Chinese GP 2011 - Shanghai

[raymondu999]

Yes that was a great drive - shame with the Dave Ryan affair and liegate

[myurr]

I should also add that in recent years the tyres have also been too strong to make that kind of drive possible. In this race Webber produced a great drive, but a large part of that was down to the tyres and strategy.

He was one of the only drivers to start on the hard tyres and had a shocking first stint. He struggled to make any headway in the field, ran off track due to lack of grip / mistake, failed to make any overtakes of note stick, and was even overtaken by a Sauber. However from then on he was always on the right tyre compared to the cars around him, had three brand new sets of tyres, and had by far the fastest car on the grid.

Don't get me wrong he drove fantastically, but to call it one of the all time greats smacks of Red Bull fans and Hamilton haters doing anything they can to take away from his win.

[myurr]

Wow.. GREAT RACE!! ONE of THE BEST IN RECENT MEMORY!!

Tyre management
Strategy
Speed
Skill
Aggressiveness
Decisiveness
Self belief
track position

The winner had got all of these right. The 2nd place guy didn't have the strategy, the third place guy had the fastest car, but he didn't make the right decision in Q1.

What I can take from Webber's pace is that this was a cock-up on RedBull's part, The Golden Boy or Webber would have won easily had they got it right because the RB7 was a rocket on this track. An easy escape for Mclaren this time but they cannot continue to chase redbull for much longer.

With all due respect - I don't think tyre management came in very much for the 3stoppers. I'm NOT saying Hamilton can't tyre manage - but I'm saying this race didn't really require him to do much of that

And yet he managed to make his tyres last much better than Rosberg and Button...

[Sean H]

the race was lost on tire strategy, I doubt we will see RBR do that again.

Poor strategy and a non functioning KERS system and they had to "settle" for 2nd and 3rd. That may be their worst race of the year, scarey for the rest of the field.

[raymondu999]

the race was lost on tire strategy, I doubt we will see RBR do that again.

Poor strategy and a non functioning KERS system and they had to "settle" for 2nd and 3rd. That may be their worst race of the year, scarey for the rest of the field.

Lol. If 2nd is considered "worst result" then that's VERY ominous. Regarding tyre strategy, they did the same in Canada last year too - only different circumstances, but same in that they cocked up with the tyres

[ringo]

Drive of the day Hamilton and Webber.

Different cars different circumstances. I don't see the reason to put down the winner of the race. Webber is driving a redbull, he had to reach the podium.

Hamilton didn't look like winning today after the tyres fell off becuase of button pitting one lap late.

I'd give the day to both men, but to say what Hamilton did was average is lunancy. The overtakes were more risky than Webber's especially the one into turn 1 on Vettel. The one on Button and Massa as well were pretty good non DRS overtakes. I don't think much drivers could have pulled off that win today.
Webber looked messy in the first stint but came around for the rest of the race. Good drive, but can't say any other driver wouldn't have done the same thing in the same situation.
It's reminiscent of Hamilton's Aus 2009 race Lewis driving an inferior car, so i wouldn't give him driver of the race if he didn't win or at least overtake Vettel. The Rb7 makes overtaking very easy as you can come up on the gearbox of the slower cars and overtake them on a whim.

Webber's best overtake was on shumacher IMO.

[ringo]

And Hamilton in Australia 2009 in a dog of a car made it from near the back through to 4th.

Brazil 2009 as well!

meh... easy stuff in a redbull.
As alonso said, when in a fast car any strategy works. Goes to show what would have happened if Vettel 3 stopped.

[Tamburello]

any strategy as long as it's not a two stopper, apparently...

[beelsebob]

Exactly. A car is the sum of all its parts. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Praising Hamilton for winning without having the best car and not recognising the only reason he won therefore was because somebody in the best car cocked up their strategy.

My feeling is that Hamilton certainly drove brilliantly and fast for large part of the race. He was definitely faster than Button and Rosberg overall. Not sure he was faster than Webber and we'll never know if he would have been faster than Vettel and Massa on three stoppers.

(from the F1's greatest drive's thread).
Agreed, Hamilton drove a bloody good race, but probably wouldn't have won had Vettel's strategy been dead right, or Webber's qualifying not been screwed up. I'm not 100% sure that Vettel would have won on the right strategy, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Webber too drove a bloody good rear guard action. This graph is interesting though – Webber's last stint flyer to take third was no more impressive than the other driver's first stints on softs while Webber was on hards. Check http://mclarenf-1.com/index.php?page=ch ... =1&hid=1_2 – the slope of the first and last stints are basically equal.

[myurr]

Interestingly on that graph, as soon as Hamilton got past Vettel he was lapping as quickly as Webber. Makes you wonder if Hamilton would be able to drive a lights to flag victory if only he could qualify on pole and get a clean start. Vettel's first two races gave him the luxury of never being under pressure. That changed today and even in clear air he wasn't catching Rosberg at any great rate of knots or pulling away from the McLarens. Makes you wonder just how much he had in hand in those first couple of races beyond what fortune gave him in the opening stints. A few tenths of a second per lap at most I reckon.

[raymondu999]

He was catching Ros at 0.5 a lap actually.

[myurr]

He had fresher tyres at that point and Rosberg was driving a Mercedes not a Red Bull....

[raymondu999]

No but you said he wasn't catching Rosberg. I was just correcting your factual error

[Ratatouille]

Interestingly on that graph, as soon as Hamilton got past Vettel he was lapping as quickly as Webber. Makes you wonder if Hamilton would be able to drive a lights to flag victory if only he could qualify on pole and get a clean start. Vettel's first two races gave him the luxury of never being under pressure. That changed today and even in clear air he wasn't catching Rosberg at any great rate of knots or pulling away from the McLarens. Makes you wonder just how much he had in hand in those first couple of races beyond what fortune gave him in the opening stints. A few tenths of a second per lap at most I reckon.

Interestingly on that graph, as soon as Hamilton got past Vettel he was lapping as quickly as Webber. Makes you wonder if Hamilton would be able to drive a lights to flag victory if only he could qualify on pole and get a clean start. Vettel's first two races gave him the luxury of never being under pressure. That changed today and even in clear air he wasn't catching Rosberg at any great rate of knots or pulling away from the McLarens. Makes you wonder just how much he had in hand in those first couple of races beyond what fortune gave him in the opening stints. A few tenths of a second per lap at most I reckon.

Actually I think Vettel just didn't have the race pace today. If you check Hamilton's stints he pretty much dipped under 1:41s after his 2nd pitsop, something Vettel was not able to do.

I think Mclaren have somehow found the right moment and duration for the hard tyre. Which it seems to be nothing more around 15 laps(same as softs BTW) for the final stint. It will be interesting to see what happens in the upcoming races.

Remember that Mclaren basically has completed just its 3rd race distance on this car, so each race they are learning new things about it.

[Tamburello]

That's because Vettel was on a 2 stop strategy so had conserve the tyres. He had to do 20 laps or more on the last stint.