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

And so on to Spain, after the anti climax that was Turkey, it seems that no-one can stop Vettel as he marched to his 3rd win in 4 races and is in dominant form as we head to the Iberian peninsula. Despite the highest amount of overtakes since records began (126), a lot of people were questioning how authentic these overtakes were due to their artificial nature because of the DRS. The Spanish Grand Prix hasn't been known for its overtakes, indeed this is a track where more often than not, the driver who gets pole goes on to win so thats the race in the bag for Vettel. In 2010 the race was won by Mark Webber in the first of back to back wins from Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel. lewis Hamilton was on course for second until a wheel rim failure with two laps to go.

After a dominant performance in Turkey, Red Bull will be aiming at another one two in Spain, and on current form and given the nature of the track it is hard to see past the Red Bulls from extending their championship lead. However Ferrari and particularly Alonso have showed that Red Bull won't have it their own way and no doubt Alonso will be boosted by a capacity crowd all cheering him on. Mclaren planned to bring updates to Turkey but abandoned them and instead will introduce them this weekend to plug the ever increasing gap with Hamilton currently second in the drivers championship, over 30 points behind Vettel.

Mercedes were Jekyll and Hyde in Turkey and its not exactly hard to figure out who was who. Mercedes Rosberg has shown improved form recently and has been mixing with the Mclarens and Ferraris and with continued development, Mercedes will be confident of a top 5 finish this weekend.

Renault have seemed to have fallen back recently with Heidfeld and Petrov in the lower reaches of the points, their podium form of Australia and Malaysia now seems a distant memory and have now been overtaken by Mercedes in the development battle. In the midfield it is really tightening up as Toro Rosso have found a speed boost with Buemi claiming points in Turkey and Kobyashi coming from last on the grip to claim a top 10 position with Force India not holding the same level of competitiveness as the first few races with Di Resta's first DNF of his career.

While Team lotus didn't gain the jump that they hoped, they have high hopes that this weekend is the one where they establish themselves as a solid midfield runner while Virgin and HRT continue to fight it out over who gets the wooden spoon.

With the arguments over DRS raging on, no doubt we will see a circuit record of overtakes as cars breeze past each other down the main straight but if only one thing is certain it is that Red Bull will be right at the front barring major developments (or crashes)

For Galahads excellent circuit write up, see here http://cliptheapex.com/pages/circuit-de-catalunya/

 

[Chad Stewarthill]

I can see what you mean Evil, he does like to go for the different route... In his defence though he did say he didn't know why everyone didn't choose the three stopper - to him it was the optimal tactic.

I must admit to being somewhat surprised, when looking at the Pitpass.com driver tyre strategy analysis, http://www.pitpass.com/43685-Spanish-GP-Driver-Tyre-Strategies to see that apparently only seven drivers (the two RBR's, Hamilton, Alonso, Buemi and the two Williams) made four stops.
Everyone else (of those who completed the full race distance) made only three.

 

[Fenderman]

Just looked at the results on http://www.formula1.com/results/season/2011/853/

In all the excitement I forgot Seb and Lewis lapped everyone except Jenson and Mark. Trying to remember when we last saw something like that. TeaBagYokel is the man who usually refreshes my memory. I think the Brawns were the last pair to do this in '09.

 

[MCLS]

It shows the immense pace Hamilton and Vettel were driving at after the first pit stops. If it wasn't for Hamilton, we would be complaining about a boring race

 

[BlackCountryBob]

Was it just me or did anyone else think that Brundle and DC undersold the significance of Button passing Webber and Alonso.

IMO they gave the impression that Button would later on be a sitting duck on the hard tyres (thereby implying that MW and FA had a set of softs left for their last stop - which anybody unfamiliar with the rules of the teams having only 3 sets of softs for qually and the race would be taken in by).

I think on the whole it is sad that when you do as Lewis did and stretch your tyres out for 4 laps longer than those around you; you are ultimately not rewarded for your careful driving because the undercut was so severe, particularly on the soft tyre.

Not been following this thread so this ma have been covered before, but the biggest gripe for me about the whole weekend was that saving tyres has become more important in qually than position; I would personally punish drivers like MSc who do not set a lap in Q3 to save tyres, maybe force drivers who sit out Q3 to start the race on prime tyres or the tyres they set their fastest lap in Q2 on.

I like the idea of giving a extra set of options to the cars in Q3 but making the teams hand back a set of options after Q3 but they cannot be the set of tyres run in Q2; that way, they may as well do 2 runs in Q3 because otherwise they will have to hand back a completely unused set of option tyres with no advantage gained in regard to race strategy.

Thoughts???

Decent race though overall; who knew Catalunya could actually become a fairly entertaining race with the addition of a bit of piano wire to the rear wing and a couple of duracell's stuck to the to the axel. Think Valencia and Hungary are probably beyond saving though, don't hold out much hope for Monaco and Singapore either.

One big thing I am noticing is that the Mclaren pit crew seem a bit of a liability at the moment, slower stops, sticking wheels and dropping the wheel nuts are becoming a common occurrence.

 

[MCLS]

Traditionally they haven't been the best though....

 

[snowy]

S. Vettel L. Hamilton
1 14:04:51 1 14:04:53
2 1:30.633 2 1:31.189
3 1:30.549 3 1:30.239
4 1:30.346 4 1:30.011
5 1:30.120 5 1:30.083
6 1:30.023 6 1:30.127
7 1:30.062 7 1:30.183
8 1:30.326 8 1:30.464
9 P 1:32.911 9 1:30.526
10 1:47.780 10 1:30.838
11 1:30.311 11 P 1:32.882
12 1:29.673 12 1:45.417
13 1:29.497 13 1:29.076
14 1:29.944 14 1:29.875
15 1:29.723 15 1:29.844
16 1:29.949 16 1:29.976
17 1:30.170 17 1:30.001
18 P 1:33.001 18 1:30.482
19 1:44.115 19 1:29.603
20 1:28.061 20 1:28.024
21 1:27.394 21 1:28.595
22 1:28.078 22 1:29.022
23 1:28.571 23 P 1:31.408
24 1:28.782 24 1:45.362
25 1:28.511 25 1:27.841
26 1:28.544 26 1:28.047
27 1:28.447 27 1:28.150
28 1:28.394 28 1:27.706
29 1:28.824 29 1:28.090
30 1:29.704 30 1:29.879
31 1:28.998 31 1:28.459
32 1:29.161 32 1:29.610
33 1:30.247 33 1:29.338
34 P 1:32.572 34 1:30.054
35 1:46.533 35 P 1:32.869
36 1:28.563 36 1:46.276
37 1:28.689 37 1:28.458
38 1:28.562 38 1:28.371
39 1:28.865 39 1:28.343
40 1:28.953 40 1:28.705
41 1:28.802 41 1:28.516
42 1:28.193 42 1:28.210
43 1:27.933 43 1:28.072
44 1:28.987 44 1:29.434
45 1:28.007 45 1:27.497
46 1:28.087 46 1:27.827
47 1:28.177 47 1:28.268
48 P 1:31.072 48 1:29.217
49 1:44.905 49 P 1:30.037
50 1:27.774 50 1:45.301
51 1:27.456 51 1:27.881
52 1:27.839 52 1:26.727
53 1:27.215 53 1:26.911
54 1:27.639 54 1:27.386
55 1:28.207 55 1:28.058
56 1:27.871 56 1:27.879
57 1:27.557 57 1:27.548
58 1:27.435 58 1:27.422
59 1:27.474 59 1:27.655
60 1:27.162 60 1:27.185
61 1:27.205 61 1:27.167
62 1:27.675 62 1:27.641
63 1:27.480 63 1:27.534
64 1:28.065 64 1:27.953
65 1:27.842 65 1:27.989
66 1:28.382 66 1:28.202

 

[Jru]

Thanks for that Snowy, I'd been wanting to see the lap times for a while. It looks like each time McLaren brought Hamilton in his lap times had just started to drop off, although that doesn't account for any traffic etc. Also judging by Chad's pitpass link above, the reason Hamilton seemed to have such a long 2nd and short 3rd stint was different timing for the use of new vs used option tyres. I would have liked to see McLaren try to either undercut or overcut(?) Vettel by trying a different strategy but I guess it is easier to say that with hindsight, they may have thought that Hamilton would easily pass him if he caught him.

A small point, if Vettel (and so presumably Webber) had such an advantage coming out of the last corner, and the red bull DRS is supposedly very advantageous - how was Webber stuck behind Alonso for so long?

 

[BlackCountryBob]

A small point, if Vettel (and so presumably Webber) had such an advantage coming out of the last corner, and the red bull DRS is supposedly very advantageous - how was Webber stuck behind Alonso for so long?

I haven't seen the speed traps but I would assume the ferrari was faster on the straights anyway and Alonso used the entire of his Kers every lap. Also possible I guess that red bull were not geared for top speed in 7th and even with a good run were hitting the limit. After all, if you were as fast as the red bulls were, you wouldn't really have made too much of a compromise in the gearings expecting to have to overtake lots.

 

[Slyboogy]

A small point, if Vettel (and so presumably Webber) had such an advantage coming out of the last corner, and the red bull DRS is supposedly very advantageous - how was Webber stuck behind Alonso for so long?

I heard that Red Bull had a DRS system which was quite slower than the rest, their's being 12kph and Mercedes (the best) being 20kph as for the other cars I don't know.

And to answer your question, both Ferrari's where near the top in all the speed traps and have a great straight line speed.

 

[MCLS]

I hope so, more points for my fantasy team then

 

[Slyboogy]

I hope so, more points for my fantasy team then

The fantasy F1 even has you guessing who will be the fastest in the speed traps??

 

[MCLS]

You get bonus points for the engine who gets the fastest speed trap

 

[Jru]

Ok apologies if what I said above was incorrect. I thought that RBR gained more from the DRS and that this was part of the reason for their advantage in quali relative to race pace.

 

[Slyboogy]

You get bonus points for the engine who gets the fastest speed trap

I must join next season, crap how I can't this year

 

[tranquility2k9]

Ok apologies if what I said above was incorrect. I thought that RBR gained more from the DRS and that this was part of the reason for their advantage in quali relative to race pace.

What you say is completely correct, but it is not so much that their DRS is better, it's just because in qualifying, as they have more downforce, they can open it much sooner on the exit of corners or even whilst going round corners, where other teams can't. This enhances their corner and exit speed.

 

[tranquility2k9]

I hadn't noticed anyone talking about late pitstops in the plural. Lewis's stop at the end of lap 23 was at least one lap too late as he had started losing time after his then fastest lap on lap 21. Martin Brundle commented on this throughout the laps between Seb's and Lewis's stops so it's not rocket science. The thinking was that Lewis was racing Fernando for 2nd rather than Seb for first. Add to that the fact that that stop wasn't perfect. The left rear wheelgunner lost his nut (). This is why I said in an earlier post that this was one of those F1 "ifs" in that had Lewis pitted straight after his fastest lap he may well have undercut Seb. It was just a hypothesis.

I flicked through this thread and saw a couple of people saying he pitted too late. What I then suggested was that I don't think he could have got ahead by pitting first due to his position and the fact the hard tyre (super hard especially) generally takes a lap to get up to optimum temperature. Although he lost a little time by staying out on a couple of occasions, that actually gave him a lot more time overall as he was on fresher tyres compared to Vettel for the whole of the following stint. The only time he could have undercut Vettel, as I said and as you seem to also suggest, is at the final set of pit stops, when he could have jumped into the pits when he was only 1.2 seconds behind Vettel and possibly got him, when back-marker traffic was upcoming.

I actually quite like the idea someone suggested of leaving him out longer on his penultimate set of tyres, as he wouldn't have lost that much time to Vettel and then would have been on much fresher tyres. In hindsight, this was probably the only way for him to get past, but it was impossible to tell and up until the final stint, he'd always been on better tyres than Vettel so McLaren and nobody else really knew he was actually faster than him, which he seemed to prove in the final stint.

 

[MCLS]

But remember that the tyres he would have been on at the time would have fallen away so he would have lost time going into the pits so really it would have worked out the same.

 

[Fenderman]

Yes, that's the trouble with hypotheses. They can be somewhat circular.

 

[tranquility2k9]

But remember that the tyres he would have been on at the time would have fallen away so he would have lost time going into the pits so really it would have worked out the same.

Yeah, I understand that, he would have lost time to Vettel, but I think the time he'd gain by having a new set of tyres, for the whole of the last stint, would have easily been larger than the time lost staying out for 5 extra laps, for example. Either way, we found out in the final stint that he was faster, so he could have caught Vettel up, even if he was 5 seconds behind him, but once he did catch him up, if he had tyres that were 5 laps younger, then maybe he'd off been able to get close enough to pass.

See what im saying?

 

[MCLS]

I do get what you're saying but it still would have been hard, Vettel would have been nigh on impossible to have overtaken, he wouldn't have taken kindly to a lunge down the inside into turn 1.