Quote:
Originally Posted by Bagor
No there's not. Not even close.
Option 1. Zero cars. Hamilton cruises home with a clear track in front and cars between himself and Max
Option 2. Four cars. What happened.
Option 3. All cars. The race finishes under the safety car with Lewis in P1
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1. I think there's actually a decent chance that Max clears all 5 cars by turn 1, as the other drivers want to stay out of things...of course the rule change from 2019 about being unable to overtake until the start/finish line make this a lot more difficult, so if Lewis launches earlier than usual he is probably safe.
3. The call was made to let the 5 cars pass on the 2nd long straight (between turns 8 and 9)...Vettel got through right at turn 9, and the queue had tightened up by turn 10
HAM,
(NOR-ALO-OCO-LEC-VET) VER,
RIC, STR , SAI, BOT,
MSC, TSU, GAS
RIC and STR were right on VER's tail between turns 9&10...they easily could have gotten clear by turn 12 at the latest.
Which leaves MSC as the other lapped runner...he would have only had 4 cars to pass and likely does it by turn 12-13.
As it was, VET was making the final corner (16) as HAM made turn 12...VET made turn 1 as HAM made turn 13.
Both TSU and GAS passed MSC before turn 1. SAI got STR by turn 5; RIC stayed on the tail of the lead fight, so SAI never got close enough to him to require blue flags.
TLDR: Letting all 8 lapped runners past as is convention instead of just the 5 wouldn't have taken more than 2 more corners.