Hey Data Gurus,
I somehow managed to get up and stream qualifying this morning…. somehow. Some say I wasn’t actually alive.
Here’s the qualifying analysis - and honestly, it’s a really interesting one. VER absolutely dominating the entire field is not really a surprising headline, but I’ve got some interesting observations about Mercedes' performance.
Remember, if you want to get every qualifying and race session (and Free Practice summaries every now and then, be sure to become a member over at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/brrrake/membership) - for the price of a coffee a month, you can't get more detail than this!
Just a heads up - I’ll be going through parts of this analysis live later on stream over at this link on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeb2ubzyHHs
If you miss the live, the VOD will be up, and on Monday I’ll have a “trimmed down” TLDR version of this video up on the channel as well.
If you’re going to be up for the race tomorrow, you should come hang out and watch it with us over here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFpw_MZ1Rxw
For both of these YouTube links, you can follow the link, and click the “notify me” button - and YouTube will remind ya 😀
See you all soon! Enjoy the data!
Cheers,
Blake
Summary
Several drivers with only 3 new SFT tyres for qualifying led to a variation of run plans (discussed below) - several drivers using up more softs earlier in the weekend for setup work in order to better prepare for the race.
VER secures pole position with a dominant 0.581s over P2
PIA is ahead of NOR by just 0.035s for P2 and P3
Mercedes and Ferrari struggling relatively
TSU qualifies P9 and Fernando in P10
Red Flag caused by SAR in Q1 - Ferrari ran a single run late in Q1 session without a banker
Where is the difference for Verstappen?
Looking a bit more into the data below, no one gets ANYWHERE close to touching Verstappen in the esses. He is just absolutely committed and able to carry so much speed (kind of like Stroll into the wall in Singapore qualifying - but more on the track).
If you look at VER vs. PER (shown in the teammate comparison below) - it’s like PER could be driving any of the other cars in terms of his pace through those corners.
For sure, Red Bull is on a different level, but in some of these places, VER is just able to commit so much and extract quite a bit from the RB19. I encourage you to read for yourself below and look into it
Mercedes High-Speed Performance
We’ll look at the telemetry a bit more below, but one thing I haven’t noticed so much until recently is how Mercedes needs a lot of part-throttle in high-speed corners to stabilise the car. Maybe I’ve missed it, but in the interviews after qualifying, HAM mentioned how they just have too much front end in HS corners.
I went back and sure enough, through Zandvoort and Silverstone, this was also present.
This is something we saw a lot with Ferrari over the last two years, and it never looked as apparent for the Mercedes, but through a lot of this season, it’s present.
My initial thought is that maybe TD018 had something to do with this - this is a technical directive which clarified front wing flexibility. Most of the end results of front wing flexibility are that they deflect with speed/load, so through a high-speed corner you’ll have relatively less front aero balance relative to a rigid front wing.
This sounds like it could be something that Mercedes would like to have to deal with this sort of balance issue, but maybe I’ll have to do a bit of a deeper dive into this.
Season Qualifying Performance
After a shocking weekend where RB didn’t make Q3 and was about 1.3% off of pole, they made everyone look pretty average this weekend by putting over a 0.6% gap on everyone - not dissimilar to Zandvoort and Spa
Removing RB from the equation, McLaren on par and surpassing Ferrari, and Mercedes taking a hit at this circuit
Not exactly surprising as the circuit has some similarities to Spa - for example a circuit with a strong emphasis on efficiency, but also requires a substantial amount of usable downforce for S1 and S2. “Red Bull Territory”
Session Pace Progression
Overview
Qualifying Results
Source: www.fia.com
Qualifying Pace Evolution
About 1s track evolution from Q1 to Q3 - the differing run plans and scrubbed tyres mixed with new tyres for different drives made it not so straightforward to judge track evolution.
Run Plans
VER, NOR and Ferrari only 1 run in Q1 on a new soft
Drivers are likely to be knocked out and forced to run 2 softs in Q1 as usual
Most drivers opted to run a used SFT and New SFT in Q2 except PER and TSU (both ran 2 new softs)
VER gets through Q2 on a used soft in the top 3, while NOR and PIA also have slightly less margin running a single new SFT in Q2
VER runs 2 new SFT in Q3 along with NOR and PIA
Some other drivers run used soft new soft for Q3, whereas RUS, LEC, SAI and ALO only run a single new soft in the session
RUS and ALO run earlier with the new soft and miss out on track improvement
whereas Ferrari leave it until late in the session to do a single run in Q3
Ferrari interestingly took a lot of risk in Q1 and Q3 without putting a banker in early in the session. If there had been a red flag later in the session, Ferrari could have been knocked out of Q1 without setting a lap - but they did leave plenty of time before the end of the run (they didn’t go dead last in Q1).
Ferrari again waited until the very end of Q3 to set a lap - they skipped running a used soft tyre which has some benefits and downsides.
Running on a used tyre will give the drivers an indication of the current track conditions - if there are any changes of wind, this can be very good to know, even if you’re on a tyre which has lost 0.2s of performance. But this relies on the driver being able to confidently decipher what is grip and what is track condition. It’s entirely possible that between Q2 and Q3 the track evolved by 0.2s - so running a scrubbed soft may have just been a similar lap time to that in Q2.
It appears that Ferrari possibly didn’t want to run the used tyre so not to cloud the judgement of the final run. They did run a used soft in Q2, but maybe they expected the evolution to be higher from the start of Q2 to the end of Q2 relative to the evolution between the end of Q2 and end of Q3… I’m not entirely sure.
Rather than chance it and wait for the absolute last minute, RUS and ALO decided to run their new SFT in the middle of Q3 in order to ensure clear air, no traffic, and the ability to prepare the tyres as they saw fit.
VER and the McLarens had the best of both worlds - they could run two new softs - one at the start and one at the end of the session.
Performance
Team Ranking
Neither of the McLarens improved on their 2nd lap putting them about 0.65% off of pole
LEC in the same ballpark as both McLarens
HAM and RUS are quite a long way off
TSU with a great performance for the car, but unfortunately towards the back of Q3
ALO back to MAG (or Aston back to Haas) not much of a gap in terms of performance.
Alfa Romeo spending another weekend at the back - Please Audi, save them.
Driver Ranking
PER with one of the biggest gaps to teammate this session
Driver Ranking - Perfect Sectors
Both PIA and NOR had a bit of time left to come by putting together perfect sectors
ZHO also left a lot on the table with perfect sectors
RUS “could” have been ahead of TSU, but not much left really
Best Sectors
VER with 3 top sectors
Speeds and Lap Times
Reasonable spread in top speeds - Mercedes bottom in terms of top speed, RB at the top
Ferrari and McLaren in the middle
ALB very strong top speed, but qualifying P13 will leave him with a bit of work to do - if he can gain track position and have reasonable degradation, he might be able to do something.
Telemetry
Track Map
Top Teams
VER vs PIA
Mixed bag between straight line speed on different straights - some drivers had tows in different places, hard to pick out without re-watching all of the onbards or track map feed
VER is untouchable in the esses in S1 and very strong in T8
PIA holding steady for the rest of the lap, but VER with a slight advantage in all sectors
Look at the PIA vs NOR compare below to get a better idea what was the “perfect” lap for the McLaren - even between their best sector times, they may have been 0.2-0.3s closer to VER, but no shot at pole, especially considering VER insane S1
VER vs LEC
VER in general minor top speed advantage everywhere
LEC losing a lot of time into T2 (there is an issue with the telemetry here, but he carries less speed on the entry once the telemetry recovers)
VER stronger through the esses, but LEC reasonable through S2 - VER slight advantage T8 and LEC slightly stronger T11 exit (VER still carrying a bit too much speed in relative to exit speed - but small difference here)
Not much differentiation in S3 between most of the top teams as it’s just a chicane and straight
VER vs HAM
Mercedes huge DRS top speed advantage to other top teams this weekend
Similar top speed with DRS off
VER stronger through esses and T8
VER also able to carry more speed into T13
Note that HAM carries a lot of part throttle through the higher speed corners, similar to what we’ve seen of the Ferrari for the last two years - discussed above
VER vs TSU
Straightforward - RB with stronger DRS, VER gaining loads of time through the esses, and then small gains elsewhere
VER vs ALO
Aston similar top speed - maybe a KPH or two down DRS on, and a KPH DRS off
ALO struggling with carrying combined load into MS and HS corners (T1,8,13) Also losing a small amount of time on the brakes in general (T11,16)
Not a strong performance from the Aston
Teammate Comparisons
VER finding loads of time over PER T2 and the esses, also braking for the final chicane (also some data issue for PER on the intitial braking - so not exactly clear)
PER about as fast through the esses as drivers in other cars - how much of it is the car in the esses, and how much is VER just able to thread the needle on the edge through here?
NOR finds 0.2s on his fastest lap first half of the lap, and PIA gains that back on the 2nd half - no major mistakes from either driver
PIA maybe a bit conservative T2, which is worth just less than 0.1s - pretty strong l
Similar story with LEC and SAI - LEC leaves a bit on the table in T2, SAI faster esses, then LEC gains the rest of the lap
Is there a bit of tyre management in a qualifying sense here? Overload the fronts and rears through the esses or slide slightly too much, then lose grip for the rest of the lap? Nothing objective here to suggest that, but it’s not crazy.
Very up-and-down lap between HAM and RUS
In some places it looks like HAM has a tow with DRS which is about 0.1-0.15s from T11 to T15
HAM much stronger through the esses, but loses half of this advantage in T9
Appendix
