Mercedes’ disastrous FP2 long runs prompted them to drop the updated floor (which caused bouncing): pace came back, leading to an unbelievable 1-2!

Kudos to RUS for conceiving and achieving a 1-stopper: their more loaded wing helped with the deg

6 drivers and 4 teams within 10s!
Fantastic race 🔥

And I don’t believe I was the only one who immediately thought ‘Alfa Romeo!’ any time an Alpine was shown 🤣

🥇Hamilton had the best pace, Russell the best tyre wear: Mercedes beat everyone through two radically different strategies!💡
W15 was both fast and kind on its tyres.👌

🥈PIA just 0.03s/lap slower than HAM.
🥉VER 0.17s/lap off.

LEC was quicker than NOR, who was often in traffic.

RUS has been disqualified from the Belgian GP, as his car was found to be 1.5kg below the mandated minimum (796.5kg vs 798kg).

Such a difference is worth around ~0.05s/lap on a track like Spa, or slightly above 2s over a race distance. ⏱

After FP2, the team replaced the car’s new floor with the previous-spec one, as the former was inducing some severe bouncing: could the old floor have been lighter, and the team forgot to add appropriate ballast to his car after swapping them?

How much performance was Russell's 'missing mass' worth? 🤔

No more than 2.2s, but at least 0.4s, depending on whether it was missing since the start (e.g. wrong ballast), or due to high tyre wear.

- First case: he would have gained around half a tenth per lap, on all 44 laps: worth 2.2s over the race distance.

- Second case: he did 16 laps more on Hards than HAM, so we assume he lost that additional 1.5kg in the last 16 laps. If that case, his pace advantage would have grown from null on Lap 26 up to 0.05s on Lap 44: the time gained would have been far less (just 0.4s).

All else being equal, HAM would have caught him 3 laps sooner (Lap 38 instead of 41) in the first case, and 1 lap sooner (Lap 40) in the second case.

Stroll strongly complained about his straight-line speed, yet he set the highest top speed in the race🤔

The reason?

When in free air his top speed was low indeed. As he couldn't overtake, he got a powerful tow while using DRS, reaching 356km/h.

Ocon's low-drag wing worked: he was fastest on average, and never below 317km/h at the end of Kemmel.🚀

LEC was the only driver who didn't use DRS: that's why his best speed was 'just' 326km/h.💡

Made via @JMP_software

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In FP2, Verstappen tested a (budget-friendly) lower-drag wing, but he went back to the more loaded one for the GP.💡

RedBull sawed the DRS plane to reduce its drag: this is an inefficient solution, used to save the money needed to design an entirely new wing. 💰

The top speed gain was:
- Moderate (4km/h) when the DRS was closedé
- Very modest (2km/h) when the DRS was active, as the upper plane's drag is minimal in these conditions anyway!

VER lost 5km/h to PER in the fast Pohoun corner, where he was quicker on most laps on the same setup: the downforce loss was deemed excessive, and they used the more loaded option for the race. 🚫

Maybe we'll see it again in Monza!

(Values from two long-run laps very close in laptime; Photo by @lukemotorsport)

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Russell's excellent 34-lap stint would have earned him a sure podium if not for the missing 1.5kg.

RUS's second stint was quicker than HAM's: the former was running less fuel on average, but also much more worn-out tyres.

Look how RUS started pushing again as HAM caught him!

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AVERAGE QUALIFYING GAPS (Only Dry Sessions)

Red Bull has been the best car in qualifying this year
Big gap between RedBull and McL, and between Merc and Aston

Fastest Quali Laptimes:
🥇RedBull: 7
🥈McL, Ferrari: 2 (LEC did the fastest time in Bahrain)
🥉Mercedes: 1 (Canada)

QUALIFYING GAPS EVOLUTION (Only Start-To-End Dry Sessions)

Red Bull's pace slumped after VER's 7 consecutive poles at the season start*: in the dry, it was only quickest in Austria since! 📉

After Monaco, Ferrari went from 2nd to 4th quickest on average. ⚠️

McL was just the 5th fastest car in Bahrain! 😳

*Notice that LEC set the best time in Bahrain.

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Did you know that F1 cars produce incredibly HIGH drag? A Bugatti Veyron has a 60-100km/h higher top speed using the same power! 🤔

F1 top speeds vary between 301km/h (High-downforce trim, no DRS) to 342km/h (Low-drag trim + DRS)*. In contrast, a Veyron has a 407km/h top speed 😳

Drag is higher for the F1 car, but how much?
The POWER required increases with the CUBE of speed:
-Monza + DRS: (407/342)^3= 1.69 (69% more drag)
-Hungary, no DRS:(407/301)^3= 2.47 (147% more drag)
So it can easily be over twice that of a supercar. The Bugatti would only need 404hp [1000hp*(301/407)^3] to reach 301km/h, vs the RB19's ~1000hp!

"So why is drag so high, if F1 teams spend millions to minimise it?" Because the laptime is the focus, and not the top speed: adding downforce will inevitably produce significant drag, but the overall effect will still be incredibly beneficial to laptime.

Comment with the name of your car: I will choose a few and tell you how it compares to an F1 car!

*Top speeds are evaluated at sea level, on the straights where the car approximately reaches its terminal speed (the one it would get on an endless straight). Gear ratios don't impact it, due to the PU's almost constant power above 10500rpm.

More about drag by @FDataAnalysis :

'Which has a more slippery shape: a road car of a F1 car?'
https://reddit.com/r/F1DataAnalysis/comments/1dim0tm/which_has_a_more_slippery_shape_a_road_car_of_a/

Drag Reduction | A Tech Discussion Post
https://reddit.com/r/F1DataAnalysis/comments/166ilv3/drag_reduction_a_tech_discussion_post/

Which Parts of a F1 Car Produce the Most Drag?
https://reddit.com/r/F1DataAnalysis/comments/1464xbj/which_parts_of_a_f1_car_produce_the_most_drag/

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