Lance Stroll, Williams, Silverstone, 2018

Strategy cost Williams a points finish – Stroll

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In the round-up: Lance Stroll believes he would have finished in the points had he not pitted shortly before the Safety Car came out.

What they say

Stroll said he made his only pit stop a few laps too soon:

I think it could’ve been a lot better. I think our strategy was not very good. If we would’ve stopped a lap later we would’ve stopped under the Safety Car which would’ve gained us quite a bit of time so we probably could’ve finished in the points.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

Three-car F1 teams? Neil is not a fan:

I hoped this one would stay away for at least a couple more years.

How about sorting out the cost-cutting and the 2021 regulations first, and seeing if that attracts new entrants? You know, rather than bringing up this awful idea about giving the wealthiest teams extra cars and making the sport less appealing to newcomers, and more dependent on manufacturers, than ever before.
Neil (@Neilosjames)

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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38 comments on “Strategy cost Williams a points finish – Stroll”

  1. I don’t know how Lance Stroll thinks strategy works, but when he made his pit stop, he was lapped, in 16th place, 15 seconds behind Vandoorne in 15th place. This fact alone shows that it absolutely didn’t matter when he made his pit stop – this isn’t Donington, you can’t gain time by entering the pit lane without making a pit stop. He could’ve lost less time compared to Vandoorne and all the other cars ahead by pitting under Safety Car conditions (as they all did), but he would’ve ended up in the exact same position behind the Safety Car.
    Continuing for a few more laps would not have helped him at all, as he was dropping back from Vandoorne at a rate of 1.5 seconds per lap on average before making his pit stop, so there’s that. And then he dares call his team’s failure to predict a Safety Car period “bad strategy”. Unless the Williams pit wall is populated with famous psychics, he pulled his remark out of an orifice that usually isn’t used for talking.
    Baffling statement, very poor style.

    1. @nase, How dare you blame Lance, the strategist should have known there would be a safety car the next lap. ;-)

      1. By strategy, he means is Williams driver recruitment strategy.

    2. Furthermore, how can you ‘blame’ your team to pit BEFORE the Safety Car? It’s not that Williams’ strategist is clairvoyant.

    3. Lance, Lance, Lance,
      You pitted on lap 30 and were already 89s behind Bottas (lead car under subsequent safety car). You were losing more than 4s per lap against the same Bottas. Thus if Claire(voyant) had pitted you under the first SC (lap 33) then you would have been lapped already by Bottas.
      Even the team with the fastest pitstop cannot get a car unlap itself during the SC pitstop.

      And most ridiculous of all: Lance had a free ‘unlap’ during SC 1. Consequently, he was at the tail of the pack at the end of SC 2. Thus whichever way his imaginative world spins, the result after SC2 (lap 41) would have been the same/identical/unchanged.

      The only strategy that cost him a points finish is the strategy of the other teams ‘not to pit’ a car under the 2nd SC. And even then I’d bet that most would have overtaken him on fresh tyres :P

      1. @coldfly

        Claire(voyant)

        I see what you did there ;)

    4. Every time I start to feel a bit of sympathy for Lance (and Sirotkin) for having to suffer along with a dog of a car that spins off the moment it starts to turn due to stalling aero, he opens his mouth and decides to test the fitment of his foot.

      1. @phylyp I don’t have a good opinion of the whole Williams situation and I just don’t like Stroll. I’m a bit disappointed because with this car I can’t really understand where Sirotkin stacks; he seems a good guy and by the few info I have his attitude is different from Lance’s

    5. I think Lance’s comments show the clear lack of grey matter between his ears. I bet he thinks strategists sit with a crystal ball on their laps and formulate their strategy around what the future holds.

      I don’t think I’ve come across a driver with such ridiculously low amounts on intellect and talent in ages.

    6. When they start to throw their teams under the bus for the most stupid reasons there are, you know they have been told there won’t be a next year.

      Williams might have learned the lesson, you don’t give your seats to two inexperienced and talentless drivers when tou want to move up the field.

      Question is, will Sirotkin leave as well?

      1. I kind of feel for Sirotkin. Rookies need a teammate to learn from in their fist year. Unfortunately for Sirotkin, he’s probably got the worse teammate possible to help him with that learning curve. I would go as far as saying that Sirotkin is already a more mature racer in his first season than Lance is in his second.

        Williams need to get a Wehrlein or Kvyat, and dump Lance.

        1. hopefully they don’t go for any of those either

          1. then who would u suggest?

        2. At least Sirotkin has Kubica to learn from @todfod, but still having a car as bad as the williams, and Lance as teammate is far from a dream environment for a rookie to prove their mettle

      2. Question for you is. Where do they get the money for next year. Martini is gone the drivers are their only source for money.

  2. I’m in two minds about 3 car teams.

    I completely understand the negative aspects of the concept, especially seeing more power on and off the track in the hands of the big teams.

    But on the flip side, seeing drivers go up against two team mates would offer a fascinating insight into their relative performance, particularly amongst the top teams.

    Hamilton, Bottas & Ocon at Mercedes versus Vettel, Ricciardo & Leclerc at Ferrari versus Verstappen, Sainz and Alonso at Red Bull? Ok now I’m dreaming, I’ll stop..

    1. Three cars is a bit of a overkill.
      But I think one car teams would be nice for new driver developmemt or a wild car like a better team for Alonso.
      I am quite sure the briatore could come up with some chassis-power unit combination that would give alonso a better chance.

      1. A better team for Alonso in a single car team? And who would do the developement testing?

    2. I don’t mind the idea – may be better though to allow proper “customer cars” – imagine the panic if. Ferrari B team or a Mercedes B team with a couple of hot shot new drivers started beating their high paid No1 drivers competing in equivalent machinery.

      It seems the only way to have a competitive car would be to run that way – Haas isn’t a true customer car and it’s already starting to get there. Anything that gives more drivers a better shot at a win is a good thing in my opinion so why not allow the competition to acquire top class machines?

    3. Champagne Papi
      12th July 2018, 9:58

      Exactly this. More top drivers in top cars is only a good thing, it’s already a 2 tier championship, we have 6 drivers capable of winning races now. 9 would be even better.

  3. @keithcollantine, the RSS feed is broken. Any chance of fixing it?

    1. @paulk – works fine for me via Feedly, e.g. this round-up popped up there roughly 3 hours ago.

      1. @phylyp @paulk mine still says “F1 Fanatic”. I’m keeping it as long as it’s alive.

    2. @keithcollantine, the RSS is back. Thank you Keith.

    3. It’s broken for me also. I’m using Feedly and it takes me to google.com when I click the links

  4. I feel for Lance. Williams is really holding him back. Even their chrystal ball is not working properly.

  5. So Lance’s suggestion to the team strategist is… seeing the future?

  6. The distance between Austin and Miami is a massive 1,791.97 km by air, so nowhere near close to each other, so, therefore, utterly ridiculous to suggest it would be a problem if they took place at the same time of year (which is the plan). The Austin-Mexico City distance is massive (1,213.62 km) as well, while the Spa-Monza distance, for example, is only 600.85 km by air (776.37 km by road), and the Hockenheim-Hungaroring equivalent 811.95 km by air (971.49 km), and yet no one’s making a fuss about these particular races taking place at the same time of year and or subsequent weekends, so a bit of inconsistency there. BTW, Why was Chandhok’s tweet posted on race day included to a round-up only now?
    – I agree with the COTD.

    1. Archit (@architjain07)
      12th July 2018, 20:08

      Its the popularity of the sport that matters! F1 is born in Europe so we have like 10 races within Europe! Entire Europe is smaller than the size of USA! So then should we have 10 races in USA too? Your reasoning lacks logic! Compare F1 in Europe to American Football in USA and you might land somewhere!

      1. @architjain07 Wrong, my reasoning indeed has logic in it, and BTW, the size of Europe is approximately the same as the one of US. The main point, though, is that If people are going to make a big fuss about venues with a distance of almost 2000 km between them taking place at the same time of year then for the sake of consistency they should do the same on venues with only 600-900 km between them as well. There’s also less distance between Malaysia and Japan than there is between Austin and Miami, and or Austin and Mexico City, and yet no one complained about the scheduling of these two races in the last two seasons either (nor the Singapore-Japan double-headers in 2009 and 2015).

        1. Archit (@architjain07)
          13th July 2018, 17:28

          @jerejj – Again you cant mix fan following with distance between two venues! If we have 1 million followers between 900 kms and 500K between 2000 kms, how many races will you schedule at those venues? America has to first build up fan following and Europe already has it!

      2. @architjain07 Forget the last part of my reply comment. I remembered the numbers concerning the Malaysia-Japan distance incorrectly. My point otherwise concerning my original comment still stands valid, though.

    2. Archit (@architjain07)
      12th July 2018, 20:09

      @jerejj– Please see below!

      1. @architjain07 Except that there’s nothing to see below, LOL.

    3. The market doesn’t really work the same way over here as it does in Europe. You could host a GP anywhere there and people will go to it, whereas there are about a dozen or so places over here that would be a suitable place for a GP (Indianapolis is not one of them)- the enthusiasm for F1 is shared by a very small percentage here and not many of them can afford or have the time to go to 2 or 3 GPs in the span of 2 weeks. But my point really is this: having the Miami GP in October is a bad idea because it 1. Is too close to Austin, 2. Is too close to th NASCAR finale at Homestead and 3. The weather in October in Miami is borderline acceptable whereas holding it in March as the first race of the year would be ideal. The weather is cooler/less humid and the chance of rain is less likely.

  7. Never liked the idea of 3 car teams because I see far more negatives than positives. The most obvious of which is that the top teams (Who are probably the only one’s that could really afford to run 3 cars) running a 3rd car just pushes the mid-field teams further back down the order.

    I also think that it will just result in one of the cars been used more tactically to hold up/take points off other teams, Something you do tend to see on occasions in categories that do allow 3+ cars, Especially when you have a more dominant team or when one of the drivers falls out of the title hunt. I also don’t see the idea that they would have 3 top drivers all free to race coming to pass.

    There is also the issue if you have a case with a dominant team that has such an advantage that there locking out of the podium regularly & wrapping up the titles sooner.

  8. I am not in favour of 3 car teams for many of the reasons others have mentioned. It might be a fine idea if you have more than 3 trueley competitive teams.

    The sport is already dominated by the top 3 teams who are miles ahead of their competitors. They need to sort out the gap between Merc, Ferrari, Red Bull and the rest before this even becomes an option. The whole field needs to be more competitive.

  9. Califormula1fan
    12th July 2018, 19:40

    Lance Stroll talks like the spoiled child that he is.

Comments are closed.