Kimi Raikkonen has converted a brilliantly working 2-stop strategy to a race wing for Lotus, immediately confirming the long run pace of the E21. Fernando Alonso finished in second place, 10 seconds behind while Sebastian Vettel completes the podium in third.
Do you honestly think Lotus walks away from this race thinking they have the fastest car of the field?
Of course not, everyone knows Red Bull has the fastest machine of the field.
Some small tweaks to the RB and they not only have the fastest machine but also the best machine.
Edit: Here´s a great quote from Vettel about his car,
"Vettel said was happy with the “naked pace” of his Red Bull RB9 but admitted tyre degradation was one of the main issues."
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The lotus drivers were not able to show their car's real potential in Q3 because their team gave them only one shot while the other contenders got two laps...
I wouldn't be surprised at all if the Lotus beat the Ferraris and the Mercs in the next qualifying session.
And remember that conditions in Friday, in FP2 where the top contenders did their race sims, were hot... and what did we notice when we looked at the lap times ? we saw that RBR, the Lotus and the Ferrari were very close to each other...
Lotus
Kimi Raikkonen (7th, Q3 - 1m 28.738s)
"It was an OK qualifying session. We had just one lap on the dry tyres and I got a bit sideways at the end on a damp patch which meant I lost some time so that was a bit disappointing. The car seems to be working well. It had the speed, but when you have only one lap on dry tyres on a damp circuit setting a fast lap is not the easiest thing to do ..."
Romain Grosjean (8th, Q3 - 1m 29.013s)
"That has to be one of the trickiest qualifying sessions I've ever had ... Unfortunately we only got one flying lap on the dry tyres in Q3, which was a shame as it's hard to know the limit in these kind of drying conditions. I had a small lock-up into Turn 3 which lost me quite a bit of time so it could have been a bit better"
Grosjean had 4th best S2 and S3 in Q3 but due to his mistake he lost 6tenths to his team mate. was even slower tha Diresta (by 3 tenths). He could qualify 4th...
Or not.
James Allison
"We were a little deflated after qualifying as we knew the car had better pace than our grid positions suggested"
I would agree,,,but what about traffic? Improving or deteriorating track conditions? Driver skill? Surely Hamilton in the HRT could out qualify me in the McLaren.
Race = best machine/team wins.
Once again..on the surface it seems correct,,,Until you figure being blocked from a critical move by a backmarker,,or a tire or component failure beyond the control of the team,,you know things controlled by fate.
To achieve anything, you must be prepared to dabble on the boundary of disaster.”
Sir Stirling Moss
Very smart resource managing, while everyone is in pursuit off speed and down force they seem to turn in to tyre conservation mode. I bet its way more efficient way to spend ur money than anything else with current Pirellis. Big credit to them...
I think Nando's point is that the parts of the race where the RB9 was slow, was not down to chassis performance, but rather tyres being worn. If you looked at the starts of stints (with the tyres being fresh) and corrected the pace for fuel load, and in qualifying, where I think that fuel loads and tyre state are pretty much all equal, with new tyres and fuel fumes - the RB9 comes out either neck and neck (or ahead, even) with the Lous and Ferrari.
It has pace in spades, even race pace, when its tyres are the equal of the Ferrari or Lotus. The problem is it can't keep the tyres in check
Very smart resource managing, while everyone is in pursuit off speed and down force they seem to turn in to tyre conservation mode. I bet its way more efficient way to spend ur money than anything else with current Pirellis. Big credit to them...
Well Red Bull solution would work very good if they had much more downforce to make advantage over laps when they have pace with tires then they could stop even 4 times if is necessary and win race. Something similar they were did 2011, RB7 was never great car in preserving tires, he was pretty average, but car had that much downforce neither team could follow them in race.
Very smart resource managing, while everyone is in pursuit off speed and down force they seem to turn in to tyre conservation mode. I bet its way more efficient way to spend ur money than anything else with current Pirellis. Big credit to them...
Well Red Bull solution would work very good if they had much more downforce to make advantage over laps when they have pace with tires then they could stop even 4 times if is necessary and win race. Something similar they were did 2011, RB7 was never great car in preserving tires, he was pretty average, but car had that much downforce neither team could follow them in race.
I think its down to long term development plan. Lotus is gone different way and while they r unable to spend the money Redbull has on downforce they r still reasonable on it and r able to keep they tyres alive.
raymondu999 wrote:I think Nando's point is that the parts of the race where the RB9 was slow, was not down to chassis performance, but rather tyres being worn.
I agree with Nando. I would however mention that perhaps this qualifying session in Melbourne has not shown the "true pace" of everyone, due to the changing conditions and perhaps also the new tyres, which are surely a gamble for everyone. Due to parc-ferme rules, teams need to compromise qualifying pace for race pace, and vice-versa. It's reasonable to assume that it's not as simple as cars showing the quickest they can do on Saturdays - they're only showing "quick enough to not compromise race pace". The situation gets even more complicated if you have to deal with changing weather conditions...
At the end of all this, I would also intend to agree that RedBull is most likely the quickest car outthere. At the same time though, I wouldn't be surprised if Lotus have effectively compromised their qualifying pace in the right way to deal with the factors that become important on Sunday (full fuel loads, gear ratios for acceleration/top-speed, tyre-wear) to give them the edge they had.
I think a nice example of this are various races last year when Redbull utterly dominated qualifying, but when Vettel got a penalty and had to start from back of the grid, it became apparent (to Redbull) how bad their car would be setup for the race within traffic. Had they assumed from the beginning that they would have to start in the midfield or at the back of the grid, their car would have been set-up very differently in qualifying and probably wouldn't have set the pole time in the first place due to those changes.
Not for nothing, Rosberg's Championship is the only thing that lends credibility to Hamilton's recent success. Otherwise, he'd just be the guy who's had the best car. — bhall II #Team44 supporter
Nando wrote:What is not true? The amount of laps they did?
If you don´t believe that then send an email to the guys who run F1.com
Nando wrote:Vettel did 27 laps in Qualifying, Hamilton 29, Grosjean 25, Raikkonen 27. Excuses. Raikkonen stated himself they simply weren´t quick over a lap.
Nando wrote:What is not true? The amount of laps they did?
If you don´t believe that then send an email to the guys who run F1.com
Nando wrote:Vettel did 27 laps in Qualifying, Hamilton 29, Grosjean 25, Raikkonen 27. Excuses. Raikkonen stated himself they simply weren´t quick over a lap.
Almost all of them had just one lap on slicks. Red Bull for sure only had one each. Vettel only started 2nd one when he aborted it since no one was even close...
Full race, get it while its hot and before it gets shut down!
If someone said to me that you can have three wishes, my first would have been to get into racing, my second to be in Formula 1, my third to drive for Ferrari.
