Kimi Raikkonen has converted a brilliantly working 2-stop strategy to a race wing for Lotus, immediately confirming the long run pace of the E21. Fernando Alonso finished in second place, 10 seconds behind while Sebastian Vettel completes the podium in third.
...and couldn't do it!beelsebob wrote:I'm not sure they were so far off as they seemed – remember, they were trying for a 2 stop at aus, and conserving tyres.Mika1 wrote:Yes, but they have to improve race pace.godlameroso wrote:I don't know, the mercs are super fast over a single lap.
Indeed i compared the lap times Lewis did and Kimi did on the SS. Lewis started in the 1:33 1:34 and even 1.35. But then 4 laps before the pitstop he upped his pace doing low and mid 33's. So lewis was driving to a lap delta i think. But the second stint was the problem only 11 laps on the medium something definitely went wrong there. I think the cooler temps affected the tires and they maybe started to cold grain. But the Lotus did something remarkable 2 24 laps stints with the mediums. In testing romain grosjean did the same thing in Barcelona 24 laps without any drop off in the same weather conditions. So maybe the Lotus heat up there tires to much, maybe the was Lotus' W03 China one off race. RBR,Ferrari did 3 stops so I'm not worried. Think weather and wrong strategy in hindsight put the Mercedes back.beelsebob wrote:I think they were just playing to a different race pace to try and preserve the tyres. Pretty sure they could have gone quicker if they weren't trying to keep everything in good shape.Joie de vivre wrote:I rewatched the race again. It's just unbeleivable how Mercedes dropped behind Vet, Mas, Alo and Rai after just few laps. Are they running with much more fuel than others? With empty fueltank they seem to be quite quick.
At least it's better than we have seen last year.k.ko100v wrote:I had a Deja vu. The Lotus pace on this cold track remembers me the Merc pace in China 2012. One stop less than others and great speed...
Since then i start to think that good pace on cold tracks is not good at all. It will be interesting to see how Lotus will manage their tires on hot tracks.
Merc has show good managing with the super soft, (which are the colder tires) but the first 2 -3 laps wasn't so good. My thoughts are, that they are very easy on the tires, and couldn't hot em up in the warming lap, but this was colder tire from the two available, so when they warm it up, it works good. The medium tire was the hotter type, and maybe they didn't make it hot enough to make it works...
Looking at the laptime charts at F1Fanatic it looks like Lewis could have eked a couple more laps out of the SS'sUnc1e_M0nty wrote:Lewis did 13 laps (plus 2 or 3 Qually laps) on Super Softs then only 20 laps on his 2nd set of Med with much less fuel on board - wft ? I just don't get this - after the first stint I thought they'd make a two stop work no problem.
I thought that RB's tyre wear is worse than Ferrari but i could be wrong because of the cold temperature yesterday in Melbourneby Tamburello » Mon Mar 18, 2013 1:50 pm
It's an improved W02. Quick in qualifying but still harsh on its tyres.
Best on tyres:
Lotus
Ferrari/Red Bull
I don't think there's much between them on the mediums, and Vettel cooked his supersofts in qualifying, so was struggling as a result in the first stint. Track position counts for some of the difference on the mediums and Mark did a 30 lap stint on them.RB_[Gnx] wrote:I thought that RB's tyre wear is worse than Ferrari but i could be wrong because of the cold temperature yesterday in Melbourneby Tamburello » Mon Mar 18, 2013 1:50 pm
It's an improved W02. Quick in qualifying but still harsh on its tyres.
Best on tyres:
Lotus
Ferrari/Red Bull
Actually, as CH points here http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/106146, it was only in hands of Vettel that RB9 was eating tires, due to the wrong set-up. Webber was quite competitive. You can clearly see here http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2013/03/17/2 ... test-laps/ that once in clean air his pace was on par with Lotus and Ferrari and often even faster.RB_[Gnx] wrote:I thought that RB's tyre wear is worse than Ferrari but i could be wrong because of the cold temperature yesterday in Melbourneby Tamburello » Mon Mar 18, 2013 1:50 pm
It's an improved W02. Quick in qualifying but still harsh on its tyres.
Best on tyres:
Lotus
Ferrari/Red Bull
Huh? Webber did a 5-lap supersoft stint, 13 laps on a medium, then 2 20-lap medium stints. I don't see a single 30-lap stint thereTamburello wrote:I don't think there's much between them on the mediums, and Vettel cooked his supersofts in qualifying, so was struggling as a result in the first stint. Track position counts for some of the difference on the mediums and Mark did a 30 lap stint on them.
I thought he did a stint from the 20th to 50th laps but you are right probably though it doesn't change anything from the argument really.raymondu999 wrote:Huh? Webber did a 5-lap supersoft stint, 13 laps on a medium, then 2 20-lap medium stints. I don't see a single 30-lap stint thereTamburello wrote:I don't think there's much between them on the mediums, and Vettel cooked his supersofts in qualifying, so was struggling as a result in the first stint. Track position counts for some of the difference on the mediums and Mark did a 30 lap stint on them.
It got a lot colder which tore the tyres apart.Unc1e_M0nty wrote:Lewis did 13 laps (plus 2 or 3 Qually laps) on Super Softs then only 20 laps on his 2nd set of Med with much less fuel on board - wft ? I just don't get this - after the first stint I thought they'd make a two stop work no problem.
Both Lewis and Rosberg got the SS well in the working window. And should have gone longer on the SS. Because the pace was quite good. Really strange decision Lewis was doing his fastest laps on the SS on the last few laps of that stint, I think Lewis could have done 3 or 4 laps easily lewis had no one in front of him Rosberg laps started to rise quicker then lewis's because of turbulence air he was driving in. The should have analysed the situation better.Lewis second stint on medium was really poor after 5 laps he was slower then the last 2 laps he did on 12 laps old SS. Merc had problems switching on the medium. The car got lighter but the times weren't getting quicker. Think there is much more pace to come from the W04. Hope Sepang will show the true pace of the car.pocketmoon wrote:Looking at the laptime charts at F1Fanatic it looks like Lewis could have eked a couple more laps out of the SS'sUnc1e_M0nty wrote:Lewis did 13 laps (plus 2 or 3 Qually laps) on Super Softs then only 20 laps on his 2nd set of Med with much less fuel on board - wft ? I just don't get this - after the first stint I thought they'd make a two stop work no problem.
In the end the strategy was neither one thing nor the other; 1st pit was too late for a 3 stop and too early for a 2 stop.
When they went in to the pitstops im sure i recall seeing a white ring on the inside of Hamiltons tire which looked distinctively like canvas to me. Anyone else see this? I doubt he could of done any longer on them. Im surprised he was still goingkooleracer wrote:Both Lewis and Rosberg got the SS well in the working window. And should have gone longer on the SS. Because the pace was quite good. Really strange decision Lewis was doing his fastest laps on the SS on the last few laps of that stint, I think Lewis could have done 3 or 4 laps easily lewis had no one in front of him Rosberg laps started to rise quicker then lewis's because of turbulence air he was driving in. The should have analysed the situation better.Lewis second stint on medium was really poor after 5 laps he was slower then the last 2 laps he did on 12 laps old SS. Merc had problems switching on the medium. The car got lighter but the times weren't getting quicker. Think there is much more pace to come from the W04. Hope Sepang will show the true pace of the car.pocketmoon wrote:Looking at the laptime charts at F1Fanatic it looks like Lewis could have eked a couple more laps out of the SS'sUnc1e_M0nty wrote:Lewis did 13 laps (plus 2 or 3 Qually laps) on Super Softs then only 20 laps on his 2nd set of Med with much less fuel on board - wft ? I just don't get this - after the first stint I thought they'd make a two stop work no problem.
In the end the strategy was neither one thing nor the other; 1st pit was too late for a 3 stop and too early for a 2 stop.
I wouldnt use the expression impressive, the fist stint was decent, at least much better than it usually was last season, and if you compare Melbourne 2012 and 2013 the improvement is clear. I can understand why Lewis was so happy, the initial point to develop the car is good but we need more races to confirm this positive impression. The temperatures were relatively cold in Australia, we have to see what happens in Malasya/Bahrein/Barcelona, last season we saw in these races the real problem of the WO3 with tyre degration.Mika1 wrote:We will know more about the tyre wear of the Merc in Malaysia, but the first stint on the SS was pretty impressive.
