TIL #82: A Groundhogs Worth of Downforce
Lewis hits trouble, Lando hits Oscar
The Installation Lap is a weekly Substack column dedicated to helping Americans develop a deeper appreciation for Formula 1.
There were a lot of unhappy drivers when the chequered flag fell on this year’s Canadian Grand Prix. Through some combination of two-stop strategies, incessant tire graining, and small packs of close racing, nobody seemed to be very happy with how it all went at the end of the race.
While I think Lando Norris had the most to be upset about on Sunday, Lewis Hamilton also had a rough one.
In the early laps of the race, Lewis looked as if he was holding onto the leading pack. Then, all of a sudden, it seemed, he just started slipping back into oblivion. By mid-race, Lewis was pretty much driving around all by himself. It looked like it was another lackluster performance from Lewis in a four-year stretch of lackluster performances. It was at this point that Martin Brundle piped up and mentioned that Lewis was carrying some damage to his car. Damage that was costing him 20 points of downforce. Just as we were perhaps all wondering to ourselves, “how much is 20 points of downforce?” Brundle mentioned he was putting together a story for Sky Sports about downforce and how teams measure it. As best he could determine, Brundle explained that 20 points of downforce equated to a loss of about half a second per lap. That’s a devastating loss when there are sixty-plus laps remaining in the Grand Prix.
After the race, I went back and watched Lewis’ onboard from laps twelve to fourteen. I was surprised not to see much of anything. Lewis hadn’t been racing anyone; he was driving around by himself. At one point, something flicked up onto the lens of his onboard camera, but that sort of thing happens all the time due to bugs, dirt, oil, and whatever schmootz is flying around an F1 track. Mysterious, no?
Well, the gruesome details came out after the race. Lewis had hit a groundhog on lap 13. That bit of yuck that flicked up onto the camera lens? It was freshly murdered groundhog. Lewis was distraught. He said after the race,
“It was feeling pretty decent up until then. I got a good start, held position, I was holding onto the group, I was managing my tires as well so I was feeling optimistic. And then, I didn’t see it happen, but obviously I heard I hit a groundhog so that’s devastating. I love animals and I’m so sad about it. Oh god, that’s horrible. That’s never happened to me here, before. But the floor basically, the right side there’s a hole in it and all the veins are all gone…” — Lewis Hamilton
I thought this groundhog incident was interesting because it reveals a little something about Formula 1. These cars, for all their power and spectacular abilities when running wild at high speed, are also incredibly fragile. A handful of chipped carbon veins on one edge of the floor are worth half a second a lap!? Moreover, this minor incident reveals something about Formula 1 drivers. Did you catch it in Lewis’s quote? Lewis, a professed animal lover, said, “That’s never happened to me here, before…” It didn’t happen to the groundhog; it happened to Lewis. That’s the mentality all these characters share.
Of course, the big story from Montreal was Lando Norris. Lando lost, from my calculations, four to five groundhogs' worth of downforce when he clipped the left rear tire of Oscar Piastri in an ill-advised move into turn 1, lost his front wing, and ended his race. Lando is making far too many mistakes for someone who wants to be Champion.
What’s particularly frustrating, from Lando’s point of view, is that up until the moment his front wing touched Oscar’s car, Lando had driven a brilliant race. He drove an excellent first stint, managing his tires well, and was the fastest driver on track for good portions of the afternoon, particularly in the last phase of the race. Lando looked as if he was making a great damage-limitation drive on a day when McLaren were struggling to get onto the podium.
Martin Brundle, speaking after the race with the Sky Sports F1 teams, said of Lando’s race,
"Lando seems to have weekends which are utterly dominant, like Melbourne and Monaco, or it just all falls apart. It was one of those weekends, sadly for him,"
"He made a mistake in his first lap in Q3, he got a lap in, and then had a scruffy final lap that puts him out of position on the grid…He sorts all that out and really drove well in the race, actually before the incident. He bided his time, pushed when he had to and effectively recovered himself.”
Brundle summed it up by saying,
"Lando won't win a World Championship unless he can stop these weekends happening. It's as simple as that,”
After the Australian Grand Prix, the first race of the season this year, Lando had a 23-point lead over Oscar. Since that fleeting moment in March, Oscar has won five races and finished ahead of Lando on six occasions. Oscar now leads the Championship by 22 points—a 45-point swing in the standings in ten races. If you’re a big Lando fan, then I’m sorry, but this doesn’t look good.
F1 oracle to TIL, Peter Windsor, has been banging on about the pairing of Lando and Oscar as teammates for quite some time now. While the British sporting press spent the off-season declaring Lando Norris World Champion, Windsor was saying that Lando’s true opposition was always going to be Oscar Piastri, and how was Lando going to beat Oscar?
On his YouTube channel, Windsor got into this McLaren driver pairing once again.
“…then, above all, we were saying Zak’s [Zak Brown, McLaren Team Principal] master plan, we were saying that because he had no hesitation in effectively firing Daniel Ricciardo as the teammate for Lando Norris and replacing him with Oscar Piastri and the millisecond he did that it was very clear that there were going to be moments like the one we saw in Canada today. And so, you’d think, if, this is a big if, if Zak Brown wants above all, Lando Norris to be World Champion this year because he’s been his guy since he was in a pram, then putting Oscar alongside him in the other car was never going to be the right way to get the best from Lando. Always great to have the two best drivers you can. That’s the philosophy of, I think, of most of Formula 1 fans out there. I don’t agree with it…”
What Peter is referring to here has long been a source of contention in F1 circles. If you’re running a team, do you get the two best drivers you can afford? Or do you get a superstar driver and someone who is, officially or unofficially, your second driver? It was thought, back in the early 2000s, that Michael Schumacher and his dominant Ferrari squad had settled this debate. You get yourself a superstar, you back that driver in every situation, and you focus all your efforts on grabbing every single conceivable point you can get your hands on. Schumacher’s teammate during those years, Rubens Barrichello, was thought to be contractually obligated to play second fiddle to Michael. Which, when it came to the race track, the contract didn’t matter that much because Michael was incredible and Rubens, less so, less often.
Since those Schumacher championship-winning days, it has become gospel. If you want to win a Championship, you back your star driver all the way. Red Bull has been a prominent adherent to this philosophy, backing Sebastian Vettel to four consecutive titles in the 2010s. At the same time, his teammate, Mark Webber (now Oscar Piastri’s manager), suffered mightily in the background. Red Bull picked a favorite once again when Max Verstappen arrived. Red Bull backed Max, which precipitated the exit of Daniel Ricciardo and has left Red Bull hunting for a decent second driver ever since. Mercedes also ended up buying into this philosophy after getting themselves out of the turbulent years of their Hamilton/Rosberg pairing. When Nico retired, suddenly, after winning his championship in 2016, Mercedes got themselves Valtteri Bottas, who ended up being the perfect number two driver to their superstar, Lewis Hamilton. Lewis won four more Championships, Mercedes continued to win their constructors’ titles, and Valtteri looked clenched and frustrated the entire time.
Peter Windsor has long thought that the beginning of the end of Lewis Hamilton occurred firstly in Abu Dhabi 2021, followed quickly by Mercedes signing George Russell to partner their incumbent superstar. If you’re backing Lewis, why would you sign George? Which is nearly the same question Windsor has been posing to McLaren since they signed Oscar. If you’re backing Lando, why sign someone like Oscar?
History, it would seem, is proving once again that the Schumacher model is still the correct formula for winning championships. George Russell was more than a match for Lewis Hamilton in their three seasons together, just as Oscar is proving to be more than a match for Lando Norris.
Windsor goes on to sum up his point,
“Now, all I would say, McLaren are probably devastated that they lost that position, that result for Lando Norris, and the car ended up with that damage. But that is what you’re going to get if you have somebody as quick as Lando Norris alongside somebody as quick as Oscar Piastri. And obviously, it goes without saying, but I’ll say it —if Daniel Ricciardo was in the other car and it was Lando Norris, that wouldn’t have happened.” — Peter Windsor
I like Lando. You like Lando. We all like Lando…but Lando will not be World Champion this year if the next ten races look like the last ten races.
If Lando wants the 2025 Driver’s Title, then he will have to get cleaner and faster than Oscar, and he will have to do so within the next ten days.
Wonderful groundhog comparison !!