Formula 1 - 2011 Season

[dizietsma]

Petrov didn't lift kept his foot down, I think he maybe thought that lifting woul upset the balance and cause a spin, however he must have thought it was a smooth path back to the circuit. So it is not just Redbull that gives you wings.

Very good race to watch, I agree with Robert that the DRS, KERS and the pirelli tyres here gave more oportunities without it being too easy. Pirelli must be happy. I wonder if the amount of marbles stopped some overtaking later on though as people wanted to avoid them? I think with the long straight in China we could have another interesting race. Looking forward to it.


Mercedes were pretty poor again, I think they are in the same boat as Ferrari where they expected more from the races given their winter form. Williams not so hot either, but Renault doing very well.

I don't recall Hamilton doing that much weaving, he did but at the time it did not strike me as that much, also Alonso's penalty a bit harsh too. To be honest though they probably have other things more important on their minds, like Vettel pumping in wins in a very business like manner. He has had two very good undramatic races now, excellent work by him.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Ferrari isn't doing that bad. If Alonso didn't run into Hamiton he could have been on the podium. Obviously they arnt as fast as they thought they would be and in quali they are slow but on race pace it's still pretty decent.

Mercedes though is crap. But I'm not surprised. Think about it, with all the money and time invested, that factory never produced a good car apart from the Brawn GP car. And the only reason that happend was because of big rule changes and them taking a whole year extra to design the car. There must be something fundamentally wrong over there.

 

[Phil]

What strikes me very odd in this race is McLaren's strategy.

Hamilton was effectively on a Soft-Soft-Hard-Hard (Soft?) strategy while just about everyone else out of Q3 was on a Soft-Soft-Soft-Hard. That's a bit like Webbers race in Melbourne when he went on the hard tyre on his second stint which effectively ruined his race.

That's where Button cought up with Hamilton, as while they were both on their 3rd stint, Hamilton was on hards and Button on softs which had Button effectively catching Hamilton at 0.1 per lap. If Hamilton's pitstop hadn't been +3.5s slower than Buttons, Button wouldn't have been past Hamilton after his pitstop. Something definately wasn't right with those hard-tyres in the 4th stint though, as he was quickly losing ground to Button who was ahead and everyone else who was catching up from behind. The times were both worse than his hard tyres in the 3rd stint or the hard tyres he used on his fifth stint after he pitted for the 4th time.

Hamiltons tyre wear seemed nothing out of the ordinary, especially compared to Vettel. On soft tyres, McLaren pitted him early despite him making small improvements to the gap. Sure, Heidfeld ruined his 1st stint, but after he was past, he was closing the gap on a regular basis while they were both on softs. It was only after he went onto the hard tyre where the gap remained steady, while the KERS issue on Vettels car resulted in some flactuating lap times...

 

[Kaotik]

Hamilton is quite heavy on his tires, has always been - if Button is more gentle it would explain the difference in tactics

 

[Mariner]

In the BBC coverage, they were mentioning earlier in the race that Hamilton is becoming a 'smoother' driver and doesn't hammer the tyres quite as much. Whether this is actually the case or not, I don't know.

 

[Phil]

Hamilton is quite heavy on his tires, has always been - if Button is more gentle it would explain the difference in tactics

He has an image of being harder on his tyres, yes, yet so far this year and on numerous occasions last year has not shown any such signs - especially compared to his team-mate who per image is the smoothest driver on the grid (well maybe now 2nd to Perez )

If you look at the lap times, there's nothing that would suggest he pitted early because of excessive tyre wear. The first early stop was to get him past Heidfeld who was holding him up. The 2nd and 3rd stops were early for unknown reasons - again, there was nothing in the lap times that would suggest he had to pit or that the tyres were going off. The 4th stop was because of tyre wear - and you could clearly tell that he had reached the drop-off stage - but he was never competitive on that tyre anyway - not since the moment he had them on. There's also nothing from the video footage that would suggest that he was overdriving the car, hence where his image of being hard on his tyres comes from.

 

[Arwin]

He has an image of being harder on his tyres, yes, yet so far this year and on numerous occasions last year has not shown any such signs - especially compared to his team-mate who per image is the smoothest driver on the grid (well maybe now 2nd to Perez )

If you look at the lap times, there's nothing that would suggest he pitted early because of excessive tyre wear. The first early stop was to get him past Heidfeld who was holding him up.

And that's where it went wrong, I think I read in an interview with Hamilton on the bbc website or somewhere, that this first pit was more than a little too early, and each pit afterwards they had to come in early and that caused them big problems with the last pitstop after which he had to do too many laps.

 

[DJ12]

It's a myth that Button is easier on the tyres than Hamilton brought about by driving that way is the only way Button can drive where as Hamilton prefers to drive the wheels off the car. I think he's already proven this season that he can look after the tyres as well as Button.

 

[Bludd]

There's no denying Button is a smooth driver. Hamilton is probably a more adaptable driver, but his history has shown that he loves to thrash a car. DJ12 is probably right, Button may only be fast when he can utilise his smooth style to the fullest while Hamilton can live with a feisty car. I think Button did a great job this race, though.

I think both penalties are OK but a little bit weird. I think Hamilton's penalty is 50-50 but the FIA revised the driving standards rules for this year and I think the stewards were making an example out of Hamilton.

Alonso's penalty is also weird, Alonso caused an accident and nobody is contesting that. He did however only damage his own car and had to make a pit-stop. Maybe that is penalty enough? Anyway, fine whatever. I don't think Alonso and Hamilton will fight less the next time they are wheel to wheel.

I think this race was fantastic, seas of marbles, difficult tyres, KERS and DRS and some amazing driving. Heidfeld was very close to the McLarens in the first and second corners, that was fantastic. And we had three cars abreast on the back straight going to the final corner.

For the first time in many years, I may have to watch that race again. Let's not forget we have Monty Petrov's Flying Circus to entertain us!

 

[Kaotik]

For the first time in many years, I may have to watch that race again. Let's not forget we have Monty Petrov's Flying Circus to entertain us!

From another forum

 

[Bludd]

Remember when that Red Bull's entire front suspension failed by running over a kerb? That car would have been utterly destroyed if jumped like that.

 

[RobertR1]

Remember when that Red Bull's entire front suspension failed by running over a kerb? That car would have been utterly destroyed if jumped like that.

Flip side being that the red bull is so fast, drives don't have to take such chances to stay ahead

 

[Bludd]

Flip side being that the red bull is so fast, drives don't have to take such chances to stay ahead

Well, that suspension incident was years ago and Red Bull weren't fast back then.

 

[Dave Baumann]

In the BBC coverage, they were mentioning earlier in the race that Hamilton is becoming a 'smoother' driver and doesn't hammer the tyres quite as much. Whether this is actually the case or not, I don't know.

There was already a comment last year that the Bridgestone data that is collected put Hamilton in the "average" range of all the drivers for tire wear.

Hamilton was effectively on a Soft-Soft-Hard-Hard (Soft?) strategy while just about everyone else out of Q3 was on a Soft-Soft-Soft-Hard. That's a bit like Webbers race in Melbourne when he went on the hard tyre on his second stint which effectively ruined his race.

If you read the comments in prior to the race you'll have seen them saying "we won't be caught out like we were last year" - i.e. in qualifying last year they waited to the end of Q1 before going out, in order to save tires, only to be caught out by rain and end up at the back of the grid. So this year they went out twice during each qual session; in Q1 they used hard, but I think in Q2 they used hard as the banker and then soft and in Q1 they used soft, soft. Because there is still the same limit on the numbers of tires that can be used during the race/qual that meant that many of the tires they would use during the race had already been used. Hamilton's issue was that he'd flatspotted a set of softs in getting to P2, which left him a set of softs down. The hards that he had to use in the forth stint were also previously used and weren't performing as well as they could.

Its still a learning curve for everyone how to manage the use of the tires over the weekend, but I wouldn't be surprised to see that for the later "high wear" circuits some of the fast guys may end up doing 1 run qqualifying special laps in Q2 & Q3 to save tires for the race.

 

[Bludd]

I think 4 pit stops are a bit much, 2-3 are ideal. I don't want to a lot of people pulling a Perez.

 

[V3]

Button stopped at the wrong pit and lost the lead, pretty funny.

 

[Kaotik]

Great race, shame Vettel didn't win due wrong tactics

 

[V3]

Yeah great race, Webber was amazing. Lewis was great too, after the problem he had before the start.

 

[infinity4]

Button in Red Bull admiration shocker

Webber = driver of the day

Overtakes are more frequent, but downside is that we won't see overtaken driver being able to fight back

 

[DJ12]

How hard is it to drive through the field on this track when you have clearly the fastest car on the grid?

I think struggling round for half the race kinda puts the dampener on him being driver of the day.