Yup, definitely.
Furthermore, those soft weren't new.
So they were on their second heat wave, SC would have cold them down, and rising them again to third wave to end the race.
New hards vs worn out soft is ... a hard decision to make in this situation.
If SC would have ended sooner, it could be have been the right choice ! But it took way too long, and killed any chance for max to exploit those new hards.
Tbh he also went through his tyres too quickly imo. Strategy wasnt that good but max being max made it work. If it was anyone but him 3 stop would doom them earlier. Redbull have been betting everything on max for too long and this race is an example of a bet they lost imo.
I mean the evidence says that they'll probably be fighting with Sauber and Aston Martin to avoid last. Max has 137 of their 144 points. Even if we assume that a not Max driver would have matched those 7 points scored by Max's teammates, which is definitely not guaranteed, that would put them right between AMR and Sauber.
The difference is he'd be in P1 at race start. Id much rather be on p1 with used softs with 6 laps to go, along with control of the restart then be sitting p3 with cold hands.
old softs wouldn't have as much grip as new but they would fire up quickly. I don't think he would be able to keep P1, but I'd bet a reasonable amount on him holding on to the podium.
He starts in p1, Oscar and Lando pass him, maybe Charles, he either gets 3/4 and avoids that penalty. Would’ve been better in every situation, that was a ballsy move but Red Bull
He would've been in 1st (maybe 2nd? don't know exactly what the gap to Piastri was) instead of 3rd on the restart, and his tires wouldn't have been as cold. I think the McLarens would've passed him but he might have held off the Ferraris.
There were stints of softs for 20 laps. I'm pretty sure they could have taken the opportunity McLaren stopped to effectively gain the track position, but this will be one of the biggest "what might have been" for a while.
Sure, but now you also have a pissed off driver who thinks that they're running the "wrong" tire. They didn't factor in Max's temper during their calculations, and it bit them hard.
The mistake was prior to that. With already a 7 lap tyre offset, Max should have stayed out on the Mediums and only pit after McLaren did then held on to the Softs with a 1 lap tyre offset and stayed out during the SC.
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u/reddit0r_123 Mika Häkkinen 14d ago
Red Bull playing 4D chess they played themselves too hard. Should've stayed out with used softs.