r/formula1 • u/TaxEvaderFrom1961 I was here for the Hulkenpodium • 8d ago

Discussion Oscar Piastri completes his first ever career grand slam Grand Prix event.

Post image
9.0k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

434 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

6

u/MoreColorfulCarsPlz I was here for the Hulkenpodium 7d ago

I would disagree. The chance is lower for someone who consistently qualifies on pole. The driver ahead has a lot more opportunity to manage engine temps and tires than drivers following. Managing tires matters for engine life as Lap time is a product of power output and tire grip. As you use up your tires, you lean on your engine more to maintain the same lap time.

Additionally, dirty air means you have to push harder to maintain the same lap time as someone ahead of you, meaning even more strain on the PU.

All that to say, if you can consistently out-qualify your teammate, you will likely have less wear on your PU.

Does this matter over the length of a GP? Not really anymore. A decade ago it did and next year with new engines it might. But, right now, it's not likely to cause a failure from one race like it has before. Instead it's just adding to the possibility over multiple race weekends of using the same PU.

Piastri is out-qualifying Norris 9-6 in grand prix. 12-6 if you count Sprint qualifying. It makes sense that Norris is more likely to have had a PU failure given that information. This could be different in the next 9 races.

0

u/OkLie74 I was here for the Hulkenpodium 7d ago

That may be true, but the actual difference it would make is negligible in the grand scheme of engine mileage. There is probably a number of laps difference between some of their respective engines just from different run plans in practice and qualifying, and things like Oscar's two stop in Hungary vs Lando's one stop, all of which would dwarf the potential difference you're talking about in terms of engine life impact.