daniel Ricciardo after a nudge from Lance Stroll.
Turn 1 strategy and approach –
Mercedes: “Perhaps a little bit of background on Mexico and why it is such a difficult turn 1 to get right. First of all, it’s the fastest approach speed of any circuit on the calendar. So, the speed that you enter into turn 1 is faster than anywhere else, faster than Monza, faster than Sochi even, which has a longer run down to turn 1 but not the same straight line speed. The drivers get one chance at it, one practice effectively as you go in off the race start, that’s the first time they will experience that, and they have one chance to get it right. They do laps to grid where they leave at the end of the pit lane and do a start and approach turn 1 but you are on a different vector, a different speed, you are starting on the right-hand side of the circuit so it’s not really the same thing.
“As a result of that, the drivers have a feeling of where they are going to be braking to get the optimum performance into turn 1 to not lock up, to not go wide across the grass and to get the car turned in. But ultimately to a certain extent it is a guess, it’s an educated guess but a guess all the same. The strategy and approach to turn 1 was quite straightforward here. For Valtteri, if he had a good start, he was going to let Lewis tow along behind him and make sure that he covered off that threat from Verstappen. The starts as they turned out was that Valtteri had a slightly worse start than both Verstappen and Lewis. Not a lot, round about four metres or so but it was sufficient that Lewis wasn’t able to tuck up behind. More so Verstappen’s start being good meant he was alongside Valtteri very, very quickly.
“The result of that is they ended up three wide incredibly quickly and early on during the run down into turn 1. Now it was just a question of braking. Now, Valtteri wasn’t on the optimal line nor was Lewis. The grip on the right-hand side of the circuit is slightly worse than where Verstappen was on the racing line. Even so the differences in braking should have been a few metres not perhaps the difference that you saw ultimately the drivers braked where they thought they could. If you saw Verstappen’s comments afterwards it is quite clear that he was going in there guessing and hoping for the best and it worked out for him. We ended up losing out there as a result of it and more so as we went into it, as you saw other cars perhaps locking up Ricciardo being one of them contact happened and Valtteri got taken out and pushed to the back of the grid.”
Situation without Verstappen pass –
Mercedes: “I don’t think you need me to tell you that Red Bull were incredibly fast in the race, faster than us, they had a much better car. Verstappen was able to pull away when he needed to from Lewis and Perez was all over Lewis’s gearbox all the race. But had we kept position, we were first and second on the road there is a little bit more you can do now as a team. For example, you can create a small gap between your two cars, you have to do that naturally for cooling reasons anyway. It just gives you a slightly higher probability of your lead car being successful and not being undercut. So, had we got away and been in first and second, I think there was a good chance that we would have been able to defend against the Red Bulls all race.
“Conversely, if we were first but we had both Red Bulls tucked behind us in second and third I think it would have been awfully difficult to hold on to the race lead. They could have stopped one car early, one car late and ultimately, we would have been a compromise with those two cars. Where we finished up P2 with Lewis was really correct based on performance sadly after the start had happened and I am happy we held on to it, it was a defensive strategy we employed all race. Of course, in Valtteri’s case really, he walked away with far less than he deserved. Had he not been hit in turn 1 we really should have walked away with fourth at worst and third more realistically.”
Pit stop issue with Bottas –
Mercedes: “It’s a good question and even as I talk to you now, we don’t have all of the answers. What I can tell you is that the wheel looked as though it was stuck on the axle. When the car came in the gunman did everything correctly and undid the nuts from the axle as did all corners. But when they tried to remove the wheel, the wheel wouldn’t come off the axle anymore. They put the gun back on and gunned the nut on and back off again. It’s a standard procedure to try and overcome some of the problems and even when they did that the wheel still wouldn’t come loose.
“The gunman then put his hand into the wheel and effectively brute forced it loose off the axle and burned himself slightly in doing so it was a brave action by him. That was obviously costly in time but more importantly we need to understand why that wheel wasn’t able to come loose initially. There are some theories, potentially we had a little bit of debris and build up inside what we call the cake tin, the carbon area that sits inside the wheel but as I said as we talk to you now, we don’t understand that and there is an investigation over the next few days.”
Overtaking issues –
Mercedes: “If we wind back a little bit, we were actually ahead of Ricciardo on those opening laps after the pit stop, he had to change his front-wing and we came out ahead of him and behind Stroll. Stroll whilst defending to Valtteri actually went off the track and came back on and as a result of it pushed Valtteri wide allowing Ricciardo through. And that really cemented Valtteri’s race, he was stuck behind Ricciardo and unable to get through. So, the question is why? Performance-wise we had over a second and a half, we had a little bit of straight-line speed difference, but straight-line speed is only one factor in overtaking. You still have to be close enough on the exit of the corner in order to make that work with DRS open and that was the problem.
“Ricciardo was very, very strong through the last turn and was able to pull just a small amount, around about six tenths but you can’t make that back even with DRS open in the straight line. For overtaking to really happen you need a tyre differential as well, something that under braking Ricciardo perhaps would struggle or he would struggle out of traction out of the last corner. But of course, we were on same age tyres near enough all race. When we converted to that two-stop we were forecast to come out ahead of Ricciardo and this wouldn’t have been a problem anymore. But of course, that didn’t happen and Valtteri ended up again back behind him on the same age tyres and ultimately, you are not going to generate the overtake delta to do that. He was right on the edge, speaking to Valtteri after the race just a tenth or maybe two more performance in his favour would have done the job but it was just not enough to make it stick.”
Here’s Max Verstappen, Valtteri Bottas on fastest lap games
Here’s Lewis Hamilton clarifying for Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez
Here’s Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen, Toto Wolff, Valtteri Bottas and Christian Horner on Turn 1
