Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix (Los Angeles - Central Park) 03.20.2016.

One has to wonder, though, if those powerhouse teams—you know, Mercedes, Ferrari, Haas, Red Bull, and the rest—couldn't just breeze through Q1 using nothing but the Soft tires?

Timothy Castillo6 said:If they end up puncturing one, what exactly are they going to drive on?

They will simply pivot to Plan B and make do with whatever equipment is left standing...
Or perhaps, much like what happened to Bottas, they might just try mixing up the tire compounds... 🙂

rowdyrider12 said:They'll go to Plan B and just drive whatever they've got...
Or maybe—just like what happened with Bottas—they'll throw him some mismatched tires... 🙂

Honestly, I think the idea of cars running different tire compounds is actually pretty interesting...

Front SS with mediums or hards on the rear...

Or even left-front and rear hards against a right-front and rear soft...

Depending on how many left versus right turns are on the track...

Why not? If things get chaotic, let's just embrace the madness !!!!!

rowdyrider12 said:I mean, the big teams (Mercedes, Ferrari, Force India, Red Bull, etc.) could probably breeze through Q1 on Softs alone...

In a normal qualifying session? Maybe...
but not in this absolute mess. Honestly, nobody would be crazy enough to gamble like that when there's zero time to swap tires...

Just look at Mercedes—even they weren't dumb enough to try running Softs in Q1, and they actually had plenty of them left over...

We actually saw this variety of tire colors back in '86 with the Benetton car...

It’s like we’re heading back in time—look at Berger here running four different colored compounds all at once!!!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...86_Detroit.jpg

I'm thinking Ferrari and Williams probably grabbed some extra medium tires because of those upgrades they're bringing. It'll let them hammer out more laps during free practice to see how everything holds up.

Honestly, I don't think Ferrari really screwed up here.
The tire call was basically forced by how things were playing out on track. Alonso's mishap pretty much trashed what was looking like a solid, promising situation.
At the end of the day, I trust the strategy calls from the pit wall way more than I trust whatever the commentators are rambling about on TV.

It’s not even about the components; it’s all about the strategy...
They should have gone straight to the new Soft, then switched to used SS.
Maybe even put Kimi on mediums just to slow down Nico Rosberg down a bit.

Honestly, the biggest blunder was picking those used SS tires. It was blindingly obvious they weren't going to gain more than two seconds a lap with them. And let's be real, there was zero chance they could pull more than ten laps out of them, let alone twenty... So from the jump, it was clear they had no shot at getting back ahead of the Bear after pitting. It would’ve been way more logical to save the faster rubber for the finish.

swiftmaker12 said:We already saw those different colored tires back in '86 with Benetton... basically just a trip down memory lane at this point... look at Berger running with four different types of colored rubber!!!

Even without seeing the props in the shot, I know for a fact this is Detroit. 🙂
And as for those tires... 🐔

stormybadger8 said:It’s not even about the components. It’s all about the layout.

I’d say it’s actually the other way around.
Another software suite failed us. Instead of the SS, we got nothing.

stormybadger8 said:Honestly, the biggest mistake was using those old SS tires. It was obvious to anyone watching that there was no way they’d hold an advantage of more than two seconds per lap. And let's be real—there wasn't a prayer they'd last more than ten laps, let alone twenty.

They knew exactly what they were doing. Honestly, I don't see any major flaws in the selection either. To me, it just feels like a slight variation on a theme.
I think the biggest mistake we made was following Mercedes.
Maybe Ferrari shouldn't have jumped on Rosberg in the pits right away?
A red flag is just some higher power playing games with you. Sometimes it hits you head-on, sometimes it catches you off guard. For Ferrari, that was the turning point—just one unlucky string of events after another. Vettel lost his edge, the tires went bad, and everything just fell apart.
I was trying to say that the real issue for Vettel was that red flag and being stuck without an S-spec set. As far as I'm concerned, what tires they picked for the restart is secondary.

Roger Wright94 said:I just wanted to point out that Vettel's real issue was that red flag and being short on the S set. The tire choice for the restart is secondary, IMO.

How much of an advantage would Vettel have actually built up at the SS if there hadn't been that red flag—and how do you think he would've handled the tire changes later? Just curious about your take.

Asking because, honestly, I don't think we could've walked away with a win in New York City, no matter how much we wanted it.

Yeah, that red flag was basically a gift to the Ferrari guys—it did absolutely nothing but screw over the reds while handing Grosjean an easy out.
It’s like some higher power stepped in; you just can't account for stuff like that when you're sitting there crunching numbers and trying to map out a race strategy.
Though, I'll give you this much—using those worn-out SS tires later on was definitely a massive oversight on their part.

Robert Cox46 said:I'll admit, I agree that they messed up by using those used USA cars later on.

What else could they have even used? There wasn't really a choice to begin with. That’s the whole damn problem.
And those first USA stints were way too short—they basically gave up on them because they were too busy chasing Rosberg in the pits.

swifttiger75 said:How much of a lead do you think Vettel would have built up at the USA if there hadn't been that red flag, and how would he have handled the tire changes later? Just your take.

I'm asking because I honestly don't think we could have snatched a win in Los Angeles, no matter how much we wanted to.

Probably not enough.
If you want to be optimistic, there was some actual competition out there, which gives us a reason to look forward to the next race.

Roger Wright94 said:Probably not enough.
If we’re being optimistic, there was some actual competitiveness out there—enough to give us a reason to look forward to the next race.

I'm with you. So, in that spirit...

If Alonso had been behind the wheel of Vettel's Ferrari in Los Angeles, you can bet they would have walked away with the win easy as pie...

This brings to mind the good old days of Djura Utjesanovica, back when he’d have those five-minute segments on TV and always used to mutter, "Man, if I just had five minutes of power. Just five minutes."

That’s exactly how you are with Alonso.