Chinese GP: Race Notebook
motorsport-live.com April 23rd, 2017
If you have not watched this race, DO IT NOW AND DON'T READ ON.
"I can not believe it. YEEEESSS! Amazing race, thanks you... thank you so much." Definitely the team radio of the day, with tears streaming in the helmet, as
Iker Vidal, 26-year old Spaniard from Barcelona saw the chequered flag as the first of 20 runners and won his first Grand Prix, and the first Grand Prix of
Lotus Racing in the World Motorsport Championship.
"Be on the right tyre at the right time is one thing," a visibly shakened Dan Martinson said after the race to BBC. "Being on the right tyre to win the race is another thing." His drivers made alot of progress by being on the intermediate tyre in damp, but almost dry conditions from lap 10 to lap 14, and gained alot of ground by staying out of the pit lane.
Favorites Get it Wrong:
"I guess team bosses should stop aping
Steinmann or
Rossini, and think themselves," Eddie Jordan added to Martinson's words. Many of the favorites lost our when they went out on slick tyres in the middle of the race and merely gained 6-8 seconds on the intermediate runners, and THEN had to pit again for inters as it rained harder, leaving invaluable time in the pit lane.
Dieter Wexler got that mistake early enough and pitted for inters when he had the choice, but even
Nikolai Surikov's teammate
Winston Margate got it wrong and had to pit early for slicks... losing what could've been a race win in wet conditions on slicks.
"Timing is as important as tyre choice, you have to get the most of the tyres you got on there, either lap times, or length of the stint," Martinson concluded.
After Three Races:
Things are a mess with
Iker Vidal taking 25 points here.
Dieter Wexler is the World Championship leader as he managed to squeeze the most out of a bad race, and he now has 16 points of cushion over
Nina Holtz, and 20 over
Harry Chapman.
Nikolai Surikov also has thrown his hat in the ring by now...
In the Constructors,
Panther and
Steinmann lead
Rossini as
Rafael Rodrigues has yet to set the world on fire...
Lotus made a huge leap from 2016 and will get a huge chunck of prize money even if they never score again in 2017...
Race Result:
Standings:
The worst case happened here. The water on track dropped below the breaking point between intermediate and slick tyres... barely in lap 10-13 and the AI decided for alot of cars that pitting for the hard or medium tyre would be the right choice.
That is, ignoring the fact that in four laps, it would rain harder again. Result, the intermediate runners lost 2-3 seconds per lap in those three semi-dry laps, and won 5 seconds in the wet + 1-2 pit stops as the dry runners eventually realized their mistake and came in for inters.
Without a upgraded weather station, even my team could see that rain coming again... so the big WMC teams should be able to do so.
Next problem, the AI just uses up the tyre as they want to, and do not really utilize the trade-off between lap time and tyre life span strategically, like nursing a intermediate tyre just at the perfect temperature/speed to get to the cutoff point where it becomes dry...
I'll take the result for now, but there may come the point where I try out the new realism difficulty mode for rain races...