[anachronix]

Good racing finally!

The Star of the race award should go to Webber. From 18th to 3rd that too without KERS, I cant imagine what he could have done if the KERS was working.

And the P Zero decides the outcome of a race, good drive by Hamilton and his gamble on using his tires more aggressively got him the win. Kudos to him!

Ferrari needs to do better pitstops, Michael's first stop was 3.4 seconds compared them to Ferrari's times that averaged between 4.5 to 4.9 seconds. In the race trim the car looks close to the front runners, they should figure out their qualifying pace!

It was a decent race for Michael and an amazing start for the race. Enjoyed his fight with Webber!

Finally, a bad pathetic useless coverage from Star Sports again. I am going to write a petition to Star Sports to sack the old gentleman Steve Slater. We had to switch to the BBC feed every time to really understand what was going on in the race!

[Hatari]

Webber's pace confirmed Red Bull dominance, scary pace from the aussie.
McLaren ( & Ferrari) are no where near them.. they just got lucky.

Fastest lap of the race:
Webber - 1:38.993
Vettel - 1:41.321
thats a 2.3 second difference!

Lewis - 1:40.415
1.5 seconds off Webber


If Vettel was on a 3 stopper, he would have easily finished 20 secs ahead of Hamilton

Why would the team with the quickest team-driver combination opt for a defensive 2 stop strategy? unthinkable.

[julupani]

@Hatari
The defensive two stop strategy must have been opted for after the not exactly great start from Vettel. Though if they had stuck to their guns, seeing how much DRS+KERS makes overtaking easier they might have still won it.

As for the fastest lap, I am sorry to say, but you havnt thought out why the difference in fastest lap times happened. You have to remember, Webber used his prime slower tyres at the start of the race, when the car is heaviest. But Webber was on primes when the car was at its lightest towards the end of the race. While all the other front runners had the opposite tyre usage plan. They had the worst tyres, degraded primes, with the lightest cars, while Webber had a decent set of soft option tyres at the same time.

Actually, that simple idea of using the prime tyres when he could do the least and be stuck around slower moving traffic was the true master-stroke of Webber's race engineer. And remember even Webber did just 11laps on his primes. But that allowed him to use all his soft tyres when he could overtake and catch up to other people. While everybody was using up one set of option tyres with heavy cars, he got to use his final set of options with the lightest possible car.

Remember in a race its not just of going fast, its about going fast when your competitors are at their slowest. That is what allows you to close up and overtake, and that is exactly what Webber's strategy allowed him to do. Their strategy may have been a blunder in qualifying, but I think it was a blessing in disguise for him.

I expect this strategy to be tried out a lot more by people in the 10-15th grid positions, may be even by those guys who make it into Q1 but dont really hope to compete much in Q1. They may try to qualify on the primes and use them up when they do least damage.

[AltoHoncho]

Vettel lacked precision braking this time, as well as lost out to Hamilton on pit stop strategy. Fresh tyres for the later stages of race worked in Hami's favor.

Force India was quite impressive. I saw the race after a really long gap of a year but liked Renault and Force India. Ferrari seems to be messed up post Schumi.

[Hatari]

Originally Posted by julupani

@Hatari
The defensive two stop strategy must have been opted for after the not exactly great start from Vettel. Though if they had stuck to their guns, seeing how much DRS+KERS makes overtaking easier they might have still won it.

As for the fastest lap, I am sorry to say, but you havnt thought out why the difference in fastest lap times happened. You have to remember, Webber used his prime slower tyres at the start of the race, when the car is heaviest. But Webber was on primes when the car was at its lightest towards the end of the race. While all the other front runners had the opposite tyre usage plan. They had the worst tyres, degraded primes, with the lightest cars, while Webber had a decent set of soft option tyres at the same time.

Actually, that simple idea of using the prime tyres when he could do the least and be stuck around slower moving traffic was the true master-stroke of Webber's race engineer. And remember even Webber did just 11laps on his primes. But that allowed him to use all his soft tyres when he could overtake and catch up to other people. While everybody was using up one set of option tyres with heavy cars, he got to use his final set of options with the lightest possible car.

Remember in a race its not just of going fast, its about going fast when your competitors are at their slowest. That is what allows you to close up and overtake, and that is exactly what Webber's strategy allowed him to do. Their strategy may have been a blunder in qualifying, but I think it was a blessing in disguise for him.

I expect this strategy to be tried out a lot more by people in the 10-15th grid positions, may be even by those guys who make it into Q1 but dont really hope to compete much in Q1. They may try to qualify on the primes and use them up when they do least damage.

You are forgetting Vettel overtook Lewis on Lap 14.
If he can do it while preserving his tires, on a 3 stopper it would have been much easier. So how does the poor start matter here?

Vettel has been quicker than Webber, here he had KERS intermittently
while Webber didnt at all. So going by Webber's pace Vettel, even in P3 would have been miles ahead.

I quoted the fastest lap figs to suggest the times Vettel could have EASILY done (with KERS)

[bhagathgowda]

who's fault is this.

YouTube - 2011 Formula One China Race Alonso DRS Open Illegally

[anachronix]

^^ wow! Thats shocking man!

[julupani]

@Hatari
I never said Vettel was slower than Hamilton or that Vettel's choice of strategy was a bit too conservative. I agree with both those points.

But the fastest lap time difference cant really tell you how close the McLarens are to the Red Bull. I think the McLarens are no longer that far off the Red Bulls.

The point is Vettel could not have come anywhere close to the fastest time Webber set, because of the reasons I gave in the previous post. So to say that the Red Bulls are miles ahead of the McLarens would be wrong.

Also, one more thing, I dont think we should read much into an overtaking move now, in the times of KERS and DRS. If somebody overtakes somebody does not necessarily mean he is faster.

[Shubz]

Originally Posted by AltoHoncho

Vettel lacked precision braking this time, as well as lost out to Hamilton on pit stop strategy. Fresh tyres for the later stages of race worked in Hami's favor.

Force India was quite impressive. I saw the race after a really long gap of a year but liked Renault and Force India. Ferrari seems to be messed up post Schumi.

Ferrari are going to be in the reckoning in the Europe leg for sure. (am a die hard Ferrari optimist)

[karthik247]

Originally Posted by bhagathgowda

who's fault is this.

It was found to be a technical glitch. And as there was no advantage gained, the 'stupids' didn't slap a penalty.

[robimahanta]

A few clicks from the 2011 Chinese Grand Prix (clicked by my brother)

The pre race Ferraris, drivers on bus waving etc.

[anachronix]

Originally Posted by karthik247

It was found to be a technical glitch. And as there was no advantage gained, the 'stupids' didn't slap a penalty.

I also read that the erratically active DRS into the braking zone actually did more harm than good to Alonso!

He was let go without penalty for the same reason by the Stewards!

[julupani]

True, the malfunctioning DRS may have done some harm to Alonso again.

For example, the above clip is him accelerating out of turn 13 the slowest corner. You would want the downforce to kick in soon so that you can put down all the power of the engine ASAP.

A similar issue plagued Schumi and Rosberg, but their's was due to a design issue.

[AltoHoncho]

Originally Posted by Shubz

Ferrari are going to be in the reckoning in the Europe leg for sure. (am a die hard Ferrari optimist)

No chance, its not the ride... its the rider. Ferrari is still among the best ones but schumi is gone from the camp, he was the real tamer of the horses there.

European leg will be dominated by Hamilton.

[Hatari]

Originally Posted by julupani

@Hatari

But the fastest lap time difference cant really tell you how close the McLarens are to the Red Bull. I think the McLarens are no longer that far off the Red Bulls.

The point is Vettel could not have come anywhere close to the fastest time Webber set, because of the reasons I gave in the previous post. So to say that the Red Bulls are miles ahead of the McLarens would be wrong.

Also, one more thing, I dont think we should read much into an overtaking move now, in the times of KERS and DRS. If somebody overtakes somebody does not necessarily mean he is faster.

Come Spain I feel the RBs will stamp their authority on the entire field again, given the pace Webber showed without KERS i'm convinced they are miles ahead.

KERS & DRS make overtaking easier, which means the car behind can be 2-3 tenths quicker and still be able to overtake. It need not be more than 1.5 seconds faster like last yr.
But a slower car will never consistently be within a second of the car ahead (at last corner) to activate DRS to pass.