|
Red Bull Racing
driver Sebastian Vettel has extended his championship lead with a
hard-fought victory at the German Grand Prix, adopting a three-stop strategy
with one stint on the P Zero Yellow tyre at the start of the race followed
by three longer stints on the P Zero White medium tyre.
The championship leader started from second on the grid and made an
excellent start to take the lead at the first corner. There were several
strategies at work right from the beginning, with both Ferraris starting on
the medium compound tyre, as well as the McLaren of Jenson Button and the
Sauber of Nico Hulkenberg. From 11th, Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) was also one
of the seven drivers to start on the medium tyre.
A safety car with 36 laps to go prompted most drivers to make their second
stops, with the final stops coming in the closing stages of the race. As
different drivers were using varied strategies, the podium was only settled
in the final laps. Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen completed a long middle stint
to lead the race, before pitting for soft tyres with 11 laps to go.
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and Button also completed the race on the soft
tyre. The top five finishers all used a three-stop strategy, with Button the
highest-placed two-stopper in sixth.
Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery said: “This had all the
ingredients for a brilliantly strategic race from the beginning, with some
drivers starting on the medium tyre in order to go longer in the first stint
than the cars on the soft tyre. For many teams, this was almost a qualifying
tyre – which gave the tactics an interesting edge. There were different
strategies in play, which meant that the finish was extremely close. Overall
performance and durability of our tyres were in line with our expectations
while thermal degradation was perhaps a little higher than expected today,
due to the high track temperatures, but wear was as we predicted. It would
certainly have been possible to complete the race with two pit stops, as
many of the competitors showed. However, the safety car slightly altered
things. Last but certainly not least I would like to thank our staff at the
factory in Izmit in Turkey who have worked tirelessly after Silverstone to
produce the required amount of new rear tyres, and our logistics team who
made sure that the tyres were here on Tuesday. It was a big team effort, for
which I would like to thank everyone.”
Truth-O-Meter:
We predicted a two-stopper: start on the soft tyre, change to the medium on
lap five or six, and then to the medium again on lap 32 or 33. However, the
split strategies, higher temperatures and safety car intervention altered
the complexion of the strategy. Vettel started on the soft, went to the
medium on lap seven, used the safety car to go for mediums again on lap 24
and took a final set of mediums on lap 41. |
