Quote:
Originally Posted by KelVarnsen
Alpine’s strategy is odd
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ALO is my guy so I was dialed in on him and had his driver cam on 2nd screen most of the time. He just had awful luck on the 2nd VSC timing:
RUS was about 2 seconds behind him at the time and Merc called him in under yellow flags but before the VSC was officially deployed (it was deployed before George reached his pit so he still got most of the cheap stop benefit). ALO was literally braking for the chicane when the yellows came up - 10 seconds later it became VSC.
Alpine called on ALO to box next time around, but VSC ended while he was coming down the straight after the hairpin so they kept him out. So he literally didn't have an opportunity to box under VSC - his engineers might have known about the MSC incident about 5-10 seconds before that braking zone, but you wouldn't want to box until the VSC was actually deployed - he was just unlucky that it lasted for the 90% of his lap that didn't include the pit entrance.
Re-watching George's onboard it looks like it may have just been a scheduled stop. Radio messages must be very slightly delayed relative to the picture - the engineer seemed to always be talking in the braking zones. Engineer called "Strat 5" halfway through that lap (I think code for box, which they don't want to say until the last possible moment so competitors can't react), and then asked him about flap adjustment down the final straight. On this feed the engineer called box after George had slowed for pit entrance (and it was a particularly calm "box box box" which you wouldn't expect if it was a last second call).
We know VSC's don't work 100% perfectly as various drivers tend to gain/lose a few seconds each time, which I think simply owes to where they are on the track when it starts/ends...which makes me wonder if VSC should run for a more specified length of time (ie. full lap equivalent of the VSC delta time). It could be particularly impactful at a track like Spa - a car that goes through the slower speed sector 2 under VSC would benefit more than a car in sector 1 or 3 which have much faster race speeds. But it might also be lame to make a VSC last 3 mins at Spa if they only need 60 seconds to solve a problem.