Team-BHP - 2012 F1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand prix

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Originally Posted by StarrySky (Post 2953409)

Really don't think it helped all that much. He was ~24s behind Hamilton before the 1st SC. After the SC he was ~16s behind Hamilton, but was the last car. But while Hamilton stormed away at the top, Vettel had to overtake cars and the gap was back up to ~24s when Hamilton retired. Same with his gap with the others (Kimi, Alonso, Button) as well.

Being on fresher rubber, he was able to overtake the slower cars quickly. I think he was faster than the leaders at some point (Alonso, Button) due to having fresher tires. But then, the leaders stopped and were on fresher rubbers than him (and faster than him). So he didn't gain much w.r.t the leaders with his pitstops, infact he lost time to all (Kimi, Alonso, Button) with his 2nd pitstop.

For eg: the gap between Vettel and Alonso was ~16s when the 1st SC was deployed. It went down to ~10 when the SC went back in. The gap was back up to ~17s in another 3-4 laps, after which it started coming down (Vettel on fresher tires than Alonso). The gap was ~12s when Alonso pitted and was back up to ~15s after Vettel pitted.

I think where Vettel was lucky was that some of the others - Webber, Maldonado, Massa etc - who would've posed bigger challenges to his progress, took themselves out of contention, which helped him get upto 4th before the second SC.

Vettel pitted under the SC on lap 13 and rejoined last when the SC was still out.

And thus he saved huge time because cars on track were slow behind the SC. Add to that, Vettel's first pit stop was a slow one as they had to change the nose as well. So, in effect, he made a slow stop to change the nose and still gained 8s on track. That's huge!

And since Vettel was out of sync with others, he gained a lot when others made their only stop and Vettel was pumping in fast laps.

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Originally Posted by StarrySky (Post 2953409)

That's not always true. It depends on the race situation. In Vettel's case, all those who were ahead of him had also stopped before the SC. But it certainly helped him cut the gap to Button and evetually helped him move from 4th to 3rd.

I am not getting this. True, the top runners were done with their only pit stop before the SC. But They needn't make any more stops. And clearly, Vettel didn't have the tyres to go the distance.

If the second safety car hadn't happened, he would have joined far back to top 3 considering they were all together on the track before Vettel' stop. And as you rightly said, the incident prior to the second SC took away Webber, Maldonado, Massa etc who would have delayed him further. So, here again he got advantage from the second SC period.

I agree it was a storming drive (especially, the duel with Button for 3rd) with a very fast car under him set up for the race. But he got immense help from the 2 SC periods. And he made them count. Without the 2 SC periods, he wouldn't have got close to the top 3 let alone challenge them. That's all I am saying.

Let's agree to disagree here.

A race made interesting mostly by crashes/safety car period and the fact that Vettel was at the back of the grid. It seems Vettel/RBR got away with the glaring mistakes they made this weekend.

- RBR fuel sample problem sends Vettel to the back of the grid.
- Vettel climbs up and tangles with Bruno Senna to partially destroy his front wing.
- A safety car closes up the field again but Vettel makes a mistake and has to pit to replace his front wing. Switches to soft tires.
- Drivers in front crash and burn, MW is asked to pit and Vettel moves up to 4th pulling out a 20s+ gap to 5th.
- Pits for soft tires again and another safety car bunches the field again.

For me, RBR was incredibly lucky this weekend.

At the end, 4 WDCs in top 4, Alonso hunting Kimi and the fight for 3rd were a treat to watch. I wasn't sure who to cheer as I wanted Kimi to win but also wanted Alonso to close the title gap to Vettel. Also, I thought Jenson defended brilliantly but in the end Vettel got him with the soft tires advantage. Surely, Vettel had to be very happy with 3rd.

Moving on to Ferrari, they don't deserve any title. I doubt anyone except Alonso would have been in title hunt with that car.

Mclaren seems to be either fast but unreliable or reliable but slow. Can this be the job of Sam Michael? :D

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