What Happened to Webber and Alonso?

[mkw0101]

Webber and Alonso raced very poorly and ran out of juice before the finish.

How did they fell behind and didn't even bother to catch up to the top five points.

[jon-mullen]

They pitted Webber when his tires started graining and Alonso pitted to cover Webber, even though the team should've known he was racing Vettel at that point. No real mystery, just poor race strategy.

[gilgen]

Webber and Alonso raced very poorly and ran out of juice before the finish.

How did they fell behind and didn't even bother to catch up to the top five points.

Do you mean that they ran out of petrol?? They didn't.

Alonso didn't really try to pass Petrov, but as for Webber, I think that as Alonso was ahead of him, he bottled it. He did not even keep close to Alonso to force him into a mistake, and he even dropped back until reminded by his team, that he should try to pass Alonso. Just goes to show, Webber really is a number 2 driver, who benefited bu others mistakes, mid season, but had his own self inflicted disasters.

[wesley123]

They pitted Webber when his tires started graining and Alonso pitted to cover Webber, even though the team should've known he was racing Vettel at that point. No real mystery, just poor race strategy.

Indeed, and wasnt it the case that Massa pitted even before Alonso? That would made it even more stupid, I mean, the strategy didnt work with Massa, why should it work with Alonso whom was like 5 seconds max in front of him? They just threw their title away there.

Webber on the other hand was nowhere to be found, had real problems trying to keep up with Alonso who had Petrov's pace.

[Arunas]

Is it that difficult to understand? Renault had better top speed. There was any possibility to overtake here, as Petrov stated himself. This is a problem with Yas Marina track.

[andartop]

I don't think it was that much a poor strategy for Ferrari, rather than a very smart strategy for Red Bull.

At that stage of the race that Webber and Alonso went in the pits, no one really knew how long the soft tires would last. It has been reported that Bridgestone estimated they would last for about 20 laps. There were talks during the whole weekend about excessive graining, and some even predicted the race would unfold in a similar way to the Canadian GP, some expected 2 stop strategies. With the track position Webber had, on a long track as Abu Dhabi, it did seem the smart thing to do at that moment: if the tires started going away really badly he would lose even more time and would not have any chance of overtaking Alonso. From Alonso's point of view, he was falling behind Vettel, and at that stage he really needed to cover Mark Webber. Had the tires indeed kept getting worse and worse, these two would gain time and positions back. In retrospect, it is easy to say it was the wrong decision, but at the time it seemed fairly reasonable.

From Red Bull's point of view, they knew that they had two drivers capable of winning the WDC: the one thing everybody thought was their weakness turned out to be their greatest advantage. With the track positions in mind they realized they were in a win-win situation, as it would be impossible for Alonso to cover both their drivers and both scenarios with regards to the tires. The only worry for Vettel at that stage was Hamilton. If the tires got worse lap after lap, pitting Webber before Alonso would give him an advantage, and a chance of overtaking Alonso during the pit stops. If not, that would give Vettel an advantage. Since Webber was that far back, it was the obvious choice to pit him first. The rest is history.

Ferrari were really screwed by the safety car, but that's racing. Had Alonso managed to stay in front of Button and keep up with Vettel and Hamilton, things could have been different. But he didn't. Unfortunately for them, the title was decided in a track where overtaking proved to be much harder than they thought. Alonso was overdriving, trying everything he could to get by Petrov. Still, he couldn't risk a collision, as Vettel might have had a reliability issue even on the last corner, that would immediately gift Alonso the WDC.

[raymondu999]

Conspiracy theorists would also say that Mark didn't want to overtake Fernando because it was better the guy in the other car, with different machinery to you, get the title rather than his teammate. His teammate winning the title kind of says to the world that someone in the same machinery is better than him I guess?

[mkw0101]

Or maybe Bernie had a secret meeting with the top five drivers and told the to let Vettel win the race.

[Rob W]

I can't help but feel that Alonso losing out on the title so closely was a perfectly fitting result considering the team orders incident earlier in the season. It feels like poor or unsporting behaviour has been rewarded too often in F1 and to see Ferrari losing by such a small margin - watching their chances get suffocated slowly while stuck behind non-challenging cars for 40 laps - was quite satisfying.

[andrew]

The simple answer - they both choked. 'Nuff said!

[nipo]

I can't help but feel that Alonso losing out on the title so closely was a perfectly fitting result considering the team orders incident earlier in the season. It feels like poor or unsporting behaviour has been rewarded too often in F1 and to see Ferrari losing by such a small margin - watching their chances get suffocated slowly while stuck behind non-challenging cars for 40 laps - was quite satisfying.

Very satisfying indeed!

[strad]

It feels like poor or unsporting behaviour has been rewarded too often in F1 .

I know I'm going to regret this, but would you tell me just what " poor or unsporting behaviour" you're refering to?

[Rob W]

It feels like poor or unsporting behaviour has been rewarded too often in F1 .

I know I'm going to regret this, but would you tell me just what " poor or unsporting behaviour" you're refering to?

You're joking right?

[SiLo]

I think this has been talked about in the RB6 thread, but the general consensus is that the RB's dont like following other cars.

[beret]

Or maybe Bernie had a secret meeting with the top five drivers and told the to let Vettel win the race.