Monthly Archives: July 2017

18 Jul 2017

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Michael Lamonato

Michael Lamonato

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Episode 10 (2017) – British Grand Prix

Episode 10 of the 2017 Strategy Podcast: by Apex Race Manager provides insight & analysis of strategic decisions made during the 2017 British Grand Prix.

Our host Michael Lamonato is joined by Zach Priest from Superlicense F1 Podcast.

Our guest Zach Priest
Our guest Zach Priest

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.

APEX Race Manager – it’s out now on iOS & Android.

Contact us on twitter @strategyreport.

British Grand Prix 2017

18 Jul 2017

Race10 – 51 Laps – 5.891km per lap – 300.307km race distance – low tyre wear

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

Mercedes driver and three-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton was an unstoppable force at his home race, taking a dominant and record-equalling British Grand Prix victory at Silverstone.

He led every single lap in what was a lights to flag victory, but while there wasn’t much action at the very front of the field, there were plenty of entertaining battles and storylines further back – with the podium positions only decided on the last lap.

Late drama due to tyre problems prevented Kimi Raikkonen of a strong second place, with Valtteri Bottas benefitting to finish runner-up and give Mercedes a 1-2 finish. Raikkonen finished third, though, with Sebastian Vettel picking up a puncture just one lap after his team-mate.

It wasn’t the most fascinating strategic race, but nevertheless, there were plenty of interesting headlines to delve into. Let’s take a look…

Rain stays away

In typically Silverstone style, rain played its part during the British GP weekend, but it didn’t arrive for the race. Light showers disrupted the early stages of FP3 and impacted the first segment of qualifying, but the circuit eventually dried out and the sun started to emerge from behind the clouds.

On race day, there was a smaller chance of rain, but despite reports of a few drops, it never really materialised. This meant teams avoided any strategy curveballs and kept it at a straightforward one-stop race. Annoyingly, it did start to chuck it down at Silverstone after the race…

Popular compounds

As we’ve seen before, drivers largely stuck to just two of the three dry tyre compounds during the weekend – the soft and super-soft, which both proved to be durable and had similar performance levels (around seven tenths between them).

Pirelli has been very cautious with its 2017 compounds and it’s prevented drivers from using alternative strategies, with most being one-stop races. It was the same story at Silverstone, although there was a bit more of an opening for a two-stop, but this would likely leave drivers in traffic.

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Vettel’s mixed fortunes

Ferrari racer and championship leader Vettel pretty much lose his chance of F1 victory at Silverstone in the first few corners, when Max Verstappen got ahead of him and into third. The Red Bull was lapping around one second slower than Hamilton and this dropped Vettel out of contention by the first stops.

However, he did move ahead of Verstappen with an early pitstop on lap 19, ditching super-softs for softs. It was a perfectly-executed undercut, with a brilliant outlap and a slightly faster stop. This enabled him to pull ahead of Verstappen, but he didn’t have the pace to hold off a charging Bottas.

The tyre issues

Pirelli has said that the tyre woes suffered by Ferrari on lap 49 and 50, for Raikkonen and Vettel respectively, are different. The Italian tyre manufacturer is now evaluating what happened. What’s clear, though, is that Vettel’s was a puncture as his tyre was completely destroyed, while Raikkonen’s still kept its shape.

The late drama cost Vettel the most, as he slipped to seventh, while Raikkonen’s tyre let go later around the lap and was still inflated so he made it back to the pits at a quicker pace. This was crucial in keeping him P3.

Bottas fights back

For the second race in a row, Mercedes knew one of its drivers had a grid penalty before qualifying and did something different to set up an attacking race strategy. Bottas set his best Q2 time on softs, which meant he started on the middle tyre compound for a long opening stint before pitting on lap 32.

By that stage, he had already made up a few spots after a good first lap, but having the supersoft tyres at the end of the race allowed him to charge up the order and enjoy some brilliant battles. Verstappen holding Vettel up early on helped, as did Raikkonen’s issue, but it was nevertheless a strong performance – to go from ninth to second.

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Ricciardo’s feisty charge

Daniel Ricciardo lined up 19th on the grid after penalties and a mechanical issue in qualifying. With more tyres available, he used fresh super-softs for his long first stint, looking after the tyres well – while also battling his way past slower cars.

He had a few knock-backs, after being forced wide early on and dropping back to last, and also losing three spots in the pitstop. The Aussie made those back up though in less than two laps. He was aggressive when he needed to be, but it was also a classic drive of tyre preservation too, keeping his super-softs in good shape and giving him fresher softs for a final fight to the flag.

No points for Vandoorne

Stoffel Vandoorne enjoyed his best weekend of the season so far, making it through to Q3 and almost scoring a point. It all unravelled with a slow pitstop on lap 26, allowing Felipe Massa to undercut him – helped by the Brazilian going from softs to super-softs. Vandoorne kept with Massa though and came close to finishing P10, but it wasn’t meant to be this time.

Sauber try the ‘zero-stop’

The early safety car period on lap two opened up the opportunity to take a risk and Sauber did just that with Pascal Wehrlein. He pitted to go from softs to the unflavoured mediums, the only time the compound was used in the race, before then stopping again to go back onto fresh softs.

The SC basically gave him two free pitstops, but while tyre wear continues to be low, degradation was higher than recent races due to the demanding Silverstone circuit. This meant degradation wasn’t low enough to pull off this daring strategy and several other drivers (such as Wehrlein) had to go for a second stop late in the race.

Jack Leslie @JackLeslieF1

Longest Stints

Supersoft: Ricciardo (32 laps)
Soft: Magnussen (37 laps)
Medium: Wehrlein (1 lap)

PirelliBritain2 PirelliBritain1

Stints by Driver

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 R01 R02 R03

 

10-britain-lap-chart

11 Jul 2017

With

Michael Lamonato

Michael Lamonato

RSS
Listen With Apple Podcasts Listen With Pocketcasts

Episode 9 (2017) – Austrian Grand Prix

Episode 9 of the 2017 Strategy Podcast: by Apex Race Manager provides insight & analysis of strategic decisions made during the 2017 Austrian Grand Prix.

Our host Michael Lamonato is joined by Luke Smith from NBC Sports.

Our guest Luke Smith from NBC Sports
Our guest Luke Smith from NBC Sports

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.

APEX Race Manager – it’s out now on iOS & Android.

Contact us on twitter @strategyreport.

Austrian Grand Prix 2017

11 Jul 2017

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

Austrian GP F1 Strategy Report Podcast – our host Michael Lamonato is joined by Luke Smith from NBC Sports.

While the first and last laps of the 2017 Austrian Grand Prix were pretty exciting and action-packed, the rest of the race fell a bit flat – caused, in part, due to the lack of strategy and the durable tyres at the Red Bull Ring.

Valtteri Bottas converted pole position into his second Formula 1 victory, holding off a late charge from Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel to give Mercedes a vital win. Daniel Ricciardo brought the “shoey” back with a podium for Red Bull on home soil.

As has been the case at a few races this year, strategy didn’t really play a crucial part in the race, with limited options. However, there were still some interesting storylines to dive right into:

One-stop for all

Sometimes, during the 2017 season, we’ve seen the one-stop strategy be the most popular – but a few drivers have tried the two-stop, just to give it a go. That wasn’t what happened in Austria, with all of the 16 classified finishers completing just one trip through the pits.

This was because the tyres at the Red Bull Ring were incredibly durable, and there was little difference in terms of grip and speed. In fact, it was the closest we’ve seen the three compounds in terms of performance all year, and this meant the ultra-soft wasn’t the only strong option.

But, as the one-stop race ruled the day, we saw a fairly standard strategy from most drivers – pitting between laps 30 and 44. Proof of how durable the tyres were is in the longest stints completed. On the softs, it was 56 laps (Nico Hulkenberg), on super-softs 39 laps were managed (Stoffel Vandoorne) and a monster 44 laps (Kimi Raikkonen) were done on ultra-softs.

Blistering Pirellis

We don’t often see drivers struggling with tyre blistering on these new Pirelli tyres, but it happened quite a lot during the race in Austria. It didn’t impact performance too much, although it did mean a few drivers struggled for a brief while, but it was definitely a factor and probably concerned a few strategists on the pit wall.

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Strategy uncertainty

Due to the warm and sunny conditions on Friday, teams thought the soft tyre was arguably the best performer in terms of pace and durability. It’s got a high working range, but the milder conditions the rest of the weekend suited the lower working range of the super and ultrasofts, which sparked a bit of uncertainty on which tyre to go for.

A mixed starting grid

The starting grid is usually made up of two of the three tyre compounds, but that wasn’t the case in Spielberg. All three compounds were used for the start, with a couple of drivers (the most high-profile being Lewis Hamilton) opting for super-softs and Felipe Massa opting for softs.

It was interesting to see all three being picked, and just goes to show the close performance and durability of the compounds. There wasn’t a massive amount between them, and this meant all three were more widely used during the weekend – whereas, quite often, the hardest tyre is left unloved.

Quali move for Hamilton

Knowing that Hamilton had a five-place gearbox penalty before qualifying meant Mercedes could do something different and get the British driver to set his best Q2 time on the super-soft tyre. The leading teams have such an advantage that there was no real risk of Hamilton not making it to Q3 on super-softs, and the tyres were closely matched in terms of performance.

This meant that Hamilton had slightly less performance for the first stint, but as he was racing with cars slightly slower than his own, it wasn’t an issue. He was able to go a little longer and the tyres held up enough for him to make up ground in those final laps, before a final stint on the more grippy ultra-softs which allowed him to attack Ricciardo for third in the end – he just missed out on a podium.

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The Kimi train

Ferrari appeared to keep Kimi Raikkonen out longer in his first stint, giving him the lead and attempting to slow down Valtteri Bottas – who had emerged behind the Finn on fresh tyres – and allow Sebastian Vettel to catch up. But, his tyres weren’t in great shape by that point and the Iceman failed to pull off the strategy call. So, it didn’t really work.

First lap drama

The start and first lap pretty much secured the results they scored for many. Bottas got a perfect start, so good the FIA investigated him for a jump start before taking no further action, and this allowed him to establish a gap and control the pace. Behind, Daniil Kvyat smashed into Fernando Alonso and Max Verstappen, with the two drivers spinning around being forced to retire. Williams moved from the second-last row into the points due to the first lap and Jolyon Palmer also made up ground, so this was their gains came from, rather than strategy. A few drivers made up more ground than others and this meant they were able to elevate their positions without the intervention of strategy.

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Late attacks

Hamilton was able to close on Ricciardo late on due to the slightly better performance of his ultra-softs and the general pace of the Mercedes. This meant it was a tense final few laps but he ended up just missing out, losing some time from a failed pass on the penultimate lap. We saw once again that the Ferrari seems to treat the softer compounds a bit better and while Vettel stopped before Bottas, his tyres seemed in better condition towards the end and the car has always gone well on super-softs. He closed the gap fairly quickly as Bottas appeared to struggle a bit, but he couldn’t get close enough to make a move and ran out of time.

Jack Leslie @JackLeslieF1

Longest Stints

Ultrasoft: Raikkonen (44 laps)
Supersoft: Vandoorne (39 laps)
Soft: Hulkenberg (56 laps)

AustriaPirelli1

AustriaPirelli2

Stints by Driver

010203 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 R01 R02 R03 R04

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