My 2 cents for what it's worth (which is probably about 0.5 cents
).
Interesting Final race, particularly the strategies.
The "pull off the racing line and give up both track and race position" move was interesting, and I guess well thought out.
I don't mind it, and it seems fair to me, but saying that I wouldn't like to see it happen every lap, so I can't decide whether it's an issue or not.
The 'lift' through eau rouge is different though.
Again, a decent idea mid-race, but poorly executed to the point of it being dangerous.
Both cars could have been taken out of the race with that move, so in my books it was dangerous, akin to a brake check, and a penalty should have been applied during the race.
And to finish off this post, a quick strategy analysis.
For my money, the thing that beat Hizal (besides Fraga) was his fuel strategy.
It's difficult to get a full understanding with people driving to save fuel and also using fuel maps, but ...
If the numbers on screen are to be believed it went like this:
Hizal pits end of lap 8 - has 49 in tank and takes no fuel. 16 seconds down to Fraga
Fraga pits end of lap 9 - has 21 in tank and takes no fuel.
Hizal pits end of lap 10 - has 37 in tank - fills 37 - has 74 in tank with 10 laps to go.
Fraga pits end of lap 11 - has 4 in tank - fills 77 - has 81 in tank with 9 laps to go.
Pit stop time for Hizal - 25 seconds.
Pit stop time for Fraga - 38 seconds.
So in the end, the time lost on track due to fuel saving wasn't enough to counter the time saved in the pits.
On top of which, Hizal needed to be conservative and fuel save when running Softs, which is not ideal.
A more aggressive fuel strategy, particularly early in the race, would have seen Hizal a lot closer to Fraga, with Hizal having the upper hand with the tyre compounds on the last stint.
Anyway, I enjoyed the race, and it was great to see Spa back in GT. 👍