F1 2023 - Round 7 : Monaco

Andrew76 · 28-05-2023 7:26pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120651354#Comment_120651354

Aston thought the rain wasn’t going to be as heavy or spread over all the track. I think Ferrari did the same? Can’t remember.

Captain_Crash · 28-05-2023 7:39pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120651460#Comment_120651460

In a strange way, it was the right call at the time! Didn’t Apline pit Ocon just a lap before for Mids too?? Just 45 seconds later it wasn’t the case anymore! Cost him nothing tho, had he pitted for inters I still think Max would have got the overcut done

This is it · 28-05-2023 8:23pm

Just watched the highlights on Ch4. Interesting last 20 or so laps but never again will I listen to Alex Jacques (I think he's the lead commentator?)... I'd rather not watch at all.

AMKC · 28-05-2023 8:29pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120650514#Comment_120650514

Wouldn’t surprise me if some folks still give out and call it a boring race.

Brilliant qualifying yesterday

It was a boring race and a boring quali on Saturday.

Nothing much happened up front. I have not even finished watching the highlights yet and I have a fair idea that Max will finish first ALONSO in 2nd and Ocon in 3rd and I have not watched any sports news today or listened to any radio or seen anything about it on the net.

Maybe I just do not care as much this weekend because I have a cold or a flu. Have felt better so ye I watched it but it was not great.

flazio · 28-05-2023 9:16pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120651354#Comment_120651354

https://www.youtube.com/live/SDWRNsx0O3Y?feature=share

Time stamp 29:20

PsychoPete · 28-05-2023 9:19pm

Lol Alonso

28-05-2023 9:47pm

Another master class from Max.

A great drive from Alonso and Ocon too. I would love to have seen Alonso win this. He may yet win a race this year.

Schorpio · 29-05-2023 10:53am

Managed to see the race on replay last night - so a but late to the party on this.

Alonso's pitstop was bonkers for me. At the start of the race the strategy seemed to be twofold -

Get max off the line and keep him behind, or
Keep the hard tyres on as long as possible, hope Max has to change his tyres, and the rain gives you a free pitstop.

Now, fair enough, Max did a monster stint on the mediums. AM probably didn't see that coming. But anyone could have seen that the new Mediums were the wrong call. The rain was falling at that stage.

Max's inlap was really slow. Had Alonso put on the inters, he would have had the pace in theory to have been ahead of Max (but we'll never really know because he may have had traffic on slicks to contend with).

P2 is obviously a great result - one AM would have taken in a heartbeat at the start of the weekend. But surely it's hard for their strategy department not to see it as a win lost rather than P2 gained.

If Ferrari did it, we would be absolutely crucifying them over it.

AMKC · 29-05-2023 2:20pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120653009#Comment_120653009

If Ferrari did it, we would be absolutely crucifying them over it.

Yes it was a crazy strategy and one that surely lost Alonso the win.

The difference between Ferrari and Aston Martin is that Ferrari have been around longer and are the bigger team with more resources yet they continually mess it up. It is easy to say Aston Martin should have done this or that in hindsight but in the heat of the race its a lot different. I am sure they will learn from it unlike Ferrari and will not mess up the next time a great opportunity like that comes along. Singapore maybe?

Frank Bullitt · 29-05-2023 4:56pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120654002#Comment_120654002

Even Alonso said had they pitted for inters, it wouldn't have been enough. It wasn't a great call in hindsight and yes, the comparisons to Ferrari are there. However, it was a net neutral decision anyway, he was never going to beat Max unfortunately.

mickdw · 29-05-2023 8:49pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120654727#Comment_120654727

It's not as mad a call as people are making out.

If he went for enters he finishes 2nd anyway.

The slicks was the only call that might help him win the race plus it still gave him the option of going back in and still finishing second.

A worth while gamble on the weather imo.

It would have been better if he could have stayed out longer than max but the hards might be worse that maxs mediums through the wet sections or maybe not but clearly he must have been under pressure to get on new tyres.

Frank Bullitt · 29-05-2023 9:52pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120655496#Comment_120655496

Exactly, you could tell from his body language after it all that he wasn't to miffed by it, like Ricciardo in 2016 for example.

Either way, another podium for Alonso!

Schorpio · 30-05-2023 10:51am

I dunno, I don't buy into the idea that Alonso would have been behind Max, had he pitted for inters straight away.

Some people on Reddit have looked at the track positions, and the times others were doing on inters on that lap, and the conclusion seems to be that at best Alonso would have been a few seconds up the road, and at worst it would have been 50/50 with Max. Max did an over 2 minute in-lap, including nudging the barrier. Armchair experts (like ourselves!) so pinch of salt, but still.

It's all ifs and buts anyway, and great to see Fernando happy with the result.

@AMKC - AM have been around a long time if you trace the team back to their Jordan days. I don't think them getting a bit of a pass for the blunder is a case of them being a "new" entrant. I reckon it's more a case of Ferrari being serial offenders!

quokula · 30-05-2023 11:14am

At the time Alonso pit the rain was too localised to justify inters, they'd overheat around 85% of the lap for the sake of a few corners and wouldn't produce the laptime, they'd also be destroyed running in that way and need to be changed again before long anyway even if the rain eventually came. It was probably more important for AM to guarantee P2 than take a big risk going for P1. If they pit for inters and had to go back to dries that would be two extra stops over everyone else. If they pit for dries then had to switch to inters, that's one extra stop as everyone else had to pit for inters too, and they had enough margin over P3 to do that.

The team were just unfortunate that the rain got heavier immediately. You could say why didn't they just wait a lap, but if they waited a lap and the rain didn't get heavier, do they wait another lap and another and another? At some point they had to get rid of badly worn tyres, it had already been raining for a few laps without getting heavy enough for inters at the point they stopped.

Maybe they could improve their weather forecasting capabilities but based on the information they had at the time it wasn't the really the wrong decision.

dulpit · 30-05-2023 1:21pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120657082#Comment_120657082

And yet other drivers were already pitting for inters at that point...

I don't think Alonso would have won, but I guess it would have been much much closer.

quokula · 30-05-2023 3:48pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120657566#Comment_120657566

Nobody in the points had put on intermediates yet, only some back markers with nothing to lose by gambling - one of whom was Stroll who's pace on inters would have fed into their decision making.

Russell was the first front runner to put on inters and he was only entering the pitlane as Alonso exited it, which was when the intensity started increasing. If you look at the official race highlights on youtube and see the commentator's real time reaction without the benefit of hindsight, it was one describing Russell's switch to inters as a gamble, not Alonso's stop. Meanwhile Ferrari were over 30 seconds behind Alonso with all the extra information that afforded and still chose not to put the inters on until the following lap, which was certainly the wrong decision by that time.

flazio · 30-05-2023 4:41pm

Well I was watching along with BBC Radio 5 live which had Harry Benjamin and Jolyon Palmer on comms and Jolyon was flabbergasted when Alonso came out on slicks "what's he doing" and words to that effect, and bear in mind they were watching this from a radio studio in London with their reporter standing by at the interview pen which is out past Tabac.

Frank Bullitt · 30-05-2023 5:15pm

The other thing about Alonso pitting when he did, AM saw the temp in his slicks drop very drastically, they would have been blocks of wood essentially so they made the call to get him in. They maybe could have gone for the inters but as we say, hindsight etc

Considering where AM were last year, to where they are now (and the win that got "away" idea), it is such an incredible turnaround.

quokula · 30-05-2023 5:38pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120658690#Comment_120658690

On the F1 stream it was Alex Jacques who thought inters were a big gamble. I can't remember what they said when watching live on Sky, but Jacques is certainly usually far more on the ball than Crofty ever is. In any case it was far from clear cut and everything was happening very quickly.