Formula 1 - 2013 Season

I think they maybe stayed out too long on the super softs.

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2013/03/17/2013-australian-grand-prix-tyre-strategies-pit-stops/

13-14 laps from the start is far too long for that tyre, and even with that the mediums didn't last as long as they thought they would. I think their entire race was compromised by this decision and their tyre degradation isn't as good as they thought it was.

The good thing about that - if true - is that the car itself still probably has very good pace with the correct strategy.
 
jimbo75 said:
13-14 laps from the start is far too long for that tyre, and even with that the mediums didn't last as long as they thought they would.
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There isn't such a thing as "too long for that tyre" - how the tyre behave and how much performance they get out of them is entirely dependant on how they can work the tyre (which is dependant on the car, the driver, track temperatures etc). They stayed out on the super soft because they felt that they were reasonably competitive on it. Then there was also the chance of how the rain would influence the race.

Of course, compared to Kimi, who was on the strategy they were hoping for, in hindsight, yes, their performance on the tyres wasn't good enough. But during that part of the race, it seemed like most would be doing a 3 stop. Remember, if you're doing one stop less, technically, you have a 25-26 second headstart which you can balance out by running that much slower compared to your opposition.

I don't think they were messuring themselves with Lotus either - probably more against Ferrari and RedBull and accoarding to that, the pace on the supersoft, wasn't that bad. Hamilton even had some personal bests while all the others were already on the medium tyre. That's why they commited to a 2-stop strategy, that's why they were relatively more so off the pace on the medium tyre and that's why they figured out (later) due to their performance that it wasn't working out as planned.
 
I haven't seen the lap by lap times but I'll be very surprised if both Mercs weren't losing 2-3 seconds per lap after the 10th lap on those tyres.
 
Dr Evil said:
They didn't. Their times weren't that bad.
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Watching the timing screens, on the last stint (where the tires were somewhat similar due to the change to 3 stops) I thought Hamilton was posting competitive times. The damage was done in trying to nurse the tires to get to the 2 stopper that never happened.

I suspect that the next race Hamilton will be asking the team to let him have the same number of stops as (pretty much) everyone else and let him go for it a bit. Probably not worthwhile trying to match the Lotus number of stops though as it looks like nobody can look after the tires like them.
 
Dave Baumann said:
Watching the timing screens, on the last stint (where the tires were somewhat similar due to the change to 3 stops) I thought Hamilton was posting competitive times. The damage was done in trying to nurse the tires to get to the 2 stopper that never happened.
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Hamilton did have the freshest tires at that point though, even if not by too many laps. I don't remember how much some of the drivers were still pushing during the final stint. Perhaps that second stint was a bit slower than what it would have been, if they had planned 3 stops from the beginning, but I still think 5th was the most that was on the table for Hamilton on that day. Perhaps if he could have kept the Ferraris and Kimi behind him for longer at the beginning, it could have been better for him, but I think the result was just about right.
 
Dr Evil said:
Hamilton did have the freshest tires at that point though, even if not by too many laps. I don't remember how much some of the drivers were still pushing during the final stint. Perhaps that second stint was a bit slower than what it would have been, if they had planned 3 stops from the beginning, but I still think 5th was the most that was on the table for Hamilton on that day. Perhaps if he could have kept the Ferraris and Kimi behind him for longer at the beginning, it could have been better for him, but I think the result was just about right.
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I would agree with the above. Defending too hard and causing the lockup on his front right tyre when Alonso was putting Hamilton under pressure ruined Merc's chances of a clean 2 stop race and Hamilton had to come in earlier than expected.
 
Tahir2 said:
I would agree with the above. Defending too hard and causing the lockup on his front right tyre when Alonso was putting Hamilton under pressure ruined Merc's chances of a clean 2 stop race and Hamilton had to come in earlier than expected.
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I'm not entirely sure, but I've been reading that apparently, the pit crew were already out when he locked up his tyres while defending from Alonso.... Now that I think of it, he did come in rather quick after Alonso had passed him. One way or the other, I'm not sure that lock up changed much - especially compared to Lotus, the pace on the medium tyres just wasn't there. It will be interesting to analyse the lap charts, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that he was losing far too much time relative to his direct competitors at that point.

The picture was very different on the super-soft, where perhaps, he could have stayed out even longer, as he was still reasonably competitive.
 
Yeah it does look like the problem was on the medium tyre, which is pretty strange.

I'm not sure how much he was nursing the super softs either - he just seemed to lack pace and was a sitting duck vs Raikkonen early in the race.
 
SYjF34K.jpg


That's it, you can cancel rest of the season, no reason to waste fuel and pollute the world, Kimi will win the championship anyway :cool:
 
It wasn't wet when the times were set though. Alonso looked like he was trying his hardest and was still 3 tenths behind Raikkonen early in the session. There will be some comfort with Massa being so close though.

Anyway, the Lotus isn't just good on tyres, it's really fucking quick too and Raikkonen appears to be very switched on at the moment. That's a really good time by Di Resta on the hard tyre as well.
 
You're a lot more likely to survive the race starting from the front row and I'll be quite surprised if Raikkonen isn't in one of those spots tbh.
 
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