I got curious about some shyt after the last race so I started looking at a few of the onboards. Mercedes always seems to lift and coast into almost every corner during the race. Hamilton was doing lift and coast while keeping pace with the Ferraris. By contrast, I watched both Vettel and Leclerc's onboards and I didn't see lift and coast out of either of them. If anything, I would have expected it from Leclerc because he wasn't in clean air. I noticed the same with the Red Bulls as well. Seems like a few possibilities on this:
- Mercedes can't sustain the flat out running because they're so marginal on cooling, fuel, etc. That's scary in 2 ways: either they can keep up (and win) with excessive management techniques, or they're not showing true pace. If they were to drive every lap on pace
- Ferrari and RBR have to push to stay competitive with Mercedes. They're fueled to the max and are trying to extract everything on every lap.
- Ferrari and Honda are able to structure their engine and ERS modes in such a way that lift and coast isn't necessary. That might imply great fuel efficiency and massive retardation from the harvesting into braking zones - but it didn't sound like that when I was listening.
. I know he's been through it but he should have never come back, it's been a dismal showing.
