How a rare flat-out race helped McLaren slash Red Bull’s usual advantage

13 comments on “How a rare flat-out race helped McLaren slash Red Bull’s usual advantage”

1. 

   Matthijs (@matthijs)
   9th October 2023, 13:02

   During the race I was wondering: what if you drive a 18-lap stint, pull in the pits, but pass the finishline before boxing for fresh tyres? Then effectively you start your 19th lap with old tyres. Albon for instance had his pitbox placed after the finish line. However nobody was penalized for it, so I guess it was discussed beforehand.
   1. 

      Jimmy Cliff
      9th October 2023, 15:48

      All teams had their pit box after the start/finish line not just Williams.

      So technically all that ran to the maximum exceeded it as they started their next lap however the part in pitlane is at low speed. Pirelli in advising the max # of laps per set of tires deducted only (almost) completed push laps for the max 18 for used tire sets.
      That is why Max had a set of softs with 18 lap limit but that was used as he quickly aborted his 2nd Q3 lap attempt.

      It is also the reason why Max achieved a grand chelem despite not leading the entire race. At the end of lap 17 Max came into the pits crossing the start/finish line first, then did his pitstop but came out 2-3 seconds behind Albon who hadn’t pitted yet. Albon had to pit at the end of lap 18 but before Albon crossed the start/finish line in the pitlane, Max had already crossed the start/finish line on track and thus statistically lead the whole race.
   2. 

      Miane
      9th October 2023, 17:12

      You need to do 19 laps to be more than 18 laps. He started the 19th lap but he didn’t do 19 laps… It’s obvious but I think most people didn’t get it.
   3. 

      Yellow Baron
      10th October 2023, 0:51

      So couldn’t a team have planned to remove 18 lap old tyres at the end of their final lap? Therefore crossing the line in the pitlane and only losing half a pitstop to the rest?
2. 

   George.be
   9th October 2023, 13:33

   Albon cut it really close: including the formation lap, his first stint was 19 laps. I expect RB didn’t want to take that gamble, so they entered the pits after 17 race-laps.
   The part about being a flat out race is another matter. I guess some could’ve gone quite a bit faster since tires weren’t a limiting factor anymore, but fuel and thermals were. For instance, I’m quite sure Max’s stint on the hards was not full blast, as his third stint was as flat as English beer
   1. 

      hunocsi (@hunocsi)
      9th October 2023, 13:50

      Verstappen started on a used set of tyres with which he’d completed 3 laps before, so he was only allowed 17 laps on them during the race (a graphic confirming that was shown onscreen around lap 15). Used tyres could be run for (18 minus [laps completed] plus 2) laps in the race, the +2 accounting for the inlap and outlap during practice/qualifying.
      1. 

         Yellow Baron
         10th October 2023, 0:53

         Couldn’t a team have planned to remove 18 lap old tyres at the end of their final lap? Therefore crossing the line in the pitlane and only losing half a pitstop to the rest?? In theory piastri could have won the race like this
         1. 

            roadrunner (@roadrunner)
            10th October 2023, 9:20

            Yes they could, but why should they? They could just finish the race on them and don’t loose even half a pitstop.
3. 

   MacLeod (@macleod)
   9th October 2023, 13:40

   Not the flatout race helped McLaren but the fixed number of laps helped McLaren to keep close. Red Bull has a tyre advantage they can drive longer and faster on a set of tyres. You saw that in the sprint how more laps they did how faster Red Bull went. McLaren in front could keep Max behind on around the same time but in the end Max was clsoing in it’s the lack of Laps that Max prevented to attack Oscar for the win.
4. 

   pcxmac (@pcxmac)
   9th October 2023, 13:53

   nothing can really be gleamed from this race, the tires were artificially limited, and Max did not have to push too hard. Until Max is beaten soundly, and with him trying + RBR not having weird tire issues, then we can see how far up McLaren has come. But, they do have a Mercedes PU in the back, which is superior to what RBR have, so they should be able to beat RBR, eventually, assuming they keep optimizing their packages and have a solid foundation/basis for their development direction.

   Mercedes advantage this weekend was given their car is a better known commodity on its tires, but had the other teams more practice, and the tire allocation not been so bad, the other teams would have pulled ahead of Mercedes.
5. 

   RandomMallard
   9th October 2023, 14:01

   One thing that really impressed me was Alfa Romeo’s strategy. They made the early stop under SC work with Bottas, meaning he only had to make 2 green flag pit stops and finish 8th, and they managed the strategy well enough with Zhou to allow him to take 2 points once the penalties had been applied. Those 6 points take them above Haas in the Constructor’s championship which could be very big with only a few more races left.
6. 

   Dex
   9th October 2023, 16:44

   Yeah, yeah… Now imagine Verstappen doing his 100%, just like Norris and Piastri. Until they all do it any comparison is pointless. He just drove fast enough to keep that lead that he had. I’m pretty sure that he could find at least extra 15-20s over the race, probably more.
7. 

   Miane
   9th October 2023, 17:15

   Mclaren lost it when they picked an old set to start the race, Piastri lost time in traffic and any chance to win the race. Amateur mistake. In my opinion the best strategy was to start on new mediums to do full 18 laps, then put in the softs to undercut and do 8-10 laps, then medium again and finish on hards.

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