Tag: strategy

F1 2016: Canadian GP Review – Mercedes Masters Montreal Strategy

As the 2016 Canadian grand prix developed Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel found themselves in front of an open goal. But a dubious strategy call saw the Italian team score an own goal instead.

From third on the grid Vettel rocketed into the lead of the race leaving the two Mercedes to bang wheels into turn two. Here Nico Rosberg got of worse and dropped down to tenth by the end of the first lap. Vettel looked to have a solid grip on the race and was comfortably holding off the second-place Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton. But Vettel had committed to a two-stop strategy and divved into the pits on lap eleven.

Hamilton continued to lead until he pitted for soft tyres on lap 24. It brought him out in second place and eleven seconds behind Vettel where he simply bided his time with the knowledge that the Ferrari had a second-stop to make. Vettel’ second stop on lap 37 had him rejoining roughly eight seconds behind Hamilton. Despite being able to reduce the gap to about four seconds Vettel was nailed into second place as Hamilton ran his one-stop strategy to completion.

At teams like Mercedes and Ferrari nearly six hundred people attempt to combine the best of their abilities to put two cars onto the track. One of these people has the job of chief race strategist. This is the person who makes the call on when to pit and what tyres to run during a stint. It’s not an easy job by any stretch of the imagination. It’s trying to make the right call under extreme pressure in the fastest sport in the world. But this high-speed game of chess demands absolute precision and anything less is catastrophic.

Without some unreliability or a bit of argy-bargy between its two drivers Mercedes has proven near impossible to beat over the last two years. So when the opportunity arises to do just that it has to be snapped up. While the circumstances may be different from the opening round of the season in Australia the result in Canada is the same – Ferrari find themselves in the lead of the race and surrender the initiative without rhyme or reason. Although Sebastian Vettel is refusing to blame the team for the strategy the reality is that Ferrari’s call handed Lewis Hamilton victory on a silver platter. Most galling of all is the fact that Vettel had the pace to beat Hamilton on track.

More than 40 seconds behind Williams’ Valtteri Bottas also made the best of a one-stop strategy to secure third and the ninth podium of his career. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen drove a brilliantly defensive final stint to hold of Nico Rosberg for fourth. The second Merc of Rosberg finished fifth after spinning ahead of the final chicane in an unsuccessful attempt to pass Verstappen. Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen took a disappointing sixth place in a race where he was constantly asked to “take it easy” and save fuel.

Daniel Ricciardo completed a fairly lackluster run into seventh ahead of Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg in eighth. Carlos Sainz delivered a stunning drive from 20^th on the grid to ninth by the chequered flag. Sergio Perez wrapped up the final point in tenth for Force India. McLaren’s Fernando Alonso ran a 55-lap stint on the soft tyre but ultimately finished eleventh while teammate Jenson Button retired early on with a suspected engine fire.

As Formula 1 heads to Azerbaijan for the inaugural race in Baku this weekend Hamilton dedicated his fifth win in Canada to the great Muhammad Ali. A resurgent Hamilton leaves Montreal nine points behind Nico Rosberg and with a definite and ominous spring in his step.

(All images courtesy of Pirelli Motorsport)

June 13, 2016
F1 2016: Russian Gp Tyre Strategy

The 2016 Russian grand prix didn’t play to varying tyre strategies as much as the first three races of the 2016 season.

The Sochi Autodrom brings with it a unique set of conditions for the Pirelli tyres. As the circuit is mainly un-used for the remainder of the year it’s track surface is particularly kind to Pirelli rubber. The Italian tyre manufacturer arrived in Russia with the white-walled medium, yellow-walled soft, and red-walled supersoft tyres.

Owing to the lack of degradation most drivers were able to complete the 53 laps with a one-stop strategy. At the head of affairs Ferrari extended Kimi Raikkonen’s first stint over on the supersoft tyres over Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas. The aim was to prize open a slight advantage over the two with whom Raikkonen had been keeping close company. Though the Ferrari driver was able to jump Bottas with this call Hamilton stayed ahead of Raikkonen thanks to a burst of three quick laps on new soft tyres.

Red Bull Racing’s afternoon was compromised when Dannil Kyvat twice crashed into the back of the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel. It resulted in damage and a forced pitstop for both Kyvat and Daniel Ricciardo. The Red Bull pitwall opted to fit the white-walled medium tyre and go to the chequered flag without another visit to the pitlane. While the medium compound survived for 52 laps on Kyvat’s Red Bull the pace deficit to the soft, and supersoft, tyre meant he could make little to no headway.

Haas F1’s Esteban Gutierrez also opted for to run the medium compound for 99% of the race without success and eventually finished eighteenth. Teammate Romain Grosjean opted for the favoured supersoft > soft strategy and ultimately finished eighth.

In hindsight, given the lack of degradation the spectacle would have been better served had Pirelli opted to bring the purple-walled ultrasoft compound to the Russian grand prix.

May 2, 2016
F1 2016: Bahrain Gp Tyre Strategy

The introduction of a third available compound by Pirelli has positively added to the spectacle. Here is a look at the different strategies adopted by drivers during the 2016 Bahrain grand prix.

In Friday’s second free practice session Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen competed a twenty lap run on the medium compound tyres. The stint showed up well in terms of pace and would’ve been considered a good choice for those opting for a two stop race strategy. However, conditions in Sunday’s race were not conducive to competitively running the medium tyre.

Although Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo ran his final stint on the medium tyre his second stint, on the soft tyre, was the decisive factor in his race. The Williams drivers Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas started the race without any new sets of the soft tyre, thereby compromising how innovative they could be on tyre strategy. Massa ran the longest stint on the medium tyre and though he ran as high as second at the start of the race ultimately finished eighth ahead of teammate Bottas in ninth.

Haas’ race strategy engineer Ruth Buscombe calleed the most dynamic and aggressive of the race for Romain Grosjean. The Frenchman ran three stints on the supersoft tyre and his final stint on a new set of yellow-walled soft tyres.

April 4, 2016
F1 2015: Russian GP Review – Russia Redeemed

It isn’t often in Formula 1 that you get what you ask for. Ahead of the second ever Russian grand prix the request was for a race with a bit more zest and the Sochi Autodrom delivered.

Where it concerned the winner of the race it wasn’t high on the entertainment stakes. Lewis Hamilton ambled to career victory number 42 in his Mercedes without so much as a whiff of a challenge.

It appeared at the start of the race as if the double world champ would have some work to do as Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg maintained his pole position off the starting line. But it wasn’t to be for Rosberg as he was forced into retirement with a broken throttle pedal. It the lead up to the race the call for Rosberg to step up and take the fight to Hamilton and he responded with an authoritative qualifying performance.

Alas, now and then the unpredictability of F1 rears its head and inserts a searing reminder of how cruel the sport can be. If Rosberg’s admittedly fragile championship dream was hanging by a thread before it has now been completely obliterated. The German driver trails Hamilton by 73 points with a maximum of 100 still available.

Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel was never within striking distance of Hamilton but showed a solid enough turn of pace for a comfortable second place. The four-time champion pulled off two crucial moves on Raikkonen and Perez for his second place finish.

The race had two safety car deployments the first of which came on lap one for a collision between the Force India of Nico Hulkenberg and the Sauber of Marcus Ericsson. The safety car was deployed a second time as Romain Grosjean crashed his Lotus heavily into the barrier on the outside of turn three.

While Grosjean’s race was over it prompted a roll of the strategy dice for Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo and Force India’s Sergio Perez. The two drivers would attempt a run to the flag, some 40 laps away, on one set of the yellow-walled soft compound tyre. For Ricciardo it came to naught as he had to retire his Red Bull with a suspected suspension issue.

However, Perez was clinging onto third for dear life. But as Williams’ Valtteri Bottas and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, with fresher tyres, closed him down at a rate of knots it appeared that the Mexican would be consigned to the very least a fifth place finish. Unexpectedly, Raikkonen’s attempt to overtake countryman Bottas proved a bit too feisty and the two collided into turn 4. The clash put Bottas out of the race and left Raikkonen with a damaged car. Ever the opportunist, Perez swept past to take a deserved third place finish.

Willliams’ Felipe Massa recovered from fifteenth on the grid to finish fourth; Raikkonen crossed the line in fifth but was later slapped with a 30 second penalty for the Bottas collision which drops him down to eighth. Local hero Daniil Kvyat finished fifth in his Red Bull ahead of Sauber’s Felipe Nasr, Lotus’ Pastor Maldonado, McLaren’s Jenson Button and Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen, in tenth. The sister McLaren of Fernando Alonso would’ve finished in tenth but the Spaniard was given a five second penalty for not respecting track limits.

Subsequently, Raikkonen’s thirty second penalty has resulted in Mercedes being crowned the 2015 constructors champions. In F1 you’re only as good as your last race and while the 2014 Russian grand prix was a straight up bore fest it’s 2015 edition delivered a race sizzling enough so that we can declare Russia redeemed.

(Podium image courtesy of Pirelli Motorsport).

October 11, 2015
F1 2014: British GP – Hamilton Roars Back Into Contention

It is uncanny how even in the most dominant of seasons Formula 1 still manages to deliver one of the most thrilling races in years.

The 2014 Silverstone grand prix was chock-full of amazing drives and drama from the very first lap. The field had not completed one lap before Kimi Raikkonen crashed heavily into the barriers on the Wellington Straight, bringing out the red flag.

Raikkonen appeared to lose control as he tried to rejoin the circuit after running wide onto the tarmac run-off at Aintree. The Finn hit a bump in the grass which put him headfirst into the barriers. Despite an impact of 47 G the Ferrari driver escaped serious injury. It was only through Felipe Massa’s exceptionally quick reaction that the crash was not much worse. Massa, in his 200^th GP, pitched his car into a spin to avoid Raikkonen as he speared across the track. Unfortunately the Williams driver sustained terminal damage to his left-rear suspension. Raikkonen suffered a bruised leg and ankle which has put him in doubt for testing at Silverstone this week. It is often taken for granted just what special talents all of these driver’s posses and it was Felipe Massa’s actions which reminds us all of the unrivaled ability of these drivers.

The race resumed an hour later after marshals repaired the heavily damaged guard rail. Mercedes’ Niki Lauda lamented race direction for the red flag interruption and said that there was “zero possibility” of another driver crashing into the damaged guard rail. However unlikely a second accident in the same area would or would not be it is unconscionable to speculate where safety is concerned.

Nico Rosberg restarted in first position ahead of McLaren drivers Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen. Hamilton soon made his way through from fourth to run five seconds behind Rosberg.

An alternative strategy by Hamilton left him on the harder and slower compound tyres towards the closing stages of the race. Even though it was Rosberg who should have had the upper hand on the faster tyre he was no match for Hamilton’s doggedness. The Brit was rapidly closing the gap to his championship rival when Rosberg’s car suddenly slowed. As Hamilton swept into the lead of the race a gearbox issue brought an end Rosberg’s race.

An inspired Valterri Bottas scythed through the field from fourteenth and overtook the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso, both McLarens and the Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel. The Williams’ driver perfected a one-stop strategy and delivered a stunning drive to score back-to-back podiums with a career best second place.

Behind Bottas, Daniel Ricciardo, also on a one-stop strategy, successfully fought to hold onto third place. Allbeit on different strategies on the day the impressive Australian once again out-performed his four-time world champion teammate. Mid-way through the season Ricciardo has proven that he has successfully taken the step to the next echelon of grand prix drivers. He isn’t yet going to be mentioned in the same breath as the Alonsos and Hamiltons of the racing world but everything suggest that he is an incredibly talented driver.

Jenson Button drove superbly to finish the race a mere eight tenths off the final podium spot. Although narrowly missing out on the podium in what was surely an emotional weekend JB did his dad proud with a fighting fourth place. A tip of the hat to the British fans for showing their support for JB with scores of pink in the crowd.

Further down, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel were involved in a classic duel for fifth. The two champions battled for several laps within inches of each other. Both drivers comically complained on the radio of the other exceeding track limits but ultimately the battle royal between the two was a breathtaking display of driving skill. In the end Vettel got the better of the Spaniard.

Kevin Magnussen improved McLaren’s day with seventh place ahead of Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg. The most impressive rookie of the year Daniil Kvyat led teammate Jean-Eric Vergne home in the final points paying positions. Sauber’s Esteban Gutierrez has been given a three-place grid penalty for the next race after the Mexican clashed with Lotus’ Pastor Maldonado.

Lewis Hamilton roared back into contention for the driver’s title with a fine victory on home soil. Although it came at a cost to Rosberg Hamilton’s prodigious pace on the supposedly slower tyre was telling. Victory at Silverstone means a lot to Hamilton and is an even more significant boost to his title aspirations.

(Podium image by courtesy of Pirelli)

July 7, 2014
2013 Korean GP: Flawless Vettel Wins

The Korean grand prix is not well attended by fans, it’s situated in the middle of nowhere and its place on the F1 calendar is in doubt. Despite this the Yeongam circuit was riddled with brilliant battles and delivered one of the most electrifying races of the season.

Sebastian Vettel led away from yet another pole position but the Red Bull driver’s advantage wasn’t the dominantly supreme pace of two weeks ago in Singapore. He was however in complete control even with the moderate threat from Romain Grosjean. The Lotus driver had managed to get ahead of second place starter Lewis Hamilton and make a slight impression on Vettel.

Fernando Alonso, despondent about the Ferrari’s pace throughout the weekend, could not make much headway at the start of the race. In fact, the Spaniard was lucky to avoid being taken out by spinning teammate Felipe Massa. Alonso found himself tucked up behind the Sauber of Nico Hulkenberg and Kimi Raikkonen bearing down on his gearbox. Raikkonen was able to overtake his future teammate before the first round of pitstops commenced.

Lewis Hamilton’s afternoon didn’t go to plan as tyre degradation severely limited the pace of the Mercedes. The Brit was on the radio, several times, bemoaning the Pirelli’s lack of grip. The team remained adamant and stuck to their original strategy and advised Hamilton to remain out on circuit. The driver though seemed fed up with the situation and appealed to the team to call him in. “You need to call me in now, these tyres are ******,” implored Hamilton.

To add insult to Hamilton’s injury a spectacular failure of Nico Rosberg’s front-wing meant his teammate was called into the pits ahead of him. Mercedes’ strategy calling from the wall left a lot to be desired in this race.

The first of two safety cars was deployed on lap 31 as McLaren’s Sergio Perez suffered a complete delamination of his front-right tyre. A stint of twenty plus lap and a severe flat spot was the perfect was the reason given by Pirelli for Perez throwing the tread off the tyre. Mark Webber was a casualty of the debris from the McLaren and was forced into the pitlane with a slow puncture. Webber commented after the race that Pirelli’s official reason for the failure may not be spot on. “The reason drivers are locking up [the tyres] is because there’s no tread left [on the tyre].”

The deployment of the safety car resulted in a rash of pitstops. The Mercedes team escaped their bad strategy call with Hamilton and allowed Rosberg to recover to a points paying position. The restart of the race had Kimi Raikkonen capitalising on a minute mistake by teammate Grosjean and the Finn snatched second place from the Frenchman who was not too pleased with the “situation.”

Grosjean reportedly voiced his irritation on having been overtaken by Raikkonen and according the teamboss Eric Boullier “he was begging some team orders to let him past.” Grosjean was not able to retake the position with fresher tyres nor was it handed to him by the team. He was told by Lotus’ Director of Trackside Operations, Alan Permane, “We’ll talk about this later, but big ******* smile on the podium, big smile on the podium.” Permane went on to praise Grosjean’s “incredibly strong driving” and Raikkonen’s “luck.”

The race was just about settled down when Adrian Sutil’s spinning Force India smacked into the side of Mark Webber’s Red Bull on lap 38. Webber’s car caught fire and with slow responding marshals erupted into quite a blaze. It later emerged that the fire was caused by a burst oil radiator. The drama intensified as a fire vehicle took to the track ahead of the leaders; prompting the second appearance of the safety car. The FIA said after the race that they had called for the fire vehicle but expected it to come from the Turn 3 marshalling post and not Turn 1.

As the race resumed Vettel was able to move clear of Raikkonen and win the race by four seconds. And while Romain Grosjean complained about not being let through Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg drove the race of his life to hold off Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso. Hulkenberg withstood immense pressure from Hamilton lap after lap and undoubtedly boosted his shares in driver market. The difference between Grosjean and Hulkenberg is subtle. Although the Frenchman has matured as a driver it’s Hulkenberg who showed that he is a true racer. These two could be an interesting match-up if the rumours of Hulkenberg to Lotus in 2014 have any authenticity.

Several fights throughout the field spiced up the Korean GP enough to declare it a thoroughly entertaining race. Sebastian Vettel however was completely oblivious to the majority of it. Calm and controlled at the head of the race the German delivered yet another faultless drive and the rest as they say is record breaking history.

October 6, 2013
F1: A game of chess, not checkers

Reynard Gelderblom (@Reynardg), Motorsport Editor of Street Motion sent us his thoughts on the role that strategy plays in Formula one, following the Chinese Grand Prix.

If you’d like us to publish your Formula One related opinions, just email us and we’ll add it to the Fan Pages of this website.

F1: A game of chess, not checkers

Formula One Strategy – much like a game of chess

A thought which came up quite a few times while watching this past weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix is: “I don’t ever want to play chess against any of these team managers.”

F1 is very much about strategy these days, with the tyres playing a huge part of planning throughout the weekend. All of us will still remember this same race in 2012 where one lap meant the difference between second and fourteenth for Kimi Raikkonen.

I’ve heard many complaints over the past weekend though from people calling this boring, most notably during the third qualifying session on Saturday. For me, this was extremely exciting. Then again, whenever I go to the casino you’ll be sure to find me at the Blackjack table and never at a slot machine. Formula One is truly the thinking man’s sport.

The race weekend starts on Friday morning with all teams receiving an equal amount of tyres from two Pirelli compounds. Friday practice teams need to gather enough information about the tyres, how long they’ll last, what will work in which conditions etc. Come Saturday morning, your strategy for tyres needs to be in place. Effectively Saturday qualifying is when you start your race these days. A good example was with Red Bull in China. There’s no doubt that Vettel could’ve qualified higher than ninth, but making up grid slots would’ve cost the team dearly in the race.

Then comes the race: Webber’s failure to supply a fuel sample after qualifying got him pushed to the back of the grid. Again the team took advantage of this by changing the gearbox and gear ratios and thereby willingly choosing to start from the pits. Hamilton started first with Alonso third. Again, Alonso could’ve easily gotten pole position, but at what cost? As the race progressed, this played out as expected.

Then there was the question of the option tyre. All teams must make use of both tyre compounds during a normal dry race. For this race, Pirelli’s softer compound clearly had no real lifespan to talk of – just six laps. Most teams just wanted to get this over and done with. For this one, Vettel had an entirely different strategy to anyone else: take the option tyres with six laps to go. All of a sudden, Hamilton was under pressure and with one lap to go third spot would’ve gone to the one who could keep it together on the tyres.

Of course fingers can be pointed to Pirelli. Shouldn’t they maybe have supplied the teams with better tyres? Shouldn’t they gather as much team data as they can to come up with a better solution? One thing to keep in mind is that this is not 2005 when tyre changes weren’t allowed. We certainly won’t see any scenes like we did back in the USA Grand Prix of that year where all but six cars pulled off the circuit prior to the start for safety reasons. Tyre changes are part of the game now – and it’s a variable teams have to take into account.

What’s more, it does in fact bring a level of excitement to a GP as well. I watched this race along with another group of motoring journalists at one of our favourite restaurants in Cape Town. I can’t remember when last it took me an hour to finish a proper fried up breakfast and the reason for this is simply because I didn’t want to look away from the screen. I didn’t want to miss any slight sign of the tyres starting to fade on someone’s car or a single radio message. This was pure thrills from start to finish.

Balancing equations of minimum quantities of fuel, KERS, DRS, tyres, ideal track position after pit stops, when to make what move… all while trying to win a race. As I said, I wouldn’t want to play a game of chess against these guys.
By Reynard Gelderblom

Reynard Gelderblom is the motorsport editor for Street Motion.

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April 21, 2013