James Allen says....... Michael Schumacher cut quite a forlorn figure in Turkey at the weekend. And after the race he confirmed that impression when he admitted that he wasnt really enjoying his racing at the moment, The big joy is not there right now, he said. The seven times world champion seemed to be relishing the improved competitiveness of the Mercedes car in free practice, but wasnt able to deliver the expected lap time in Q3 when it mattered. Photo: Mercedes In Q1 he was just over a tenth off team mate Nico Rosbergs best time and it was all looking good. I was even beginning to think that I might be talking to him in the Top 3 unilateral TV press conference at the end of qualifying. In Q2 it was 3/10ths, but in Q3 he trailed Rosberg by a whole second, putting him 8th on the grid. In the Mercedes motorhome for the team press briefing afterwards he seemed quite down about it. He couldnt explain why the performance hadnt been there, hed just not had the grip he wanted. His race was affected by a collision with Vitaly Petrov soon after the start, which knocked his front wing off. Petrov went on to finish 8th, but Schumacher was 12th, I guess I was responsible for the result that I had, he said after the race. With Petrov, I guess it was mostly my mistake what happened there. I need to analyse it, as it was a bit strange that suddenly we got together and I lost my front wing, but the race was a given from there lots of fighting, lots of action, but for nothing. Schumacher effectively lost 30 seconds having to make that early stop for a new nose. If you take 30 seconds away from his finishing time, he would have been somewhere around 6th place Jenson Button, whose pace was slow at the end on worn tyres, so the collision was costly. Last year he had a tough time coming back after three years away and finding that the Bridgestone tyres, with weak fronts and strong rears, just didnt suit his way of driving. To some extent he was powerless to change his own fortunes. But when the results dont come in a competitive car, then a driver asks himself questions. This year the Pirellis are the other way around, stronger at the front than the rear and he has been quite quick in races. With a car which was capable of qualifying third in Rosbergs hands and looked like Red Bulls closest competitor over a single lap, he clearly expected more and was disappointed not to be able to deliver it. He probably accepts that due to his age and time out of racing hes a few tenths slower than Rosberg, but the Mercedes could turn out to be a contender this year and you can always tell when a driver gets a sniff that there may be a chance to do something special. Schumacher needs a podium at the least to make the comeback worthwhile, to give it some real justification. We have to be careful when ex drivers of a similar age to Schumacher say that his age has nothing to do with it, as Johnny Herbert has said this week, for instance, or Jacques Villeneuve has said several time. It is in their interests to say that as they are all hoping to get paid well to drive competitive cars in their 40s. I dont think that Rosberg, Vettel and Hamilton are better than Schumcher, they are just better than he is now. If he feels that the joy isnt there at the moment, then the main reason for the comeback is undermined. He missed racing and so he came back to enjoy himself. I dont go along with people who say that hes damaging his legacy. He won seven world titles in his prime, no-one can take that away from him. There are one or two problems with his legacy anyway, due to controversies he got himself into, but whats happening now has no impact on what he achieved before to my mind. This period of return has simply been an epilogue, which has yet to find its sense of purpose. As to whether this will hasten his second retirement from F1, who knows? He is still Michael Schumacher and his name and status are still of huge value to Mercedes. He has a contract to the end of 2012, thats another 35 races at least. There are stories of Mercedes priming Paul di Resta for the seat as soon as next year, but he still has to develop and show consistently some of the quality he showed in the first three races. Di Resta had a tough weekend in Turkey, incidentally, due to the death of his step-father, Dougie McCracken, who lived with Di Restas mother in Scotland and who had apparently committed suicide according to the Daily Record newspaper.
James Allen talks strategy The Turkish Grand Prix featured 82 pit stops, a new record for Formula 1 and some spectacular overtaking moves. It was quite a confusing race, which requires some decoding and there are some clear trends emerging which will have a big effect on the way the races happen from now on. It was also another race which was all about strategy; not just in terms of pit stops on race day, but further back than that, it was also about planning a strategy for the whole weekend and particularly for qualifying. After four races with new rules and new tyres, we are seeing some clear patterns which strategists are building into their plans. For a start, the DRS wing aiding overtakes means that it is possible to go for what the computer model tells you is the optimum strategy for your cars pace, because you know that you can overtake, you wont have your race completely ruined, as Alonsos was by Petrov in Abu Dhabi last year, for example. However we are also seeing that being stuck in traffic can still lose you vital time, as it did for Jenson Button on Sunday, and this is harmful to anyone trying to get away with making one less stop than the opposition. We have also learned that having even one set of new soft tyres for the race makes a vital difference, as much as 5 to 6 seconds over the course of a typical stint. Another lesson is that it is preferable now to slant thinking very much towards the race and not qualifying. Its not just about saving a set of tyres, its also about setting the car up for the race and prioritising that above all else. With the Pirelli tyres the ideal balance for qualifying and race are far apart. In the past it was generally a case of add a bit more front wing for qualifying and take it out at the first stop in the race. Where you qualified was often where you finished. Now it is about setting the car up to preserve the tyres, which isnt compatible with single lap performance. So you are looking to preserve the tyres, by dealing with the limitations. In China the tyres were front limited, in Turkey they were rear limited. Although both Ferrari prioritised a race balance, they failed to save a set of soft tyres from qualifying, which was very odd, especially after Hamilton won the race in China using that tactic. So the Alonso strategy was right, but not perfect. Massa even used up a set of new soft tyres in Q1, when there was no risk of dropping out because Kobayashi had stopped. No-one in the pit lane can understand how that mistake was made. Teams are also still finding surprises on race day, despite gathering tyre data on Fridays. In China the surprise was that the wear on the hard tyre in the final stint was bad because the track hadnt rubbered in. In Turkey the traack did rubber in and the surprise was that the lap time difference between the soft and hard was only 3/10ths of a second, much less than at any race so far and less than the 1 second/lap it looked like on Friday. Another point to make is that, even if they have a margin, some drivers are making a final stop for new tyres to cover themselves should a safety car be deployed in the closing laps. Vettel did it with his fourth stop, which wasnt really needed, but if there had been a safety car he would have been a sitting duck at the restart. Why were there so many pit stops in Turkey? There are a number of reasons for this. Mainly it is because the tyre degradation was severe. The track temperatures were higher on Sunday than during practice and tyres didnt last as long as expected. Also the pit lane in Turkey is relatively short and so you lose less time (just 16 secs) making a stop there in comparison with other tracks. Also the high peak loadings on the tyres through Turn 8, as much as 1,000 kilos, take their toll on tyres. Why planning to stop four times was the winning strategy Many teams set out to stop three times, but told their drivers in the early laps of the race that they were moving to Plan B, which meant four stops. The tyre degradation was huge and that was clear from five laps into the race. It was at this point that many teams switched to four and those who didnt (Button, Williams drivers) lost out. Pre-race simulations said that a three stop strategy would lead a four stop by eight seconds after the fourth stop. But then the four stopper overtakes the three stopper as his tyres are a second a lap faster. So teams who set out on Friday to run the race as a four stop strategy did well on Sunday. Ferrari were a case in point with Alonso, who set the car up to be optimised for four stops. He also benefited from a good start, which put him clear of the squabbles over position. Weve learned that intense battles speed up tyre degradation. Why didnt Jenson Button make three stops work? The limitation for trying to do three stops in Turkey was the front right tyre, which is the one that is punished most by Turn 8. Button found that by running longer stints, he developed understeer in all the left hand corners and that meant he couldnt defend. Button was racing against Rosberg and Hamilton, both of whom stopped four times. His goal was to do one less stop than them and to have enough of a margin over them when they came out from their fourth stop (around lap 46) for them not to be able to catch him in the 12 remaining laps, despite their newer tyres. His strategy began to unravel on his third stint, when he was on his new soft tyres. This was the moment to build a cushion, particularly as Rosberg was on hard tyres at this time. But on lap 30 Button got held up by Massa. Buttons laps 30 to 39 should have been in the 1m 31s and 32s, instead they were in the 1m 33s. This meant that when Hamilton and Rosberg came out from their fourth stops Rosberg was only 8 seconds behind and Hamilton two. On tyres that were older and therefore a second a lap slower, Button was a sitting duck. Similarly Buemi did well to make his tyres on a three stopper last so that he was in seventh place with four laps to go. But the two Renaults on fresher tyres went past him at the end and he wound up 9th, which is still a good result from 16th on the grid. So again we see midfield cars such as Toro Rosso and Sauber, which are gentle on their tyres, can run one less stop than rivals and get into the points. Kobayashi copies Webbers China strategy Kamui Kobayashi was his usual ebullient self on Sunday, making some spectacular overtakes and working his way up from the back of the grid to finish 10th and claim a point. He did this by running on new tyres all race and by getting the hard tyre out of the way at the start, when his progress was limited anyway by traffic. He was helped by the hard tyre being faster than expected. Kobayashis race again goes to show how much progress you can make if you run as much as possible on new tyres. It is likely to encourage midfield teams to consider throwing qualifying in order to have new tyres for the race.
Webber fast. Pos No Driver Team Time/Retired Gap Laps 1 2 Mark Webber RBR-Renault 1:25.142 27 2 1 Sebastian Vettel RBR-Renault 1:26.149 1.007 20 3 8 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:26.379 1.237 29 4 5 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:26.480 1.338 27 5 17 Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 1:26.738 1.596 26 6 3 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:26.988 1.846 19 7 7 Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1:27.016 1.874 32 8 9 Nick Heidfeld Renault 1:27.132 1.990 21 9 4 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:27.138 1.996 22 10 11 Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1:27.212 2.070 20 11 10 Vitaly Petrov Renault 1:27.241 2.099 22 12 18 Daniel Ricciardo STR-Ferrari 1:27.471 2.329 23 13 12 Pastor Maldonado Williams-Cosworth 1:28.005 2.863 11 14 15 Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1:28.027 2.885 26 15 14 Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1:28.163 3.021 22 16 6 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:28.654 3.512 28 17 16 Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1:28.819 3.677 23 18 19 Jaime Alguersuari STR-Ferrari 1:28.995 3.853 9 19 20 Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Renault 1:29.231 4.089 21 20 25 Jerome d'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth 1:30.896 5.754 18 21 24 Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1:31.235 6.093 24 22 23 Vitantonio Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth 1:31.268 6.126 23 23 21 Jarno Trulli Lotus-Renault 1:31.418 6.276 12 24 22 Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth 1:32.106 6.964 25
FP2 Pos No Driver Team Time/Retired Gap Laps 1 2 Mark Webber RBR-Renault 1:22.470 35 2 3 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:22.509 0.039 27 3 1 Sebastian Vettel RBR-Renault 1:22.826 0.356 37 4 4 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:23.188 0.718 32 5 5 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:23.568 1.098 34 6 8 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:23.586 1.116 35 7 7 Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1:23.981 1.511 30 8 6 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:24.278 1.808 30 9 16 Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1:24.290 1.820 33 10 9 Nick Heidfeld Renault 1:24.366 1.896 31 11 17 Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 1:24.483 2.013 38 12 10 Vitaly Petrov Renault 1:24.786 2.316 43 13 18 Sebastien Buemi STR-Ferrari 1:25.296 2.826 33 14 11 Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1:25.303 2.833 38 15 19 Jaime Alguersuari STR-Ferrari 1:25.457 2.987 34 16 12 Pastor Maldonado Williams-Cosworth 1:25.603 3.133 43 17 15 Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1:26.073 3.603 32 18 20 Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Renault 1:26.417 3.947 37 19 14 Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1:27.123 4.653 20 20 21 Jarno Trulli Lotus-Renault 1:27.189 4.719 34 21 25 Jerome d'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth 1:28.036 5.566 36 22 24 Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1:28.062 5.592 28 23 22 Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth 1:29.469 6.999 28 24 23 Vitantonio Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth 1:29.476 7.006 31
FP3 Pos No Driver Team Time/Retired Gap Laps 1 1 Sebastian Vettel RBR-Renault 1:21.707 6 2 2 Mark Webber RBR-Renault 1:21.791 0.084 17 3 7 Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1:23.057 1.350 16 4 3 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:23.068 1.361 13 5 4 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:23.214 1.507 14 6 8 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:23.397 1.690 18 7 16 Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1:23.669 1.962 17 8 10 Vitaly Petrov Renault 1:24.043 2.336 18 9 5 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:24.270 2.563 11 10 11 Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1:24.318 2.611 18 11 6 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:24.322 2.615 17 12 17 Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 1:24.329 2.622 19 13 12 Pastor Maldonado Williams-Cosworth 1:24.399 2.692 17 14 18 Sebastien Buemi STR-Ferrari 1:24.535 2.828 16 15 14 Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1:24.695 2.988 18 16 19 Jaime Alguersuari STR-Ferrari 1:24.722 3.015 14 17 15 Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1:25.223 3.516 19 18 20 Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Renault 1:26.236 4.529 11 19 21 Jarno Trulli Lotus-Renault 1:27.000 5.293 20 20 24 Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1:27.706 5.999 20 21 23 Vitantonio Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth 1:28.330 6.623 17 22 25 Jerome d'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth 1:29.057 7.350 18 23 9 Nick Heidfeld Renault 1:29.200 7.493 6 24 22 Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth 1:29.562 7.855 16
Qual Pos No Driver Team Q1 Q2 Q3 Laps 1 2 Mark Webber RBR-Renault 1:23.619 1:21.773 1:20.981 12 2 1 Sebastian Vettel RBR-Renault 1:24.142 1:21.540 1:21.181 13 3 3 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:24.370 1:22.148 1:21.961 12 4 5 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:23.485 1:22.813 1:21.964 15 5 4 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:24.428 1:22.050 1:21.996 12 6 10 Vitaly Petrov Renault 1:23.069 1:22.948 1:22.471 14 7 8 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:23.507 1:22.569 1:22.599 14 8 6 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:23.506 1:23.026 1:22.888 15 9 12 Pastor Maldonado Williams-Cosworth 1:23.406 1:22.854 1:22.952 14 10 7 Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1:22.960 1:22.671 12 11 18 Sebastien Buemi STR-Ferrari 1:23.962 1:23.231 6 12 17 Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 1:24.209 1:23.367 9 13 19 Jaime Alguersuari STR-Ferrari 1:24.049 1:23.694 9 14 16 Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1:23.656 1:23.702 8 15 20 Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Renault 1:25.874 1:25.403 6 16 15 Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1:24.332 1:26.126 13 17 14 Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1:24.648 1:26.571 18 21 Jarno Trulli Lotus-Renault 1:26.521 19 11 Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1:26.910 20 24 Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1:27.315 21 23 Vitantonio Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth 1:27.809 22 22 Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth 1:27.908 23 25 Jerome d'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth 1:28.556 24 9 Nick Heidfeld Renault Q1 107% Time 1:28.767
Shaping up to be an awesome race yet again! Im on days off now, so my eyes will be peeled to the projector!
Not much overtaking after the first few laps....but it was very exciting Image Unavailable, Please Login
It was boring. Webber couldn't pass Alonso till the pits and Lewis also couldn't pass Vettel. This track is always boring and even with DRS amd KERS it couldn't make it entertaining. The difference in tyre performance compounds was the only reason we saw any passing. Martin said only 80,000 fans were there. That's 20-30k less then Oz yet the Oz GP is in trouble
Well, because of my roster I dont get to watch too many F1 races anymore so I enjoy everyone that I am able to watch these days. Perhaps Bernie has a beef with the City of Melbourne?
Holy crap!! this is an awesome race. Feel bad for MS he was doing well....overtook Nico then broke down
Exciting race!! Shame it didnt finish the way we all wanted it to. Vettel is storming away with the championship at the moment. Gutsy effort by Alonso also.
