Grand Prix 2011 British Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

In a case of after the lord Mayor's show, we are back to square one after Valencia served up another placid race with the same result - A Sebastian Vettel victory. Some people reckon that the championship will be decided at Silverstone as if Red Bull still win despite the EBD ban, that is the championship over and done with for this season, and it's hard to argue with that considering Vettel has only dropped 14 points so far this season after 6 wins and 2 second places, not even Schumacher in his 2002/2004 pomp started a season like that.

So we go to a circuit where 3 drivers hold as their home grand prix, lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button and Paul Di Resta, but the Mclaren pair go into their home race in low spirits after their update package failed to get them closer to Red Bull on a circuit where Red Bull were supposedly weaker at than other tracks, a feeling that has been reflected across the paddock with Alonso admitting that the championship was virtually over and it would be more productive to focus on 2012 and 2013.

Silverstone has recieved a massive redevelopment as part of the 17 year contract it recieved when Donnington couldn't come up with the goods to stage a British Grand Prix and the new addition this year is the pit lane complex which looks stunning and has really elevated Silverstone into the 21st century as one of the elite grand prix facilities, (and certainly one to show off to the other countries when they come here ;) )

With the rule changes this could be the most unpredictable race of the season however, as we saw in Valencia, if anyone can adapt to rule changes, it's Red Bull, Adrian Newey has often been able to pull a rabbit out of a hat when the chips are down so don't be surprised to see Vettel take his seventh win of what has been a remarkable season for the young German who has swept all before him and is now walking towards his second World Championships and joining the select few who have won back to back Championships.

It's been a curious couple of weeks for Ferrari, off the pace and then suddenly back on it in Valencia and once again (like Turkey) they are the second fastest team again when the car is in the hands of Alonso (although Massa didn't exactly have a bad race himself)

Further down the grid at Toro Rosso, Alguesari has proven a point to his critics after a points finish at his home race and his second points finish in a row, and if he wants to keep his race seat there, he needs more of where that came from as Ricciardo is no slouch and will want the second seat at Toro Rosso next year. Even Sutil in the Force India shrugged off his critics to beat his team mate to claim a handful of points to relieve the pressure on his shoulders, albiet for only a short while.

For Galahads superb circuit write up see here http://cliptheapex.com/pages/silverstone-circuit/
 
Another interesting thing I found on the Onboard feed was Schumacher's overtake on Alguersuari during Lap 33. I don't think they showed this replay on the broadcast, but they should have. He was a good ways back and took a late lunge up the inside at Copse. If Jaime didn't give way, it would have definitely been another busted wing for Michael.

That was shown, Brundle said something like "he didn't put up a fight there did he? Just let him through"

It was a good move...
 
That was shown, Brundle said something like "he didn't put up a fight there did he? Just let him through"

It was a good move...

Just had another look, and it was DC that said the Toro Rosso didn't put up much of a defense. Needless to say, it looks a lot different from Schumacher's onboard. Michael FORCED Jaime to give way.
 
^Yawn. Less fuel because the strategy boffins felt whether rightly or wrongly that Hamilton would be held up in traffic thus slowing him down. Hamiltin admitted pre race that it would be very hard to overtake so I can understand why he would've gone with this assessment. Where McLaren failed badly was the poor management of the issue during the race making him a sitting duck for Massa. Luckily his skill and determination kept him ahead.
 
There was a lot of good stuff in the Onboard, so I'll be doing an OB overtaking video soon, but here's the move I mentioned earlier in this thread. Schumacher on Alguersuari Lap 33.


And then there's Lewis having a little fun.

 
Videos from Slim Borgudd? Now there´s a name from the past. Ex-Abba drummer and F1 driver (Lotus?). I´d forgotten all about him.
 
??

Sorry I'm I missing something here?

Hamilton passed Alonso in what turned out to be the slowest race car out of the top 3 and Alonso took back the position later on. It's called racecraft. The obvious observation when looking at Vettel's futile attempts to pass Hamilton was not the lack of speed - He just didn't know where to place his car and he has this strange susceptibility to violent steering movements when attempting to overtake. There was no killer instinct at all and we've seen this time and time again when he is up against an equally competitive car. Nonetheless I accept he bailed out and took the easy approach by pitting to overtake. Once again the Redbull came to the rescue.

Maybe a bit late, but there where some comp. probs.

So, what you are basically saying is that Alonso didn't had the racecraft in the last last race last year to pas Petrov? You say that Hamilton passed Alonso in the slowest of the top team cars. But what happened a lap before Lewis passed Alonso? That's right, Button passed Massa, in what you call a slower car. The thing i am getting out of this is: RB had the speed in the wet, Mclaren had the speed in drying conditions and Ferrari was the fastest in the dry. Mclaren clearly knows how to instantly put heat in those tyres, while RB and Ferrari don't. Another thing is, Vettel came very close a few times at the start/finish straight but had to back down every time at copse, probably because he had understeer, he had to shift back and this also happened when he wasn't behind Lewis. And on top of that, why take risks when you are 99 points ahead of the guy in front? The guy in front doesn't have anything to lose and you are against Lewis' bumper car' Hamilton.

And i think that some cars have it easier to follow other cars and thus have it easier to overtake. Like for instance, i heard that the mp4-25 was a dog to follow another car, while the Renault R25 had it quite easy to follow another one.
 
I think in this particular race (and I know it's impossible for us to verify) the likeliest explanation for the vast differences in speed (sometimes 2-3 seconds per lap, way too much to put down to driver or car ability) we saw between the different cars at the front at various phases of the race originate from the constantly-changing weather forecasts we got on saturday.
The three top-teams may have opted for significantly differentweather set-up on their car.
Alonso was nearly a second faster than anyone else in the last 15 laps, again too much to be accounted for by driver or car raw pace. yMy guess is that he had the "driest" set-up on his car, which would also explain why it took him him several laps to get temperature into his tyres at the beginning of every stint earlier in the race, a problem that disappeared once the track warmed-up as it began to dry.
 
A chart of the tyres used by each driver.
Paul di Resta was the only one to use the Prime/Hard tyre.

GPUpdate.net_InDepthTyreAnalysis_Silverstone_2011.gif
 
Cheers Bro, well that puts paid to the claim that the Ferrari struggled to get heat into it's tyres with Alonso setting the fastest lap of the race 1 lap after switching rubber.
 
Cheers Bro, well that puts paid to the claim that the Ferrari struggled to get heat into it's tyres with Alonso setting the fastest lap of the race 1 lap after switching rubber.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Not really, the probem was occurring when the track was still damp and hadn't warmed up, in his first two stops. Hamilton passed him easily on Fernando's first lap after one of those stops, when he was lapping considerably slower than he'd been before pitting (despite his newer tyres) and the beeb's commentators also picked on it at the time. Vettel also reported the same problem after the race.
 
Back
Top Bottom