The pattern of the racing as the boost button facility allows the following car extra harvesting and deployment of energy once it’s within 1sec behind was just as influential in the competitive structure of the race as in its high-octane playing out. Because the Ferrari, with its small turbo, inevitably gets off the line faster than the Mercs it establishes track position over them, making their locking out of the front row almost irrelevant. Because the Ferrari is also faster through the corners it makes it awkward for the Mercedes drivers to pass. But even once they do so, the Ferrari drivers can use their boost buttons to stay in touch and repass.
The Mercedes is more powerful but slower through the turns. The power advantage is worth more lap time than it’s losing through the corners and so it’s a faster car overall, but not by enough to pull itself out of Ferrari’s boost range without great difficulty.
So why is this boost function allowing the dicing to last so much longer than the previous DRS system? Three reasons: 1) It’s available at any point on the circuit. 2) It gives you more energy over the lap. 3) Despite giving you more energy, deploying it actually increases your lap time (because it depletes energy that could be used more optimally elsewhere) whereas the DRS would reduce your lap time.
Point number 3 means that if a Mercedes – in this case Antonelli – can get out of the Ferrari’s boost range and is therefore no longer forced to use its own boost button to defend, it is immediately up to 0.8sec faster than when it was being forced to use the boost function. It soon pulls out of reach of the Ferrari which is then left waiting for a safety car to get close enough to renew the battle. Without that, the battle is essentially over once the Mercedes gets that 1sec+ advantage. For Antonelli this was lap 20, for Russell it was nine laps later. But that’s how long it takes and in the meantime some epic wheel-to-wheel action ensued.
Ferraris were faster off the line, but they couldn’t leave the Mercedes behind
Grand Prix Photo
There’s another factor here. The cars are aerodynamically better-suited to racing than before. “The cars are easier to follow,” says Hamilton, “much better than in past years. You can get very close. There’s not such a bad wake where you’re losing too much downforce.”
So the fundamental unease of drivers lifting through crucial corners — especially in qualifying — to set a faster lap time remains. But the stark nonsense on race day of cars only passing at the end of straights when they had ludicrously more power was not really a fair criticism of the Shanghai race.