Redragon wrote:siskue2005 wrote:The leaders werent stuck behind Sutil, infact Sutil was pulling 2 to 3 sec gap from Vettel at one point
Alonso pitted early and that is what allowed him to overtake Sutil otherwise Sutil had similar pace to front runners
And you said Kimi saved the tyres in the second stint by having sutil ....but thats not what happened he did 25 laps in the second stint and also on his third stint without any saving as such ( and also post race Kimi said they were on 2 stopper from the begining)
Ferrari and RBR could only do a 15- 17 lap stint on their medium tyres
Imagine what pace he could have had , if he was on a 3 stopper
Last two stints of alonso were 19 laps each, he pitted earlier on second pit to overcome Sutil
but I am sure he could have done two stops and match Raikonen last two stints of 25 and 24 laps. Also last stint of vettel was 21 laps, so I think RBR and Ferrari are capable of doing more laps than 15-17, they did three stops upon circumstances. Alonso called second stop earlier to come out on clear air and overcome Massa, Vettel and Suttil and Vettel and Massa responded his move.
Webber last two stints were 20 laps each and last stint of massa 22 laps. I think Raikonnen from the beggining was commited to two stops strategies, while ferrari and RBR were looking into each other not taking risks. But if the three of them would have play their cards to two stops from the beggining, something that it is possible looking at the laps from their stints, the result would have been other.
Alonso wasn't sure he could have done two stops at all. Granted, we don't know for sure if he meant within the context of how the race panned out with traffic etc, but his statement was simply "We couldn't do two stops". And that was borne out when his tyres stopped performing 4 laps before the end despite having started 5 laps after Räikkönen's. I mean, any traffic he had in that stint, was the same traffic Räikkönen had passed as well. That's 9 laps difference and still Räikkönen had life left in his tyres.
I think it's a bit weird that people conclude the Ferrari was the quickest car on race pace
when none of Alonso's 3 medium tyre stints were as fast as Räikkönen's 2 on average. Again, some of the Ferrari's ultimate pace might have been hidden behind Vettel/Sutil but if there was much more, it wasn't enough to overtake either of them. So, perhaps the Ferrari's 2 medium tyre stints might have been a little bit faster than the Lotus' 2 the way Räikkönen was driving, but as he showed at the end, he definitely had pace in hand as well.
It's a good thing Ferrari has a good car this year, it bodes well for at least a decent fight this season - maybe even a 3-way fight if Lotus can get some 1-lap speed in the car - in the (hopefully temporary) absence of McLaren. But on this day, on this track, Räikkönen's Lotus was the fastest car in the
race. By far.
