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

Who was saying 2011 was boring?

It's amazing how a few non Red Bull dominated races can change the complexion of F1 and suddenly it's exciting again. However before we get too carried away, Vettel still holds a massive points lead and despite a poor (by his standards) race in Germany, he is still hot favourite as the F1 circus rolls into Hungary.

Hungary isn't known for it's exciting races (apart from 2006 possibly thanks to the weather) due to the dust bowl and lack of overtaking oppurtunities, but if 2011 is anything to go by, the phrase 'no overtaking' has been thrown out of the dictionary.

Despite recent set backs Red Bull will be favourites to bounce back at a circuit which suits them to a tee with weather conditions that will be beneficial to Vettel who struggled with grip at the chilly Nurburgring. However Ferrari and Mclaren have shown that they won't just stand still and let Red Bull walk to the championship with Hamilton and Alonso winning in the last 2 grand prix.

Indeed Mclaren seemed to be in trouble going into the German GP as they were off the pace of the Red Bulls and Ferraris, but in Hamiltons hands the car made a miracle recovery to not only take a front row position ahead of Vettel, but take the teams third win of the season after very stiff competition from Alonso and Webber. Is this the start of the established teams fightback?

Even beleagured Ferrari driver Massa has showed improved form recently with two 5th placed positions in the last 2 races but they could have easily been 2 fourth places had it not been for a strong defensive rearguard from Hamilton in Silverstone and a pit stop mess up in Germany which enabled Vettel to get past on the last lap. As Ferrari plan to take the fight to Red Bull, they will need Massa to take points off Vettel and Webber if Alonso is to have any chance of a miracle fightback.

Mercedes are in a league of their own at the moment, but not in a good way. They are faster than the likes of Renault and Force India, but slower than Ferrari, Red Bull and Mclaren and the 7th/8th place almost has a Mercedes name penned in if there aren't any incidents, (which knowing Schumacher is rare)

Renault have dropped off badly after a strong start to the season and after a crash from Heidfeld and a poor race from Petrov, they now find themselves picking up the scraps in the midfield for 5th place in the championship as Mercedes start to pull away from the black and gold outfit, maybe a tweak of the exhaust might bring them better fortunes in Hungary.

One person who drove a great race in Germany but hardly got any recognition was Adrian Sutil who drove probably the best race of the German drivers. 6th place after a strong qualifying will no doubt relieve the pressure that had been building on him and will show to Di Resta that he won't have things his own way at Force India and that Hulkenberg might have to wait a while for a race seat.

No doubt that there won't be any uncertainties about the weather this weekend as more often than not Hungary provides a race weekend with 30 degree sunshine with not a cloud to be seen, apart from the 2006 race which was notable for Jenson Buttons first win in the Honda.

For Galahads superb circuit write up see here http://cliptheapex.com/pages/hungaroring/

 

[RickD]

but the mistakes happened after the ss were put on.the first mistake was putting the ss on,thats when things started to go wrong for lewis.also looking at the lap times of those on softs before lewis was put on ss when he should have been put on softs shows that lewis was never going to be able to pit again and still go on to win the race,so putting softs on hamiltons car actually would have made more sense since pitting him again would have lost him more time than doing the final stint on softs.and it was the team who chose to put ss on hamiltons car and softs on buttons,that handed the win to button,not the spin or drive through,this is clear to see.the track was cool enough for lewis to do his last stint on softs.also dont forget how quick lewis was on hards in the last race on his final stint,he was as quick as those on softs.
it wasnt the mistakes that lost lewis the race it was the strange decision to put ss on his car.

Come on then, enlighten me, who was on the Softs and had run a competitive lap before Hamilton came in for the Super softs?

Webber was the only one I can see and he hadn't even completed a competitivce lap at that point, he was still on his outlap. I even watched the race again late last night, but if I am mistaken, please correct me..

In the meantime, I will say again that hiundsight is a wonderful thing. Lewis went onto the "right" tyres at the right time, its just a shame that a lap or so later, it was no longer the right time..

Armchair strategists do make me laugh, would be most amusing to see them making the decisions for real.

 

[Galahad]

Lewis on primes was 4/10ts behind Button on options in Q2

And I'm sure you'd be the first to agree that if they'd both been on the same tyre, Lewis would have been several tenths ahead. The figure of 0.8-1.3s did not come out of mid-air, it was confirmed by Brundle on several occasions in both qualifying and the race, based on information the BBC team had gathered from the teams.

 

[Galahad]

Well on a damp track they would clearly do more laps. It wasn't just me that predicted it. Most of the teams predicted it. Of the front runners, it was in fact only Alonso and Hamilton's teams that got it drastically wrong.

Or to put it another way, since there are only 3 front running teams, only Red Bull got it right?

 

[Galahad]

Why was he put on a riskier strategy when the pitstop differential was 2 laps (HAM L 40; BUT l 42)?

If you want my theory, I'd say it's because Button can be trusted to look after his tyres when required, and Hamilton can't/won't?

Further, You're theory about compound diffs in practice got shot when Vettel overtook Alonso for P3. Vettel was on the harder, Alonso on the softer. So much for your theory about the softer being faster by 0.8-1.3 seconds than the harder, eh? Again, this was the race, not practice.

Did or did not Vettel over-haul Alonso for P3 while he (Vettel) was on the Prime/Softs while Alonso was on the Options/Super Softs?

Yes or No? There's only one answer!

According to you, Alonso should have pulled away at a second a lap from Vettel. Why didn't he?

This is a fatuous comparison as has already been pointed out, since Vettel's tyres were much, much newer than Alonso's.

I totally accept that in the race, the gap between the two tyres wasn't as big as it had been in practice. But at the time, the practice data was all they had to go on. Anything else is 20:20 hindsight.

 

[Galahad]

I'm about to have a female moment but need to ask the question. Is it more difficult to drive in wet conditions on the option or prime? Or does it make no difference given they are both slicks?

Traditionally the softest available slick has been the preferred choice on a damp or drying track, since the softer rubber comes up to operating temperature more quickly when the car is not exerting the usual loads under cornering or acceleration. Harder tyres may not achieve operating temperature at all, resulting in chronically low grip, wheelspin, graining and, ultimately, perhaps counter-intuitively, faster degradation as a result.

Of course, on Sunday both tyre compounds were from the softer end of the spectrum.

 

[jez101]

Come on then, enlighten me, who was on the Softs and had run a competitive lap before Hamilton came in for the Super softs?

I'm with you Rick... I had seen Kobayashi, Rosberg on the primes earlier in the race going backwards and wondered wtf Red Bull were doing with primes on Webber and Vettel. I was astonished when Webber caught Alonso. When I get back home in a weeks time, I will run this through the tyre anaysis spreadsheet, but it didn't make any sense at all

 

[Galahad]

As for the Renault release, I'm sure the team were as surprised as us to see the side of the car exploding, but even if they had known it was going to do that, I still think it wasn't a bad idea to clear it out of the pitlane.

 

[Brogan]

I was expecting that incident to reignite (pun intended ) the debate on forward facing exhausts and injecting fuel, etc., but it doesn't seem to have.

 

[Road of Bones]

According to Ted Kravitz's blog, the Renault exhausts were disintegrating anyway, so the failure would have occurred sooner or later.

F1 exhausts are usually made from Inconel, a Nickel-Chrome alloy used for it's high-temperature performance (we roll this stuff where I work). The operating range for this stuff is normally in the 800-900°C range - certain metallurgical additions can extend this temp range a little higher, but they make the alloy much more difficult to process and very much more expensive.

I wonder therefore if Renault's reliance on a) a longer exhaust pipe and b) burning fuel within that pipe to energise the underfloor is actually exceeding the temperature range of the Inconel and causing catastrophic failure? It may also be that the Inconel itself isn't failing, but that the welds that join the various parts of the exhaust layout are - a more convoluted exhaust layout will require many more joints and seams to construct it than a simpler one.

 

[jez101]

I was expecting that incident to reignite (pun intended ) the debate on forward facing exhausts and injecting fuel, etc., but it doesn't seem to have.

good point... no doubt that was a factor in the fire / explosion.

 

[Brogan]

At the very least, I expect the FIA will be investigating as it's a safety issue.

They may even force Renault to change their design and/or ban the configuration altogether.

 

[jez101]

Final point on the option tyres in the conditions we saw, you would expect the slightly damp track to favour the softest tyre by cooling it and slowing the degredation and performance loss to overheating. I am still really puzzled why the primes were suddenly much quicker in the second half of the race....

 

[jez101]

At the very least, I expect the FIA will be investigating as it's a safety issue.

They may even force Renault to change their design and/or ban the configuration altogether.

If it was burning fuel, then surely that is a safety issue no matter what direction the exhausts face?

 

[sobriety]

Anyone got any idea what went pop on Heidfeld's car?

My money's on a KERS battery pack or cooling system.

[Edit]Or it could've just been fuel I suppose, but it didn't look like that kind of explosion[/Edit]

 

[Brogan]

Looked more like a battery/capacitor than fuel to me.

 

[Road of Bones]

Kravitz said it was the engine air-bottle (according to Renault) - does explain the lack of flames accompanying the "blast"

 

[RickD]

I was expecting that incident to reignite (pun intended ) the debate on forward facing exhausts and injecting fuel, etc., but it doesn't seem to have.

I thought Renault were talking about going back to a traditional exhaust system anyway, what happened to this?

 

[Galahad]

I thought Renault were talking about going back to a traditional exhaust system anyway, what happened to this?

Heidfeld tried it out on Friday at the Nurburgring, but they went back to the old layout. From the pictures in Autosport it looked like a bit of a botched compromise solution.

 

[Quintessentially]

I think track conditions may have neutralised the gap in performance between the softs and supersofts but there was no way of knowing this as Free Practice was run under different conditions. It would've caught all the teams by surprise and I genuinely thought running the softs for 30 odd laps was a disaster in the making bearing in mind what happened to Vettel in China. Add to the fact that Hamilton had saved a set of the ss in quali and his strategy definitely made sense.

 

[Chad Stewarthill]

Kravitz said it was the engine air-bottle (according to Renault) - does explain the lack of flames accompanying the "blast"

What's an engine air-bottle when it's at home?