16 May 2017

Race 5 – 66 Laps – 4.655km per lap – 307.104km race distance – medium tyre wear

Spanish GP F1 Strategy Report Podcast – our host Michael Lamonato is joined by Craig (Scarbs) Scarborough from ScarbsTech.com.

This is what we’ve been waiting for, right? A wheel-to-wheel, strategic and exciting battle between two top drivers and teams for Formula 1 race victory.

That’s exactly what happened at the 2017 Spanish Grand Prix, with Lewis Hamilton overhauling Sebastian Vettel in a feisty battle to take his 55th career victory and 2nd of the season.

It was a race that featured so many fascinating ingredients: From clashes to overtakes, battles and incidents. But strategy also played a crucial role in deciding the result of the Spanish GP.

The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya’s unique characteristics and the warm Spanish temperatures threw up numerous strategy decisions and headlines, let’s take a look at the most important ones:

How did Hamilton win it?

There were a few interesting strategic points that helped Hamilton win the race. Having lost the lead to Vettel at Turn 1, Mercedes opted to go much longer with Hamilton’s first stint, sacrificing the gap to the Ferrari at that stage in order to better set up the race later on.

Mercedes tried to maximise the time spent on the softs, at the start and end of the race, which gave him an advantage against Vettel in the final stint. He was of course helped by a perfectly-timed final stop, which took advantage of the virtual safety car.

This prompted Ferrari to pit Vettel the lap after the VSC had finished. This put Hamilton right into contention and on the soft tyre, he had the performance advantage to eventually take the lead back and storm to victory.

Where’d it go wrong for Vettel?

Ferrari tried the undercut with Vettel and while this gained him some time, he did lose out behind the slower Daniel Ricciardo initially, coming out in some traffic. Valtteri Bottas then held him up for a few more laps, which brought Hamilton closer after he emerged from his pitstop.

The VSC really did seal the deal for Vettel. Having to put under green flag conditions cost him a large chunk of time and he was then put onto the less grippy medium tyre for the final part of the race, when the soft compound could still go the distance and had better performance.

Soft tyre the way to go

As was evident with Hamilton’s strategy, the soft tyre was by far the preferred race compound and teams tried to spend as little time as possible on the mediums. This was because the soft tyre had better grip and performance while still having impressive durability.

Pascal Wehrlein’s Sauber did the most laps on a set of soft tyres with 33, while Nico Hulkenberg, Marcus Ericsson and Wehrlein managed 32 laps on the mediums. The hard tyre only appeared in the early part of FP1 and was not seen again.

Felipe Massa called the tyre a “joke” and Esteban Ocon admitted it was “terrible”, with no grip. Pirelli seemed too conservative with their tyre picks for Spain, obviously with limited data when the choices were made.

Pascal stars with alternative strategy

Wehrlein was the only driver to complete a one-stop strategy in the race and because of the durability of the tyres, it worked out really well. The Sauber seems fairly kind on its tyres and the German driver was able to go until lap 33 on his soft tyres, before switching to mediums.

The long opening stint helped him rise up the order and, helped by numerous retirements and incidents, he found himself in seventh place at the chequered flag. This was helped by the Barcelona track being tricky to overtake at, with Carlos Sainz Jr. shadowing him for much of the last stint.

His one stop was well timed by the virtual safety car but the call was rushed, which meant he pulled into the pits too late to make the bollard which drivers must stay right of. This gave him a five-second time penalty and dropped him to eighth, still Sauber’s first points of 2017.

Kvyat basically one-stops

Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat basically did a one-stop. Well, kind of. He technically pitted twice but his first trip to the pits was on lap one, to ditch the mediums he started with. The Russian driver started from the back row anyway, so it was a risk worth taking, and then he was left on the more favoured soft. This helped him make up ground and he eventually finished ninth.

All of the stops

Quite a few drivers benefitted from the first lap incidents and various retirements to make up places, leading to rather lonely races. Daniel Ricciardo mirrored Hamilton’s two-stop to finish a distant third.

The Force Indias of Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon went for soft-soft-medium stints and claimed fourth and fifth, ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, who did the same. They benefitted the most from the action-packed opening laps.

Lost opportunities?

Felipe Massa lost out on a potential foruth place with his lap one puncture, after contact with Fernando Alonso while trying to avoid the Kimi Raikkonen/Max Verstappen incident. This put both drivers out of sync and made it hard for them to recover – Alonso lost a few places, while Massa fell to the back of the pack. A late puncture for Kevin Magnussen after a clash with Kvyat cost him a possible ninth, which also caused an unscheduled stop.

Jack Leslie @JackLeslieF1

Longest Stints

Soft: Wehrlein (33 laps)
Medium: Wehrlein, Hulkenberg, Ericsson (32 laps)

3 May 2017

Race 4 – 52 Laps – 5.848km per lap – 303.897km race distance – very low tyre wear

Russian GP F1 Strategy Report Podcast – our host Michael Lamonato is joined by Josh Kruse from Crash.net.

The Russian Grand Prix wasn’t a thriller, but we weren’t expecting one at the Sochi Autodrom. However, it did throw up a fair few exciting moments and an intense battle for victory.

Valtteri Bottas stormed into the lead at the start and looked in control through the first part of the race, before coming under pressure from Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari late on.

Despite having Vettel breathing down his neck, he kept ice cool to secured his maiden F1 win. Vettel came home second, with Kimi Raikkonen picking up his first podium of 2017 in third.

The unsurprisingly low degradation at the Sochi Autodrom limited strategy opportunities, but there was still a decent amount of strategy storylines to emerge from the Russian GP:

Lightning start

Mercedes and Ferrari looked pretty equal in terms of race pace, so the start was going to be crucial in deciding the Russian GP. Bottas got the perfect launch from the line and tucked into Vettel’s slipstream, moving ahead of him on the run to Turn 2. It was the moment that won him the race.

Ferrari tries something different

Completing fewer laps in Q2 gave Ferrari slightly fresher tyres for the first stint of the race and with the SF70H seeming to be kinder on the Pirelli rubber too, it allowed the team to try a slightly different strategy in order to leap-frog Bottas.

Of course, it didn’t work, but it was still worth a shot. Vettel ran seven laps longer for his first stint, and was still putting in good lap times before diving into the pits. He lost 2.1 seconds to Bottas in the pit phase but a strong run-up to the stop helped him stay ahead of Raikkonen.

Running longer was a gamble for Ferrari but practice long-run pace had indicated the Prancing Horse may have had the edge. From there, with seven laps fresher tyres, Vettel was able to gradually chip away at the leader – helped by a small error by Bottas at Turn 13.

This brought him right into contention but traffic played its part as he got onto the gearbox of the Mercedes. On the last lap, Bottas passed Felipe Massa’s Williams easily on the main straight, but Vettel had to wait until Turn 4 to do so and this cost him vital seconds.

Bottas could well have hung onto the lead even if Massa hadn’t been there, but it certainly provided him with more breathing room.

Hamilton struggles

It was an unusually forgettable weekend in Russia for Lewis Hamilton, on a track many expected Mercedes to dominate at. He looked in better shape on Friday but lost some form on Saturday, before struggling with overheating from a very early part of the race.

He pitted on lap 30, one lap later than Raikkonen and four before Vettel, but wasn’t able to make the most of the fresher tyres due to the overheating issues. Hamilton believes there were some set-up issues as well, which didn’t help matters. So, a lot of work to do for Mercedes to work out what went wrong.

Massa loses positions

A slow puncture for Felipe Massa cost him a potential sixth place. He was on for a one-stop strategy but a trip to the pits on lap 41, switching from new super-softs to used ultra-softs, caused him to fall to the bottom of the top 10. Despite the fresher tyres, he was unable to make much progress in the end and finished one lap down in ninth.

Hulkenberg on the alternate

One of the major strategies that stood out in the race was Nico Hulkenberg’s drive to eighth. He went very, very long on the ultra-softs, putting in a huge 40-lap stint, which left him with fresh super-softs for the final 12-lap run to the flag.

A poor start lost him positions and the alternative strategy looked to be a bid to claw back ground but he finished eighth, just behind Esteban Ocon in the second Force India. The sole Renault to make it to the chequered flag looked decent in race trim, so more could’ve been possible without lap one.

Going for a two-stop

Only four drivers stopped twice for new tyres, and Massa’s was unscheduled. For Stoffel Vandoorne, Marcus Ericsson and Pascal Wehrlein, they pitted for the first time at the end of lap one, after the safety car was deployed to clear Jolyon Palmer and Romain Grosjean’s crashed cars.

It was thought that they’d be able to ditch the super-softs they started the race on and make it to the end on ultra-softs but that wasn’t the case for any of the drivers. They all pitted from laps 20-24 and then ran to the end.

The strategy was a brave one and was probably done to try and catapult the cars into a point or two if the opportunity arose, but none of the three drivers had the pace to really make an impact on the top 10 and they were the last of the finishers, Vandoorne 14th ahead of Ericsson and Wehrlein.

Low deg

The Sochi Autodrom’s smooth surface meant there was very low degradation, so a one-stop was always going to be the favoured strategy. Hulkenberg put in the most laps on the ultra-soft with 40, while Kevin Magnussen and Daniil Kvyat managed 30 laps on the ultra-softs.

Soft tyres barely featured at all throughout the weekend, due to the low wear and grip levels, so the higher grip super and ultra-softs were inevitably going to dominate. In fact, the softs only appeared on Friday and not much running was completed on them.

Jack Leslie @JackLeslieF1

Longest Stints

Ultrasoft: Hulkenberg (40 laps)
Supersoft: Magnussen (30 laps)

18 Apr 2017

Race 3 – 57 Laps – 5.412km per lap – 308.238km race distance – medium tyre wear

Bahrain GP F1 Strategy Report Podcast – our host Michael Lamonato is joined by Rodney Gordon from Superlicense Podcast.

The on-track action wasn’t quite as red hot as the temperatures at the 2017 Bahrain Grand Prix but it was still an enjoyable race, with plenty of fun and frenetic battles to keep an eye on.

Sebastian Vettel emerged victorious for Ferrari, with strategy playing an important part of the four-time champion getting the better of Mercedes racers Lewis Hamilton and polesitter Valtteri Bottas.

Alongside the thrills and spills of the racing at the Bahrain International Circuit, there were plenty of strategy options to take and storylines to monitor.

And it’s our job to share the major strategy headlines from each F1 race, so let’s get going:

The Bottas Train

In the early stages of the race, it looked as if leader Bottas simply didn’t have the pace of those in the train of cars forming behind him. He was unable to open up a gap to Vettel and this allowed Hamilton and the Red Bulls to close in too.

But, as it turns out, Bottas was suffering with high tyre pressures following a generator failure on the grid, which caused him to struggle in the opening laps. It wasn’t because he was simply slower, but because the tyres weren’t working as they normally would and he was sliding around quite a bit.

Ferrari goes for the undercut

The undercut has always worked well in Bahrain, with drivers pitting earlier than rivals to get the jump on fresher tyres. Ferrari put this strategy to good use with Vettel’s first stop, although this was helped by Mercedes suffering slow stops with wheel gun issues.

He stopped on lap 10 for new super-softs, taking advantage of his fresh Pirelli rubber in the limited opportunity he had. The deployment of the safety car could’ve ruined his race but actually, the slow Mercedes stops and good timing from Ferrari meant Vettel took the lead.

Five seconds lost

Hamilton could well have been all over the back of Vettel’s car in the final laps of the race, had he not picked up a five-second time penalty for holding up Daniel Ricciardo at the pitlane entry before his first stop.

It was a lose-lose situation for Hamilton really, and we’ve not seen penalties handed out for backing up on pit entry. He would’ve been stuck behind Bottas in the pits, or lost time lingering back before entering the pits. Hamilton went for the latter and it came back to bite him.

The five-second penalty proved crucial in him losing out in the fight for victory. Without it, the six-second gap to Vettel at the chequered flag would clearly have been much less.

Softs for the Silver Arrows

Interestingly, Mercedes opted to fit softs for Hamilton’s shorter final stint, staying out longer on his yellow-marked tyres and pitting for fresher scrubbed softs on lap 41. Many thought super-softs would’ve worked better due to the improved performance, and some got over 20 laps out of their super-softs. Hamilton questioned the call over team radio but Mercedes said the data showed it was the better tyre. Who knows if he could’ve made up ground quicker on super-softs.

Underwhelming Iceman

Kimi Raikkonen put in another fairly forgettable performance, seemingly struggling more with the SF70H compared to Vettel. He had a poor first lap in Bahrain and lost ground, which meant he was cooped up behind old team-mate Felipe Massa for quite some time and this cost him in the fight for a potential podium.

His super-soft tyre performance was underwhelming, he couldn’t quite bring them to life. Ferrari could have also pitted him earlier for a second time, he was left out a little too long on super-softs and lost a bit of time. An earlier switch to new super-softs could’ve brought him closer to Bottas in the scrap for third, as he finished just behind the Mercedes.

Red Bull fired up

Daniel Ricciardo said after the race he thought Red Bull could be in contention for victory in the opening stint, with the Aussie behind team-mate Max Verstappen. Both were latched onto the lead battle but their gap to the leader was flattered by Bottas’s slow pace early on.

Ricciardo eventually dropped back, struggling to warm up the softs and wearing through the super-softs quicker than a lot of other cars. This seems to suggest Verstappen and Ricciardo would’ve slipped back anyway, even if it wasn’t for Verstappen’s brake failure and the ‘Honey Badger’ just generally lacking pace.

Ballsy Perez

A brave first lap from Sergio Perez saw him vault up five places, making up another in the first stint to move into the fight for points. He went for a more aggressive super-soft/super-soft/soft strategy, putting the extra grip in the opening two stints to good use and making up a lot of ground.

The safety car played its part in him shooting up the field, but he drove well, looked after his tyres, knew when to attack and wrapped things up with a solid soft-tyre stint to finish the race in seventh – despite starting 18^th.

Two-stop dominates

These new, more durable, wider Pirelli tyres meant we were expecting a lot of one-stop races but the demanding nature of the Bahrain circuit and warm temperatures meant two stops dominated proceedings, with only Pascal Wehrlein – on his racing return – going for a one-stop (and it almost worked for him).

The tyres held up pretty well despite the conditions, which helped Wehrlein almost score a point. Esteban Ocon did the most laps on super-softs with 26, while Wehrlein’s 45-lap soft tyre stint was the longest. The medium tyre wasn’t even used at all and barely played a part in the whole weekend, because the soft and super-softs worked so well and held their grip for so long.

Starting on softs

Marcus Ericsson was the only driver to start the race on softs, the rest went for super-softs. He tried something different and looked on course for a one-stop race, like Wehrlein, but it didn’t work out as well. Staying out during the safety car came back to bite him and he quickly dropped down the order. Progress had started to be made on super-softs when he retired with a gearbox failure.

Jack Leslie @JackLeslieF1

Longest Stints

Supersoft: Ocon (26 laps)
Soft: Wehrlein (45 laps)

11 Apr 2017

Race 2 – 56 Laps – 5.451km per lap – 305.066km race distance – low tyre wear

Chinese GP F1 Strategy Report Podcast – our host Michael Lamonato is joined by Peter Anderson from CarsGuide.com.au.

The Chinese Grand Prix was packed full of action and drama, from clashes and crashes to great overtakes and close battles.

It wasn’t the most fascinating strategic race, but the changeable conditions and drying track in the early laps threw up some interesting points.

Lewis Hamilton scampered off into the distance to take his first win of the season, fifth victory in China and 54^th triumph of his Formula 1 career.

Sebastian Vettel was in second, running out of time to chase the Mercedes down, with Max Verstappen a charging third after starting 16^th.

With the dust (or smog, in Shanghai) now settled on round two of the 2017 F1 season, let’s reflect on the major strategic storylines from the Chinese GP:

Sainz takes the gamble

Rain earlier in the day meant there were damp but drying conditions for the start of the race. The pit straight was particularly slippery, with some standing water, but most of the track was a lot drier. However, 19 of the 20 runners opted for the safe choice and start the race on intermediates.

Carlos Sainz Jr. was the only driver to start on slicks, going for super-softs. He said Toro Rosso thought he was “mad” for choosing to gamble but despite an awful start and early spin, it actually proved to be worth it as the Spaniard moved up the order through the opening pitstop phase. It put him in a good position for the remainder of the race and he eventually finished seventh.

VSC a missed opportunity

At the end of the first lap the virtual safety car was deployed to clear Lance Stroll’s beached Williams, following contact with Sergio Perez. It presented an interesting strategic opportunity because the track was drying fast and it offered a chance to ditch the intermediates early.

Nico Hulkenberg pitted at the end of lap one, while Vettel, Kevin Magnussen, Perez and the McLaren duo of Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne were just a few of the people who switched to slicks on lap two. Sadly, though, it didn’t pay off because the safety car was deployed just a few laps later and wiped out the advantage they had gained.

Safety car switch

The majority of the pack actually pitted under the virtual safety car, apart from the front-runners – Hamilton, Verstappen, Daniel Ricciardo, Kimi Raikkonen and Valtteri Bottas. They all stayed out longer and switched to dry tyres when Antonio Giovinazzi crashed heavily on the pit straight.

Diving into the pits at the end of lap five as the rest of the field circulated at a slower pace was a massive boost. The other drivers had already stopped and were also struggling to heat their tyres, which gave those stopping under the safety car even more of an edge. Hence why Vettel dropped to sixth. Bottas lost out in this stage with a slow stop, falling to fifth.

Into the unknown

Friday’s running was quite simply useless, they only managed around 20 minutes of on-track action due to the red flags for visibility. That left just Saturday’s FP3 and qualifying to get to grips with these new tyre compounds in time for the race, so everyone went into Sunday with a lot of questions needed to be answered. But, unknowns can often throw up exciting races.

Red Bull two-stop

Through Saturday’s running it was clear Red Bull is a decent way off Mercedes and Ferrari, so going for a two-stop strategy in the race was an interesting one. The team committed early by going from intermediates to super-softs, and then going for the same compound at the second round of stops.

It’s possible the team wanted to go for a more aggressive strategy to try and make up for some of the time lost through pure pace, and it certainly worked for them. The super-soft was also used heavily on Saturday so there was more data, and it proved to be a good match durability wise against the soft.

Mad Max

Verstappen’s opening lap onboard is a must-watch and a great example of being aggressive on the opening lap. He picked off car after car, going from 16^th at the start to seventh by Turn 16, and the Dutch driver kept up that style through the race – helped by two final stints on the super-soft.

But that perhaps came back to bite him later on when he began struggling with his tyres. Team-mate Daniel Ricciardo suffered earlier on but came into his own, perhaps through not being quite so aggressive and stopping a few laps after Verstappen. The fight for P3 went down to the wire but Verstappen just finished ahead.

Kimi loses out

Kimi Raikkonen’s Chinese GP wasn’t particularly inspiring, but it definitely wasn’t helped by Ferrari returning to their poor strategy calls of the past. They kept him out longer than rivals for his second stop and his soft tyres were struggling by the end of the stint, meaning he was losing a few seconds per lap at times. It put him on the back foot for the final stint and he ran out of laps to challenge the Red Bulls, finishing within sight of a podium.

A lot to ask

The soft and super-soft tyres looked pretty durable after Saturday’s running, so the medium was never really going to be used. It became clear a few teams were seeing if their drivers could one-stop, having moved onto the softs after the early switch from inters.

But that was asking a bit too much of the softs and the teams bailed on that decision during the stint, going for a second stop. Marcus Ericsson was the only driver to one-stop but it did his race no favours and some who stopped during the VSC even had to three-stop, including Perez and Romain Grosjean.

The most laps completed in the race on super-softs was 30 (Jolyon Palmer) and the most on softs was 40 laps (Esteban Ocon).

Jack Leslie @JackLeslieF1

Longest Stints

Intermediate: Hamilton, Verstappen, Ricciardo, Raikkonen, Bottas (4 laps)
Supersoft: Palmer (30 laps)
Soft: Ocon (40 laps)