I think Ric's stop was answer to Gasly's, as they saw RB (Gasly) as their rival in this race. They didn't care about Merc, which is good because even on the same tyre life they would got eaten on hard tyres. Merc was on another level on hards compared to everyone else.
So, I think they made very good work from it and managed to beat one RB with both cars. I like this race as they looked closer to RB than to F1.5 cars. I hope they can confirm it in France, that would be great.
Yeah it seems they were only worried about "man-marking" Gasly. That could have been a good plan before the race, but after the race started, given the circunstances, it made no sense at all anymore. The lap data (like in this link
https://www.racefans.net/2019/06/10...-interactive-data-lap-charts-times-and-tyres/) clearly shows it, as I detail below:
- On
lap 6, before any pits, the 5 drivers were doing
1.18 lap times and the positions and gaps were:
4th: Ric
5th: Gasly, +1.5s from Ric
6th: Hulk, +1.5s from Gasly
7th: Bottas, +0.5s from Hulk
9th: Ver, +2.0s from Bottas
- Then on
lap 7 Gasly killed his own race by going to pits and putting hard tyres too early. His first full lap with hard tyres was
1.20 (
2 seconds slower than before pit). Renault should have noticed that (even I, looking at live gaps in TV, noticed), and should have told Ric to stay on track because Gasly wasn't a threat anymore, but they stupidly called Ric to pit in next lap.
- Then, from
lap 9 to lap 13, the average lap times and the positions were:
4th: Hulk, 1.17.5 (yes, even with his used softs, he was still faster than bottas and verstappen)
5th: Bottas, 1.18.0
6th: Ver, 1.18.0
7th: Ric, 1.19.0 (Ric also returned slower than before pit, as could have been predicted by watching Gasly, so Ric's pit didn't make any sense. Do never pit if you are going to return slower!).
9th: Gasly, 1.19.0
- From
lap 14 to 15, the average lap times and the positions were:
4th: Hulk, 1.17.5 (yes, his 15 lapped soft tyres were still in great conditions, as crazy as it sounds)
5th: Bottas, 1.17.5 (he was 2 seconds behind Hulk!)
6th: Ver, 1.17.5
7th: Ric, 1.17.0 (only now he suddenly started doing good 1.17.0 lap times)
9th: Gasly, 1.18.0 (still slower than Hulk's 15 lapped soft tyre!)
- Then Renault called Hulk to pit on
lap 16. Why, oh god, tell me why. He was
2 seconds ahead of bottas, even slightly faster than Bottas. Doing great
1.17.5 vs
1.18.0 from Gasly. It was already proven the hard tires didn't work for Riccardo. So why pit Hulk early too?????? Even if Hulk was slower (what wasn't the case) he could stay longer on track to "hold" bottas and Verstappen, allowing Riccardo to drammatically reduce the gap from them...
- Then Hulk returned from pits with new hard tyres, slightly faster than Ric but totally stuck behind Ric. This allowed Bottas and Verstappen, even with their old tyres, to actually do better lap times than both Renaults. Bottas only pitted to put hard tyres in
lap 30!!!! Thats why Mercedes hard tyres worked and Renault's hard tyres didn't work: because Renault hard tyres were
20 laps older than Merc's!!
For me, Renault car was even better than Bottas Mercedes in this track but this poor strategy ruined what could be a fantastic top 4-5 for Renault. I bet Bottas wouldn't be able to overtake them if the age of the hard tyres was the same. But I guess the strategists in F1 don't care about race circunstances, only about politics: Why bother doing a great strategy if everyone will congrate you for finishing behind Mercedes and in front of Gasly?
Yeah, lets hope they can confirm this great car in other tracks too, but with a less political and more flexible strategy.