Welcome to the Tyre Analysis for the 2012 Bahrain Grand Prix. This venue has previously seen the joint hottest race at 40°C in 2005. Whilst it was not as warm this year, the unusually high temperatures promised an interesting race.
The spreadsheet works by collecting data from the raw lap times, and it can work out how much fuel has been burned, and it also takes into account tyre age and condition at the start of the stint. Unusual lap times due to close proximity to other cars or errors are filtered out.
Once again Pirelli chose the yellow Soft tyre as the Option and the white Medium tyre as the Prime. And just like China several different strategies were available, that would produce a similar result.
The Option tyre was slightly more popular this week, with several top drivers running two stints on it. It did not have the durability though. All of the driver’s curves are going towards vertical not too long into the stint. You can see how Räikkönen, Hamilton and Alonso all lose grip vey suddenly. This may be due to spending large portions of the race in other cars gearboxes, as Webber, Vettel, and Kobayashi have much more linear curves.
It is clear to see how this was the favoured race tyre, there are no sudden onslaughts of degradation as the Option tyre suffered. That said, the green line is not too dissimilar to that of the Option (they are on the same graph later on.) No single drivers stands out to me as having particularly good or adverse wear, but feel free to leave your own interpretations if you think that I have missed something.
Kobayashi and di Resta both attempted two-stop strategies hoping to gain track position against their three-stopping rivals. Both Drivers went for two Prime stints and one Option stint. Di Resta spent just 14 laps on a brand new set of Options before switching to the Primes, and you can see on the graph how the curve is starting to point skywards. The flaw in Sauber’s plan was trying to do 26 laps on an already used set of Option tyres. Whilst he was having a better time than di Resta, 26 laps was too far, and after losing several positions Kobayashi was forced to pit and sit out the remaining laps on another set of soft’s. On lap 40 he was 2.5 seconds adrift of Alonso, by the time he pitted it was almost twenty.
After Felipe Massa’s best result of 2012, and his first points, I think we ought to see how he stacked up against his teammate. For the Option tyre, most obviously, Alonso is always going faster. However he only used them for the first 9 laps of the race before spending the remainder on fresh Primes. Massa used an old set of Options for the first stint for 8 laps, and then the new set he saved from qualifying for 16 laps in his third stint. I think that will explain why Massa seems to have good wear after 11 laps; it is because all that data is collected from new tyres.
The Prime on the other hand, on which Alonso spent three stints, and Massa two, is much more interesting. It shows that Massa was, on average, quicker at the start of a stint, but suffered higher wear. At one point in the race Massa was right behind Hamilton and Alonso, but as the stint wore on he fell away, but not by as much as has been seen in the past, so Bahrain definitely seems to be a step in the right direction.
It has also been requested that I post the leaders in detail. Here it is, feel free to draw your own conclusions.
Just like China the compounds are very close, the option is a small amount faster, but it remains so for as long as anyone was using it. I have never before seen the two wear patterns to be so closely matched, and with China producing very similar results; it can only suggest that the Soft and Medium should not be paired again unless one or both have radical structure changes.
Unfortunately there is no data from last year, so no comparisons can be had with the old compounds.
In three weeks time, at Barcelona, the Soft and Hard tyre will be used, and hopefully there will be sufficient difference in the compounds to mix it up.
But until then...
tooncheese,
jez101,
sushifiesta
. Not sure it is going to work - Alonso is 15s/lap slower extrapolated to lap 20 whereas Hulkenberg is just over 3s/lap off.
