Australian GP 2012 - Albert Park

[Mandrake]

I think the window for the first stop is quite narrow.
Had they left Lewis in earlier he would have had tyre problems at the end of the race. On the other hand waiting longer his tyres would have gone completely off. So he would have still come out behind traffic, and possibly even behind Vettel.
: )

I think you have a good point here. Racing is much closer than last year, so with sauber not pitting one has to build a gap large enough before the pitstop. Unfortunately the mclaren is not fast enough to do that in the hands of Hamilton without him chewing the tires. We might see LH run into this problem a few more times this season if tire degradation continous for him

[foxmulder_ms]

Come on guys, Hamilton "lost" the second position due to late pitstops and safety car, it wasn't Vettel "win" it.

Also, I really think Redbull was playing it dirty during safety car and pit stops. They throw their man in front of Button and Lewis's car just to slow them down at pit stops. Clearly, Vettel didn't slow down a bit during safety car deployement which was again rather dirty.

I don't know whether any of these were illegal but they were sure not fair play.

Did you actually bother to read anything that's been written here? Everyone slowed down after sc deployment. Everything is also monitored by the fia and mclaren would be quick to protest if necessary

Did you???

Watch the race again dude. Vettel is 11.3 seconds ahaed of Button after pitstop. Safety car signals and distance becomes more than 19 seconds in couple of corners, it is more than that when Vettel pits. He gained at least 8 seconds over slowed Button. Button is not slowed down by safety car.

[Mandrake]

I'm on my mobile atm and can't be bothered to quote, look at raymondu's posting which beautifully explains what happened with the gaps......

[GTROM]

I have now done a lap by lap time analysis from lap 3 til safety car on lap 36, looking at each driver and their rank in terms of the time of the lap, I did it in three stages, the first one is an average of the drivers' rank per lap until SC, the second is a list of rank from the 1st pitstop til either 2nd pitstop or safety car, whichever came first, this second analysis has also cut outlier ranks (such as spins or being held up by another driver to the extent taht it amounted to a drop in lap times of more than 1 second), the third stage is post SC until finish (lap 42-57)

DRIVER / AV. RANK 1 (lap 3-36)
BUT 4.2
VET 4.5
HAM 5.0
WEB 6.6
MAL 7.1
RAI 7.3
SCH 7.3
ROS 7.4
ALO 7.5
PER 8.4
VER 8.5
RIC 8.8
KOB 9.3
RES 9.6
MAS 11.0
SEN 12.4
PET 13.1
KOV 13.3
GLO 16.5
PIC 17.5

TEAM / AVERAGE RANK 1

MCLAREN 4.6
RED BULL 5.6
LOTUS 7.3
MERCEDES 7.4
TORO ROSSO 8.6
SAUBER 8.8
FERRARI 9.2
FORCE INDIA 9.6
WILLIAMS 9.8
CATERHAM 13.2
MARUSSIA 17.0


From this we can make some speculative conclusions: First off Alonso's speed/car (9th) was worse than what we might conclude from position on track. Mercedes ditto. Toro Rosso stronger than track position give indication of. Koba sligthly more off pace than track position indicated. Marussia is way off Caterham.

DRIVER / AVERAGE LAP TIME RANK 2 (Stop 1 - Safety car/stop 2) (number of laps counted)
PER 3.0 (11 laps)
VER 4.2 (13 laps)
VET 4.5 (19 laps)
BUT 4.5 (18 laps)
WEB 4.5 (14 laps)
RAI 4.8 (14 laps)
HAM 5.2 (17 laps)
MAL 6.2 (18 laps)
ALO 7.6 (19 laps)
KOB 7.6 (17 laps)
ROS 8.1 (17 laps)
RIC 8.5 (11 laps)
RES 8.6 (18 laps)
MAS 9.8 (15 laps)
PET 12.9 (15 laps)
KOV 13.0 (18 laps)
SEN 13.1 (25 laps)
GLO 16.2 (14 laps)
PIC 17.5 (12 laps)

TEAM / AVERAGE LAP TIME RANK (Stop 1 - Safety car/stop 2)
RED BULL 4.5
LOTUS 4.8
MCLAREN 4.8
SAUBER 5.3
TORO ROSSO 6.3
MERCEDES 8.1
FORCE INDIA 8.6
FERRARI 8.7
WILLIAMS 9.6
CATERHAM 12.9
MARUSSIA 16.9


From this we can make some further speculative conclusions: Red Bull is very even in terms of delivery, tires did not go off towards the end of stint to the extent of McLaren. Lotus is very tender on tires, and Raikkonen's pace was masked by being stuck behind other cars (the drivers who suffered the most being stuck behind others were Webber, Vergne and Raikkonen). Vergne was much faster than track position led us to believe, otherwise as well Toro Rosso was faster than track position indicates; Sauber almost equally impressive but Perez's strategy makes comparisons for him a bit hard hard, Koba's pace again slightly off in comparison to track position - same with Rosberg, although the former probably gained of SC whereas the latter lost. Ferrari has serious problems. Williams is interesting case, is Maldonado flattering it's pace or is Senna simply disgracing it?

And here are the rest of the average ranks(lap times, post SC - next last lap:

DRIVER /AVERAGE LAPTIME RANK 3 (lap 42-57)
VET 2.1
BUT 2.2
WEB 2.9
HAM 2.9
ALO 6.1
MAL 6.9
ROS 9.2
RIC 9.4
PER 9.8
KOB 9.8
RAI 10.2
VER 10.4
RES 11.0
SEN 12.4
MAS 13.0
GLO 14.9
PIC 15.8

TEAM / AVERAGE LAP TIME RANK 3 (lap 42-57)
RED BULL 2.5
MCLAREN 2.6
MERCEDES 9.2
FERRARI 9.6
WILLIAMS 9.7
SAUBER 9.8
TORO ROSSO 9.9
LOTUS 10.2
FORCE INDIA 11.0
MARUSSIA 15.4


Both Raikkonen and Vergne were eveidently struggling with getting temperature into tires, Alonso picket up pace visibly after SC in comparison to the others, the whole front stabilised in comparison to pre-SC and now distanced the midfield.

[Pup]

So if you're going to say that Hamilton doesn't trust the wall and that he screws himself for not listening to them, this race is a very bad supporting argument as the wall basically screwed his race with a little bit of bad luck thrown in there.

Scroll back a few pages and you'll see that I was the first to point out that McLaren's biggest mistake was in putting Hamilton out in traffic at the first stop. Every team makes mistakes, just like every driver. But both parties have to get over that and get on with the job. I sense that Hamilton and the team have a problem getting over past mistakes.

Place the blame wherever you want, but I think the distrust is there regardless.

[Pup]

I think the window for the first stop is quite narrow.
Had they left Lewis in earlier he would have had tyre problems at the end of the race. On the other hand waiting longer his tyres would have gone completely off. So he would have still come out behind traffic, and possibly even behind Vettel.

It's possible but if you check the race progress chart at f1fanatic, and select Hamilton and Perez, you'll see that Perez' tires had gone and he was slowing tremendously. One more lap probably would have put Hamilton out in front and Vettel wouldn't have gained that much.

[HILTON]

How do you guys rate Ricciardo's drive?
I thought he did amazingly considering he got crashed into had to pit for a new a nose and drive car with damage for the rest of the race and gain two places on the last lap.

I look forward to hid continued improvement to battle the top bys hopefully if the str is good enough

[Shrieker]

I don't understand people who say Lewis should've been brought in earlier in the first stint. It still would have put him behind Perez. What they should've done was to keep Lewis out a further 3 or so laps until he could come out ahead of Perez. He still would've lost time to Button but not ten seconds; on top of that he'd have had more incentive to push his tyres more in the 2nd stint. I honestly do think Lewis didn't have enough pace to win this race but what cost him 2nd was being stuck behind Perez which could've easily been avoided.

[alelanza]

...What really got me thinking was that Vettel's 2nd stint was longer than the Mclarens' 2nd stint. Despite being on a shorter-life tyre.

Indeed, this worries me

[Pup]

Yep.

[beelsebob]

Shrieker, you're aware that Vettel was taking 1.5 seconds a sector out of hamilton on his pit-in lap? If he'd stayed out 3 more laps he would have been on canvas.

[SiLo]

...What really got me thinking was that Vettel's 2nd stint was longer than the Mclarens' 2nd stint. Despite being on a shorter-life tyre.

Indeed, this worries me

Tbh, the tyres seemed to be lasting around a similar amount of time.

[GrizzleBoy]

Shrieker, you're aware that Vettel was taking 1.5 seconds a sector out of hamilton on his pit-in lap? If he'd stayed out 3 more laps he would have been on canvas.

Looking at the race, Vettel emerged from the pits on softs a single lap before Hamilton did. Vettel was 2 seconds behind Vergne at the beginning of his outlap and that gap did not change during Hamiltons in-lap.

Unless you're saying almost everyone in the top ten was closing in on Hamilton by 1.5 seconds per sector for Vettels gap to Vergne to not shift at all?????

Even this graph shows that it was not Vettel that closed in on Hamilton, but Hamilton being slowed massively by the traffic in front of him after he was released from the pit lane.



Vettel was closing at the end of the first stint for sure, but he would never have caught Hamilton before his next stop even if it was one or two laps more which would have given him a better chance of getting the undercut on the Sauber.

The McLaren were likely not even pushing at this stage as they had very good leads. You can see the consistency of Hamiltons gap to Button on the way into the first pit stop.

If the drop off was truly so drastic and he was about to be on canvas, you'd have seen much more irratic behaviour there.

It's only after Hamilton was released behind the Sauber that there was all of a sudden, a gap of 11 seconds to Button, which of course allowed Vettel to be right there on his butt.

[SiLo]

I think they should run at a maintained speed once the safety car is out, something that will make it quick to catch up with the safety car and the rest of the pack. Sort of like the pit limiter but faster. That would make it safer and more sensible, you could also cut out stuff like people being in the last sector so they can go at racing speeds, what if the car was in the last two corners? Vettel would of had to slow then.

[GrizzleBoy]

I think they should run at a maintained speed once the safety car is out, something that will make it quick to catch up with the safety car and the rest of the pack. Sort of like the pit limiter but faster. That would make it safer and more sensible, you could also cut out stuff like people being in the last sector so they can go at racing speeds, what if the car was in the last two corners? Vettel would of had to slow then.

I agree.

It's pointless to have 50 laps of racing effort nullified by a safety car rule that affects certain drivers and not others to the point where one can win or lose track position because someone ELSE crashed their car two sectors away from where you were at the time.

Imagine this was the deciding race for a championship and this kind of thing happened?

Race position should be decided by racing tbh.