...Lewis was again mighty and I did wonder whether Mercedes, realising Lewis hadn't had much screen time, were purposely injecting excitement towards the end of the race. 
Doesn't sound like it was staged by Mercedes, so much as it was a knee-jerk reaction:
Laurence Edmondson wrote:">
The Final Stint: Mercedes under pressureOne might think a car could only be one of two things within Formula One's set of strictly defined regulations: legal or illegal.
...But this is Formula One and grey areas are not only common, they are positively sought after.
Since the British Grand Prix in 2013 when several cars suffered tyre blowouts over the weekend, Pirelli has mandated a minimum tyre pressure and, in theory, the FIA has regulated it. No team has been found to have underinflated tyres until Monza this year, but the FIA had not conducted spot checks on the grid at any race until Monza this year. Asked earlier in the weekend whether he believed teams had always stuck to the pressure guidelines since 2013, Pirelli motorsport boss Paul Hembery did not give the most convincing of answers.
"I would say in the majority of cases we believe they are always adhered to, yes, because you are talking over a period of time. What is key here is that not every chassis is the same. There are certain developments on certain cars that you can't explain to the media, but from a tyre maker's point of view, you have to look at things in a different manner.
"That's the best way of describing it. You want to believe that the data you get is correct and the recommendations you give are being adhered to."
And so, with a lack of complete trust between tyre maker and teams and following the events of Spa-Francorchamps where two tyres failed, the Italian Grand Prix seemed like the perfect opportunity to make sure the teams were sticking to Pirelli's rules. The only problem is that the starting grid is a bit of an anomaly in a grand prix weekend. During every other session, the cars leave the pits and head out on track, warming the tyres as they go and, in theory, increasing the pressures. As a result pressures set in the garage while in the tyre blankets are likely to be maintained or increase as the car goes out.
On the grid, however, the teams have to make do with make-shift garage, using generators, tyre blankets and only the necessary amount of engineers and mechanics required to get the car going. Thirty minutes before the race starts, the cars are allowed to leave the garage for a series of exploration laps before arriving on the grid no later than 15 minutes before the start of the race. The two Mercedes are almost always among the last to arrive and are then pushed through the melee of mechanics, media and VIPs to their grid slots that are invariably at the front. By regulation the race tyres must be fitted to the car three minutes before the start - although in normal conditions the teams do it much earlier - and are kept warm by tyre blankets. However, the FIA found that when the tyres were fitted to the cars of Hamilton and Rosberg, Mercedes' tyre blankets had been turned off, meaning the tyres cooled and the pressures dropped. Ferrari, however, managed to maintain much higher temperatures in its blankets, meaning when the pressures were checked they were correct.
So why were Mercedes' blankets that much cooler? Team boss Toto Wolff believes it is simply down to his team's procedure when the tyres are fitted to the car.
"If you wouldn't disconnect the tyres from the generator, you would need four generators behind every tyre. Cables all over," he explained. "So normal procedure is you keep the tyres warm when you put them on the car."
All well and good, but perhaps Mercedes should have upped their pressures when the tyres were first fitted in the knowledge they could drop on the grid. After the race Lewis Hamilton revealed Mercedes "run to the bare minimum" with tyre pressures, adding: "all the time it is above [the minimum amount] but as low as we can go. If it's 20 PSI, we'll be 20.1 or 20.001, whatever. It's what F1 is all about." So when the tyre pressures were set they were just above 19.5 PSI at the rear, but as they cooled they dipped below. When it came to the post-race investigation, the stewards were satisfied that having the right pressures when the tyres were fitted was enough to be within the regulations even if they dipped lower on the grid - a grey area if ever there was one and one that Mercedes and the FIA have agreed needs to be addressed.
"You check the tyre pressures when you put them on the car," Wolff added. "It is about defining the procedure when those pressures are being checked [by the FIA] in the future so it is the same for everybody."
A revealing side-effect
The post-race drama stole the headlines on Sunday night, which overshadowed a rather revealing end to the grand prix. Mercedes were made aware of the stewards' investigation into its tyre pressures roughly 15 minutes before the end of the grand prix, at which point it told Hamilton to put pedal to the metal to guard against a potential time penalty after the race. We've become used to seeing a Mercedes cruise to victory in the closing stages of a grand prix, but suddenly we were treated to (arguably) F1's fastest driver on full attack in the (undisputed) fastest car. The lap times were revealing.
Having lapped in the mid 1:27s for most of his second stint, Hamilton was able to drop his pace to a 1:26.672 on lap 48 when under threat. In the other Mercedes, we know Nico Rosberg had his engine turned up to the max as he chased down Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari, but he was running a five-race old, pre-Monza-upgrade power unit and could only manage a best lap of 1:27.067 on his 43rd lap. Sebastian Vettel's best effort - using Ferrari's own upgraded engine for Monza - was a 1:27.376 on lap 52.
All three times were set on the medium tyres, albeit of slightly different ages and on lowering fuel loads towards the end of the race. But it's an interesting comparison nonetheless on F1's most power-sensitive circuit.
That was the perfect set up and I honestly couldn't resist!! 
)))
Go 
