Episode 12 of the 2017 Strategy Podcast: by Apex Race Manager provides insight & analysis of strategic decisions made during the 2017 Belgian Grand Prix.

Our host Michael Lamonato is joined by Phil Horton from Motorsport Week.

Don’t forget to fill out our listener survey – go to www.f1strategyreport.com

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.

28 Aug 2017

Race12 – 44 Laps – 7.004km per lap – 308.052km race distance – low tyre wear

Belgian GP F1 Strategy Report Podcast – our host Michael Lamonato is joined by Phil Horton from Motorsport Week.

Formula 1 returned to action at Spa-Francorchamps after the seemingly never-ending summer break, and the iconic track hosted another action-packed and exciting race.

Lewis Hamilton started from P1 on the grid after smashing the lap record and matching Michael Schumacher’s all-time pole position record of 68, looking in command throughout the race.

He withstood pressure from title rival Sebastian Vettel and negotiated a safety car restart well to hold onto first place and pick up his third Belgian Grand Prix victory, as well as his fifth of the season.

Vettel picked up second place, his championship lead being cut to seven points, with Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo making a late charge to third – ahead of Kimi Raikkonen and Valtteri Bottas.

Spa is the longest track on the F1 calendar and threw up a range of different strategy stories. Here are the main strategic headlines from the Belgian GP:

Hamilton pits first

Interestingly, race leader Hamilton was the first of the frontrunners to pit for a fresh set of tyres, diving into his box on lap 12 and going for the soft tyres. It was a lightning-quick stop of 2.3 seconds. Ferrari kept Vettel out two laps longer to try the overcut, feeling his tyres and pace were good enough to continue.

However, his stop wasn’t quite as quick as Hamilton’s, and strong outlaps from the Mercedes gave him a slightly increased advantage after the first round of stops. With both drivers going onto the soft tyre, it appeared they were going for a one-stop, which seemed to be the slightly quicker strategy.

A mix of tyres

Interestingly, all three tyre compounds worked well at Spa, meaning all of them were used for the first stint. Pascal Wehrlein was the only driver to start on the softs but he retired early on, meaning we didn’t get to see what strategy Sauber were going for with that decision.

Felipe Massa, Lance Stroll, Daniil Kvyat, Stoffel Vandoorne and Marcus Ericsson all opted for the super-soft tyres for the first stint, looking to go longer on the more durable and less grippy tyres. However, a few of them pitted before the ultra-soft runners.

This was either because they expected a virtual safety car or safety car from Max Verstappen’s stopped car or wanted to ditch the super-softs, as they weren’t working as well as expected, and looked to go onto a different tyre.

Kimi ruins his race

Kimi Raikkonen’s chance of a podium took a big hit with a 10-second stop/go penalty for failing to slow for yellow flags, when Verstappen retired. This cost him time and track position, which proved costly further down the line.

On the replays, it was clear Raikkonen failed to lift through the yellow flags, and Raikkonen had to serve the stop/go penalty on its own, as the team were expecting a one-stop race. Had he lifted under yellows, he would’ve been in a better position to score a podium.

Safety car shake-up

The deployment of the safety car proved to be perfectly-timed. It was brought out due to the amount of debris from Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon’s contact, at a pivotal time in the race. One-stoppers could effectively get a ‘free’ stop and avoid the possibility of degradation and wear at the end of their final stints.

It came out at a prime time for those stopping for a second time, therefore fitting into their strategy and giving them a free stop too. So, it worked out quite well, although it didn’t particularly mix up the order.

However, it did give us a fascinating prospect – a late sprint to the flag. All three tyre compounds appeared for this final stint, with the two leaders going for different strategies. Hamilton was on the softs, Vettel on the ultra-softs.

This gave Hamilton more tyre life, but Vettel had more performance and the threat of running out of tyres towards the end of the race. The ultra-soft was around one second quicker than the softs but Vettel couldn’t find a way through on Hamilton, and probably lost time trying to follow the Mercedes so closely.

In the end, Vettel couldn’t get close enough, with Hamilton taking the win and Vettel fading slightly in the closing laps.

Ricciardo fights back

With Verstappen retiring, that left Daniel Ricciardo in fifth place. He moved up to fourth with Raikkonen’s stop/go penalty and went onto the super-softs for the second stint, clearly going for a two-stop. The safety car helped effectively give him that second stop for free.

Red Bull gave him ultra-soft tyres for the last stint and this allowed him to attack on the restart, passing Valtteri Bottas for P3. The Mercedes ran wide and lost a place to Raikkonen as a result. Ricciardo’s fast reactions and speed on the restart proved pivotal in him scoring a podium.

Two lots of contact

Force India’s two drivers had a messy race after colliding with each other twice. On the first lap, Sergio Perez was running alongside Nico Hulkenberg on the run to Eau Rouge when Esteban Ocon joined the party. Perez moved across and squeezed Ocon against the wall.

On lap 30, the two clashed at a similar point on the track, Ocon trying to make a move and Perez moving across. The resulting contact gave Perez a puncture and Ocon damaged his front wing, which the resulting safety car helped with.

But, the clashes cost Force India a double points finish, as Ocon recovered to ninth and Perez was down in 17th. Both were running well within the top 10 at the time of the second clash.

Jack Leslie @JackLeslieF1

Longest Stints

Ultrasoft: Sainz (19 laps)
Supersoft: Vandoorne, Kvyat (18 laps)
Soft: Palmer (22 laps)

Stints by Driver

Episode 11 of the 2017 Strategy Podcast: by Apex Race Manager provides insight & analysis of strategic decisions made during the 2017 Hungarian Grand Prix.

Our host Michael Lamonato is joined by Abhishek Takle – F1 Journalist.

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.

1 Aug 2017

Race11 – 70 Laps – 4.381km per lap – 306.630km race distance – low tyre wear

Hungarian GP F1 Strategy Report Podcast – our host Michael Lamonato is joined by Abhishek Takle – F1 Journalist.

Formula 1’s annual visit to the Hungaroring featured a fascinating, but not particularly thrilling, 70-lap race. Ferrari took a controlled 1-2 finish, with Sebastian Vettel picking up his second Hungarian Grand Prix win, ahead of Kimi Raikkonen.

The first lap was frenetic and fast-paced, before an early safety car neutralised the action. It started to become a bit processional during the mid-part of the race, but it all came alive towards the end as the top five closed up.

Unfortunately, with the circuit being notoriously difficult to overtake on, the order largely remained the same – apart from Lewis Hamilton letting through his team-mate Valtteri Bottas. But, it was a much more intense way to end the race.

High temperatures and slightly heavier tyre degradation predictions indicated a two-stop strategy could possibly be the quicker option, but in the end, it proved to be a much more straight-forward race. Here are all the major strategy headlines:

Naughty Verstappen

Of course, one of the biggest stories from the Hungarian GP was the first-lap contact between Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo at Turn 2. It took Ricciardo out of the race with damage and fluid pouring out of his car, while Verstappen managed to continue on, with a 10-second time penalty.

Verstappen and Ricciardo were side-by-side going into the corner. But, Verstappen locked up, ran deep and slammed into his team-mate. The resulting time penalty proved costly for both drivers, as Red Bull’s pace really came alive in the race – as Verstappen showed.

For much of the first stint, Verstappen was ahead of Lewis Hamilton, but the RB13 looked after its tyres very well – as we have seen before – and he went longer on his pitstop. But, of course, with his penalty, he dropped well behind Hamilton after his lap 42 switch to softs.

But, with not only fresh tyres but good pace, he was able to quickly close on Bottas, Hamilton, Raikkonen and Vettel, and ended up finishing only 13-seconds off the lead. Imagine what could have been possible without the penalty? A podium, for sure.

Team instructions…

Hamilton soon caught Bottas after the pitstops and was clearly the quicker of the two at the time, so Mercedes told Bottas to let his team-mate through and give challenging the Ferrari drivers a go. He did, but frustratingly, after a long stint hunting them down, he couldn’t get close enough to try a move.

When Hamilton had gone past Bottas, he’d promised to let him back through if he was unsuccessful. Verstappen was closing and right behind Bottas on the last lap, but he was a man of his word and let the Finn ahead at the very last corner to take third place.

Frontrunning strategies

In all honesty, it was a pretty straightforward race for the top drivers. Bottas went first with the pitstops, diving in on lap 30, followed swiftly by Hamilton on the next trip around the circuit. Ferrari reacted but at that stage, they had a decent advantage – with Vettel and Raikkonen stopping on lap 32 and lap 33 respectively.

Raikkonen was actually frustrated that he was stopped so soon. He felt his pace was good, and he could have gone longer on those tyres. It was a feeling also felt by Hamilton, but team radio issues that were only resolved later in the race prevented him from communicating that to Mercedes at the time.

One-stop for most

Even though the temperatures were extremely high in Hungary, as usual, the early safety car neutralised the race and allowed drivers to extend their first stints – which made it a safe one-stop, in the end. The tyres held up well, with better than predicted degradation, and few drivers experienced issues.

Even though drivers had just one pitstop, there were still a number of issues during those trips to their pit boxes. Nico Hulkenberg had a particularly slow stop, as did Romain Grosjean – which caused his retirement. Even the leaders suffered slightly sluggish stops, so it wasn’t a clean or swift afternoon in the pits.

Sauber problems

It was a tough race for the Swiss outfit. During the safety car, both Marcus Ericsson and Pascal Wehrlein pitted, and it looked like a daring strategy move to ditch the super-softs for soft tyres. However, it was actually due to both picking up punctures on the opening lap, and this put them off-strategy with the rest of the pack.

Wehrlein played it safe and stopped again for another set of softs on lap 28, but Ericsson stayed out much longer. It looked like he was trying to get to the end but on lap 63 he pitted for super-softs, which ruined that possibility.

Not much variation

Unlike recent races, we didn’t see that much variation in the tyres the drivers started on. Just Paul di Resta – making his return, replacing the unwell Felipe Massa at Williams – and Daniil Kvyat took the slightly riskier strategy of lining up on the soft tyres.

In the end, the super-softs proved strong and durable enough to run at good pace without little degradation for well over 30 laps. Verstappen’s 42-lap stint was the longest on that set, and many others did impressively stretched-out first stints, while Ericsson did a mammoth 62 laps on the softs.

The medium tyre was pretty universally unloved for the entire weekend, only making appearances in Friday practice before being ditched. The softer compounds are just too durable and quick to not take advantage of.

Jack Leslie @JackLeslieF1

Longest Stints

Supersoft: Palmer (46 laps)
Soft: Ericsson (62 laps)

Stints by Driver