Yes, some chess like strategy when you,
Have "a strategic race like this" !

from https://formularapida.net/mercedes-expands-on-its-strategy-decisions-with-hamilton-in-us-gp/?fbclid=IwAR0sD5blATOlUQvc4IGXJtg-OVW8F98fBIk060mGnjpchLx9f1sO9dvRQlY

MERCEDES EXPANDS ON ITS STRATEGY DECISIONS WITH HAMILTON IN US GP
Copyright: Daimler Media AG

By Darshan Chokhani -28/10/20210

James Vowles goes through the strategy options that Mercedes had during
the F1 US GP as he dissects how Lewis Hamilton’s race panned out.

It was quite the strategic F1 US GP and Mercedes fell short to Red
Bull’s aggressiveness as Max Verstappen took the win over Hamilton to
extend his points advantage in the 2021 season. Even though they had the
tyre advantage, it wasn’t enough in the end.

In their usual post-race debrief, Mercedes strategy director Vowles goes through the explanation of why they didn’t go for an undercut knowing
how useful it will be. He also talks about early second stop and if
medium tyres was possible in the final stint.

Undercut:

Vowles: “It is always a trade-off between stopping early in terms of the traffic behind you and not running out of tyres before the end of the
race. In other words, optimising your stints. The fastest two stop race
is actually stopping round about 14 or 15. So anything you are doing
shorter than that is costing you race time, is making the entire race
slower. Now, that may not matter as long as you have track position.
Stopping where they did on lap ten is clearly a compromise, but they
obviously were very, very quick.

“On that first stint of the race on the Medium tyre, we had Verstappen
seven tenths behind us all stint and we were degrading quite quickly.
What that means is you don’t have certainty that the Hard tyre was going
to be much different to that and you are trying to predict forward how
the Hard tyre will perform. You saw with Verstappen, he ran out of tyres
on that second stint and he ran out of tyres end of race. What they did
was to a certain extent a gamble. They were in second position anyway so
why not take some risks? The reason for us not stopping that early on is twofold.

“First, we would have come out right on top of Ricciardo and we would
have been compromised through the Esses until we got past past him
probably on the run down to Turn 12 and that would have cost us time.
Maybe not enough to not hold on to that lead position but it would have
cost us time. The second is, Red Bull would have then gone very long, as
we did, but they did have two cars so they didn’t have the pressure to
then stop and they were fast on that first stint on Medium and that
could have made us into a very compromised position later in the race.

“So, from our perspective we knew the early stop was good and we had highlighted that just the lap Ricciardo pulled out of our window, which probably would have been lap eleven, would be the right point but what
Red Bull did was take a gamble. They didn’t mind if they had to convert
to a three stop, ultimately Verstappen would have finished second anyway
bit we did. That would have put us behind Perez. So, ultimately, it’s a balance between making sure your first stint is long enough, that you
are not dropping off the tyre curve on stint two and stint three because
a team that can go longer than you will ultimately beat you if they have
car pace.

“Another decision point in the race is whether or not we could have aggressively undercut Red Bull on stint two of the race. Verstappen was
just over three seconds ahead and the answer to that is, it was very
marginal, but we had highlighted that the undercut wouldn’t be enough.
If we were to stop, they will cover us the next lap and Lewis will still
end up in P2 but now you have lost all tactical options because both
cars were on the same stint to the end of the race. So, we had decided
that our best opportunity was to force them in or if we can get within
two seconds we’ll go for the undercut. That didn’t happen, Verstappen stopped, and the rest is history.”

If medium tyres for last stint:

Vowles: “All the way through the race we are continuously building up
tyre models. We have an understanding of how they are all performing to
each other, the Soft, the Medium, the Hard. Not just from ourselves but
from our competitors as well. What was very clear is that the Medium was
a very poor tyre for us. On that first stint of the race, we were quite
slow. I would say probably in the region of over half a second off what
we could do on the Hard. And that became an easy decision for ourselves.

“I think it would have been more difficult with other cars but given our situation and given that we know that we were poor in stint one of the
race, it wasn’t an option to fit the Medium again. The degradation would
have been too high and Lewis, whilst would have still caught Verstappen, wouldn’t have had the tyre to even have a go at the end.”

Early second stop:

Vowles: “Answering that question directly first of all, one lap or two
laps earlier he still end of race would have tyres that allow him to
approach Verstappen but I doubt it would have allowed him to overtake.
To explain that in more detail, there is a compromise, clearly. For
every lap that you go shorter end of race your tyres will be one lap
younger and the tyre degrades, every lap you put onto a tyre, every time
you roll around five kilometres it takes an amount of performance out of
that tyre. So, one lap earlier means at the end of the race your tyre
will be a tenth maybe a bit more slower than it would have been.

“And to generate on overtake, you need a bigger and bigger tyre
differential between you and the car that you are fighting. One part of
that that we can control is our degradation and what lap we stop on, the
second that we can’t is what Verstappen’s degradation is and where he
falls of the tyre curve. Now, he was predicted to fall off the tyre
curve and he did but he only did that on the very last lap of the race.
Had that happened a lap or two earlier, I think you would have seen a
different race result, but they managed that last stint very well and
dropped the level of management in corners as Lewis got closer to them
to make sure he had the tyres remaining for those last few laps.

“If we had gone a lap or two earlier a few things would have happened. Verstappen would have been closer on pit exit. He is on fresher tyres,
so for every lap he has been going relative to Lewis he is actually
pulling just a little bit of a gap on track and when Lewis stops, he has
to push back into back up, he has to basically catch back up to
Verstappen and if the gap is too large, let’s take it to an exaggerated level, 15 seconds, he will use all his tyres back up closing that gap
down and there is nothing left in the race. So that’s where the
compromise lies, what you want is to find the lap that minimises the gap
on exit and maximises the differential therefore end of race. And when
we stopped was that, in terms of the models. It’s difficult to really
know what would have happened if we stopped a lap earlier or lap later,
but what you are reliant on really for the strategy to work is
Verstappen to run out of tyres and they didn’t really do that until it
was too late.”

In a strategic race like this, the role of Vowles becomes crucial. He is
not alone in decision making though, as he has the able support of the
race engineers plus the team boss and also the team at Brackley, who are continuously churning numbers.

Wolff: “So there is a great group of people in Brackley who obviously
have all of the tools and math behind it. And that is being discussed on
the strategy channel between the Brackley base and James, and the pit
wall and myself. And it’s a brainstorming, and I need to be, so I’m very involved in the decision-making process in terms of they run, James runs
his strategy thinking past me, and I would only, how can I say, give the feedback that I have because I have more bandwidth.

“I’m not looking at the specific data channel, but I’m able to look at the intercom, the audio messaging from the other team and obviously how
the race pans out. I have James and Bradley next to me who are very
experienced as well, and we are the sounding board, and the sparring
partner for James, and we’re pretty active in terms of how the strategy
then pans out.”

Here’s Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton plus Toto Wolff and Christian
Horner on US GP

Here’s Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton on Turn 1

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