11 Jul 2018

Race 10 – 54 Laps – 5.891km per lap – 306.198km race distance – medium tyre wear

British GP F1 Strategy Report Podcast – our host Michael Lamonato is joined by Zach Priest from  the Superlicense F1 Podcast.

VETTEL WINS IN HAMILTON’S HOUSE

Sebastian Vettel won his first British Grand Prix in nine years and Ferrari’s first in seven to break British hearts after pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton floundered off the line to squander his good Saturday work.

Hamilton recovered to second place, however, in a race that rapidly unfolded from a strategic game of cat and mouse into a four-way on-track duel in the final stint.

THE BACKGROUND

Silverstone was amongst Ferrari’s least competitive circuits last season, and over the past five years Mercedes had been able to turn it into a fortress, winning with Nico Rosberg in 2013 and Hamilton every year thereafter.

Mercedes seemed destined to extend its dominance after a power unit upgrade in France and a chassis update in Austria appeared to give it the upper hand in the battle with Ferrari, but the Scuderia brought aerodynamics upgrades of its own to England, putting on back on equal footing.

Pirelli brought its hard compound to a race for the first and almost certainly only time this season. Few teams brought more than one set of the blue-striped tyre given the usual cool climes of Northamptonshire, but clear skies and temperatures nudging 30°C sent track temperatures past 50°C for the weekend, bringing the hard tyre into contention for those with enough sets.

QUALIFYING

With around a second of raw pace difference between each compound, no-one used the medium in Q2 to attempt to have it as a race start tyre — and, in any case, the soft compound would almost certainly have to be used in the race at some point anyway.

Hamilton pipped Vettel to pole position, with Kimi Raikkonen third and Valtteri Bottas fourth. Red Bull Racing was a way off the pace in fifth and sixth, though both Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo has set up their cars for the race knowing the lack of power from the Renault engine would have them out of Saturday contention anyway.

THE DECISIVE MOMENT

While Vettel’s excellent start and Hamilton’s poor one is ultimately what put the Ferrari driver in a winning position, the podium was only decided on the track across the final 10 laps thanks to two safety cars.

The British Grand Prix was balanced between one and two stops if drivers stuck to only the soft and medium compounds, as almost all did. The first safety car on lap 32, triggered by Marcus Ericsson’s heavy crash at turn one, presented an ideal chance to make that second stop.

However, it also presented an opportunity: drivers who thought they could make it to the end of the race without making a second stop could stay out on their worn tyres and gain track position, which they would then have to defend for approximately 15 laps.

Second-placed Valtteri Bottas and fifth-placed Lewis Hamilton, having stopped on laps 21 and 25 respectively, were told to stay out, promoting them to first and third. The thinking was that had they simply done as Ferrari had and emerged from pits on soft tyres — and used softs at that, given Mercedes had no new soft sets left after using them in qualifying — neither Hamilton nor Bottas would have been able to make an impression on Raikkonen or Vettel in such evenly matched machinery.

Taking track position and attempting to defend was therefore a strategic gamble for victory rather than a conservative drive for points.

For a time everything was coming up Valtteri, the Finn impressively rebuffing Vettel’s aggressive advances, but by lap 47, his tyres now 26 laps old, Bottas ran out of grip. He not only ceded the win to Vettel, but he lost second to Hamilton and third to Raikkonen.

Hamilton, on the other hand, had tyres four lap younger than those on Bottas’s car, enabling him to secure second place, which is arguably the most he deserved after losing the lead with his slow start.

‘INTERESTING TACTICS’

At turn three Raikkonen was lining up a move to relieve Hamilton of fourth place, but the Finn locked his front-right tyre and careered into the Mercedes, sending Lewis tumbling to the back of the field. Kimi was handed a 10-second penalty for the error.

Hamilton, however, felt there was more at play, implying Raikkonen had hit him deliberately.

“Interesting tactics, I would say, from their side,” he said, and referring to the French Grand Prix in which Vettel hit Bottas at turn one, he added, “All I’ll say is there’s now two race the Ferraris have taken out one of the Mercedes.”

Though he didn’t attempt to row back his commentary in the post-race press conference, where both Vettel and Raikkonen dismissed his theory, he later used Instagram to call his crash with Raikkonen a “racing incident”.

RED BULL RACING AGGRESSION BACKFIRES

The Renault-powered Red Bull Racing team knew it couldn’t compete with Mercedes or Ferrari on one-lap at Silverstone, so the team went into the weekend fully focused on maximising performance in the race.

On lap 30 this took the shape of Ricciardo making a pre-emptive stop for new soft tyres from fourth place when the team saw that Raikkonen behind him seemed to be struggling on his worn mediums.

The team intended Ricciardo to use his superior pace on the new rubber to ensure Raikkonen would emerge from his pit stop behind the Australian, but the plan came undone when the first safety car was triggered only two laps later, allowing Raikkonen to stop effectively for free, relegating Ricciardo to finishing behind the Ferrari and Mercedes drivers.

HARD TYRE WORKS, JUST

In Austria Renault failed to score while midfield rival Haas maximised its points haul, so the French team wanted to ensure it scored heavily in Britain. The path to points was to guarantee a one-stop race by switching from the starting medium compound to the unfancied hard tyre at the first stop window.

For Hulkenberg it worked a treat after his lap-20 stop. Though the hard compound was around a second a lap slower than the medium, avoiding the need to make a second stop ensured the German remained ahead of the midfield to finish sixth.

Carlos Sainz was less competitive, however. He was stopped on lap 17 to undercut Esteban Ocon, but the Frenchman’s in an out-laps were almost two seconds quicker compared to those set by Sainz, who slowed when he emerged behind McLaren’s Fernando Alonso.

In some respects Ocon achieved what Sainz was attempting. The Force India driver emerged ahead of Alonso and just behind Stoffel Vandoorne, who entered the pits one lap later, giving the Force India driver the space he needed to nurse his medium tyres all the way to the end of the race.

Tyre data

Courtesy of Pirelli Motorsport

Our host Michael Lamonato  is joined by Abhishek Takle – F1 Journalist to talk through the details of round 9 of the season.

If you like the podcast, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

For full written report about the strategy plays in this race, and detailed data (including all the stints and tyre choices) click here. All of our previous F1 Strategy Report Podcasts are here.

Contact us on twitter @strategyreport. or at http://www.f1strategyreport.com/

2 Jul 2018

Race 9 – 71 Laps – 4.318km per lap – 306.452km race distance – medium tyre wear

Austrian GP F1 Strategy Report Podcast – our host Michael Lamonato is joined by Abhishek Takle – F1 journalist.

VERSTAPPEN WINS AUSTRIAN RACE OF ATTRITION

Red Bull Racing was an unlikely victor of its home race at the Red Bull Ring, where technical failures and blistering tyres the hitherto dominant Mercedes cars.

It was a trying day for the Silver Arrows, with both cars retiring from the race, though not before the team had managed to make a series of tactical blunders that conspired to rob Lewis Hamilton of what could have been an easy win.

THE BACKGROUND

The Austrian Grand Prix is not the shortest lap by length but it is the quickest — Valtteri Bottas’s pole position time was just 63 seconds, and race pace wasn’t much slower.

The Red Bull Ring is obviously a fast circuit, then, but more important strategically is that it features no particularly fast or slow corners nor especially long straights and its asphalt is relatively smooth, which means tyre degradation and wear are low.

There were some concerns about graining after Friday practice on the ultrasoft tyres, however, partly because the overcast conditions kept the track cool — though the warmer, sunnier conditions on Sunday turned this predicted feature of the race on its head.

QUALIFYING

As was the case at the French Grand Prix, Ferrari stuck with the ultrasoft tyres while Mercedes and Red Bull Racing used the supersoft compound in Q2, meaning they’d start the race on the more durable compound, giving Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton some added flexibility and the opportunity to avoid graining.

Pirelli, however, predicted little difference in the two compounds and forecast the race to be a straightforward one-stop with a wide window for pit stops from and to any of the three tyres.

Where the ultrasofts did have an advantage was off the line, with the superior grip offering Kimi Raikkonen a chance to take the lead, though he ultimately couldn’t pass either Mercedes.

THE DECISIVE MOMENT

“We asked Dietrich if he could turn the heater up for Sunday, which he duly did!” said Christian Horner, explaining away Mercedes’s inferior management of its tyres in the warm weather, but his joke rang true in the sense that the weather played a decisive factor in taking the win away from Hamilton.

Under the sunny Austrian skies track temperatures skyrocketed, which promoted debilitating blistering in all compounds — but this alone wasn’t enough to rob Hamilton of what could’ve been an easy win in his own right.

The trigger was Valtteri Bottas losing hydraulic pressure and sopping by the side of the road on lap 14, causing a virtual safety car under which all four Ferrari and Red Bull Racing drivers pitted for new tyres. Hamilton did not.

Almost immediately Mercedes admitted it had been an own goal. Hamilton’s fresher-shod rivals began closing in, guaranteeing the Briton would drop places on his first pit stop, which came on lap 25.

This was compounded by the blistering the appeared on his new soft tyres, which force him to stop a second time on lap 52, putting him firmly out of victory contention before a fuel pressure problem forced him out of the race.

Ricciardo also had blistering issues, forcing him to make a second stop on lap 38 — he later retired with exhaust problems — but noteworthy was that Verstappen, now in the lead, and neither Ferrari driver were suffering blistering to the same extent.

Ferrari was confident of having superior tyre wear — the Scuderia has often been gentler on Pirelli rubber — whereas Verstappen had the benefit of running in clear air for most of the race, a benefit not accorded to Ricciardo or Hamilton.

DECISIONS FOR FERRARI

Ferrari’s approach to attempting to relieve Verstappen of his lead and score maximum points hinged on two questions: when to push and in which order their cars should finish.

At around lap 55 Ferrari gave Raikkonen the all-clear to unleash his car’s pace on the Dutchman, who was nursing his tyres after the team had informed him of Ricciardo’s problems. Presumably the call was based on an assessment that fuel and tyres would last the distance, but would an aggressive earlier push, even if conservation was required late in the race, have been enough to force Verstappen into blistering his tyres in the same way Ricciardo had?

Perhaps of more import in the championship fight, however, is that Vettel finished behind Raikkonen despite the latter being only an outside chance for the title. Vettel emerged from the race with a one-point lead, but it could have been four points had Raikkonen surrendered second place to his teammate. Whether those points play a part come Abu Dhabi will be fascinating to find out.

PITTING UNDER VSC SAVED TIME

Haas and Force India split their strategies, with Romain Grosjean and Esteban Ocon pitting under VSC conditions while Magnussen and Perez continued until laps 28 and 27 respectively. Those who stopped during the favourable VSC conditions, when cars are slowed to a predefined delta time, saved time not available to those who made their tyres changes at what would otherwise have been the optimal window.

SAUBER USES TEAMWORK

Charles Leclerc started from 17th with a gearbox penalty and dropped to 19th after a trip through the gravel on lap two, but he recovered to finish impressively in ninth thanks in equal parts to retirements, being out of position amongst slower cars and pitting under the VSC.

His teammate, Charles Leclerc, also executed a strong race. He started from 18th and used the contrastrategy — starting on softs and going long, to lap 45, before changing to supersoft — to end the race on the faster tyre to attack for position, delivering him 10th place.

Leclerc surrendered ninth place to his teammate to attack Fernando Alonso in eighth place, but when the Swede couldn’t get the job done on the McLaren, the pair switched back.

Tyre data

Courtesy of Pirelli Motorsport

Our host Michael Lamonato  isjoined by Matt Clayton – Editor from Red Bull Motorsport to talk through the details of round 8 of the season.

If you like the podcast, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

For full written report about the strategy plays in this race, and detailed data (including all the stints and tyre choices) click here. All of our previous F1 Strategy Report Podcasts are here.

Contact us on twitter @strategyreport. or at http://www.f1strategyreport.com/