2013 Chinese GP - Shanghai

[dxpetrov]

Wow. That Red Bull is nowhere in single lap pace at the moment. A second off the (admittedly flying) Ferraris

They practice to do Q1 and Q2 on one set of softs.

[rssh]

Looks like Macca are running different 7th gear ratios they are 5 kmph apart . Also this year Williams is not the faster Renault engined car like 2012 season I thing William needs the previous car more than Macca , their car is not turing into any corner I feel for Pastor and bottas because massive understeer with snap oversteer on exit make it an interesting car to drive

1 10 Lewis Hamilton 11:33:37 320.0
2 19 Daniel Ricciardo 11:37:19 319.3
3 9 Nico Rosberg 11:19:53 318.6
4 15 Adrian Sutil 11:20:39 318.2
5 14 Paul di Resta 11:34:33 318.1
6 3 Fernando Alonso 11:39:11 317.5
7 8 Romain Grosjean 11:38:39 317.4
8 6 Sergio Perez 11:36:41 317.3
9 7 Kimi Räikkönen 11:21:46 317.2
10 12 Esteban Gutierrez 11:38:51 317.0
11 4 Felipe Massa 11:32:46 316.7
12 11 Nico Hulkenberg 11:28:18 316.6
13 18 Jean-Eric Vergne 11:18:59 316.4
14 23 Max Chilton 11:20:09 316.2
15 22 Jules Bianchi 11:40:12 315.5
16 20 Charles Pic 11:35:31 315.2
17 21 Giedo van der Garde 11:34:45 314.7
18 5 Jenson Button 11:19:46 312.6
19 2 Mark Webber 11:30:55 311.0
20 1 Sebastian Vettel 11:39:21 310.3
21 16 Pastor Maldonado 11:38:21 309.2
22 17 Valtteri Bottas 11:41:19 309.2

[atanatizante]

Teams use 7 sets of dry tires per weekend with two being used no matter what, that leaves you five sets, two options and three primes for qualifying and the race ...

According to F1 regulations there are allocating 11 sets of tyres for each driver available for the entire event, 5 options and 6 primes sets. Now for Q & race there must be only 8 : http://www.formula1.com/inside_f1/rules ... 0/fia.html

[raymondu999]

Have to say I don't think anyone will go for more option stints than necessary. I think it'll be like Melbourne. People will have OPP or OPPP - or alternatively, PPPO or PPO. Those like the Lotus who are kind on their tyres I think have to gamble on OPP - they seem good on the soft tyres in terms of a degradation advantage, but nowhere near enough over the others. Their long run pace on the mediums look bad too. IMO they have to bank on their tyre deg for results - ie OOOP (hoping for the added pace of the soft tyre to be preserved by their tyre deg) or OPP (saving a pitstop). Their Melbourne victory, sadly, seems to have been a flash in the pan, a la China 2012 (Rosberg)

Red Bull IMO have decreased qualifying pace, with the hopes of competitively doing the race on 2-3 stops. That, or their final FP3 qualifying sims better have been done at least 30kg heavier than the others.

I wonder if Alonso has gone with a setup more qualifying-biased than Massa's. I certainly cannot see him being happy with being out qualified again, and he could be (IMO) banking on his generally-better race consistency than Massa to carry him through on a slightly less race-favorable setup. He certainly wouldn't be happy if Massa does something even the likes of Hamilton and Trulli never did - 5 out qualifications on the bounce. I've also heard suggestions that Alonso's driving style doesn't suit a stiffly-sprung pullrod front.

I feel sorry for Hulkenberg. He seems to have made the wrong move.

My own calculations based on fp1 and fp2 have Mercedes as quickest - but only about a tenth - over red bull. Another tenth to Ferrari, with Lotus tied-ish with Ferrari. Certainly a clear pecking order in my view - but the margins are too tight to make predictions on race finishing order. It should be a good race - with "undercut" being the imperative word of the day on Sunday.

IMO the best strategy, with cars being this close in pace - is not to space out your OPPP per tyre life, but to figure out how many laps you can do, at maximum, on the prime tyres. If you know the primes can do 18 laps for example, do your final stop 18 laps from the end. Penultimate stop 36 laps from the end. IMO the key will be maximizing the race-end stints in terms of tyre life. I don't think the pace differences are enough to catch and pass (and undo) any and all undercut effects. So hit the softs hard for 5 laps, hit the primes hard for 15 laps, then have 2 long ending stints. In a way - do what Alonso did in Australia, basically - where he basically went for an undercut advantage, rather than evenly spacing the stops for the optimum race-distance time.

It's worth noting that every year that Pirelli has raced in China, a 3-stop has had enough pace to catch and pass the two-stoppers, save for Rosberg last year - some food for thought on those thinking those kinder on tyres can benefit with a 2-stopper.

Teams use 7 sets of dry tires per weekend with two being used no matter what, that leaves you five sets, two options and three primes for qualifying and the race ...

According to F1 regulations there are allocating 11 sets of tyres for each driver available for the entire event, 5 options and 6 primes sets. Now for Q & race there must be only 8 : http://www.formula1.com/inside_f1/rules ... 0/fia.html

Teams have 3 new primes and 3 new options for qualifying and race. End of story.

[rssh]

Teams use 7 sets of dry tires per weekend with two being used no matter what, that leaves you five sets, two options and three primes for qualifying and the race ...

According to F1 regulations there are allocating 11 sets of tyres for each driver available for the entire event, 5 options and 6 primes sets. Now for Q & race there must be only 8 : http://www.formula1.com/inside_f1/rules ... 0/fia.html

In the race & qualy one has only 3 options and 3 prime tyres . But for the weekend they get 4 inters and 3 wets which can be used in practice ,qualy and race . The rest of the dry tyres are taken back by Pirelli after FP3 .

[SilverArrow10]

Mercedes the fastest car on mediums, the Ferrari the fastest on softs. Ferrari for pole and Mercedes for race win?

[raymondu999]

Mercedes the fastest car on mediums, the Ferrari the fastest on softs. Ferrari for pole and Mercedes for race win?

Without fuel-load knowledge, that's a bit of a simplistic extrapolation IMO

[Hail22]

We don't know anything yet...however a few insiders are hinting that Q3 could be an out lap for most of the drivers that are tipped to make it through. (That would equate to 6 solid race laps on an option tyre if they're managed well instead of possibly 3/4 laps).

If I was any of the top 3...I would do a fast out lap and go in...save the tyres, unfortunately Pirelli went a wee bit overboard this year :/

[raymondu999]

I disagree. IMO the earlier you can drive your stops, the better. The undercut should be far quicker than end-of-stint pace for the previous set of tyres.

[rssh]

I think RB can really go for an extreme strategy and run mediums in Q3 because the softs will be dead in 5 laps and then they will have to pit and be behind medium stint guys but they cannot pass them due to poor straight line speeds . Strating on medium will mean that they will have clean air and they can pit at the last 2 laps for the softs in the race like Vettel-Massa did in German GP 2011.

[Crucial_Xtreme]

Marc Gene said both Ferrari drivers were complaining about oversteer after the run with the mediums. Then, they did not change any set up, just ran with the softs and set the two fastest times.

[myurr]

Wow. That Red Bull is nowhere in single lap pace at the moment. A second off the (admittedly flying) Ferraris

They practice to do Q1 and Q2 on one set of softs.

The drop off is somewhere near 0.6 to 1 second after the first lap. They'd need to be mighty fast to make it through Q2 on a used set of softs.

More likely we'll see people doing a single run on the softs in each session. They'll be the three stoppers tomorrow.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Mercedes do this as they do seem to be a lot stronger, relatively, on the mediums. Red Bull I really can't read at the moment. No doubt they'll be there or there abouts but they don't look that strong this weekend (for them).

[raymondu999]

I think RB will either try to do a delta in Q1, or just use a new option in Q2. No biggie - then one option run in Q3. Or one prime run. I think whatever happens, the option tyre has to start or end the race.

I hate it when one tyre is clearly the better race tyre.

[zgred]

[Steven]

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