Sebastian Vettel converted a two stop strategy into another race win, further increasing his championship lead. Mark Webber ended second on a three stopper while Romain Grosjean completed the podium for Lotus.
Still would've lost to Vettel "proper" 2 stopper, might've kept Webber behind though.raymondu999 wrote:Grosjean said after the race:In hindsight, should he have gone OOOP rather than OPP?Unfortunately the prime tyres didn’t work as well as we hoped, but never mind. As a sort of compensation the option tyres worked just super - almost without degradation
I agree that he looked very good on options, but i don't see he making up the 20s of an extra stop over Vettel.raymondu999 wrote:debatable IMO. I think Grosjean on the options were as good as Red Bull on options.
It was a little mistake, but taking into account Vettels pace on the last stint I cannot see how Grosjean was going to win this race.spin1/2 wrote:Lotus' mistake was to cover Webber at the 1st stop, in order to maintain the lead. Instead they should've stuck to the 2 stopper from the beginning. They didn't have the race pace as RBR but they messed up their strategy by trying to race different cars at different times - webber in the beg, and vettel later.
By having web on 3-stop instead of 2, rbr earned themselves a 1-2. Gros would've won ahead of web-vet if rbr.
Imo Biggest mistake was pitting so early second time around, a 24 lap final stint was too much, as people said they went halfway between the "proper" 2 stop strategy and Webber's 3 stop.Vasconia wrote:It was a little mistake, but taking into account Vettels pace on the last stint I cannot see how Grosjean was going to win this race.spin1/2 wrote:Lotus' mistake was to cover Webber at the 1st stop, in order to maintain the lead. Instead they should've stuck to the 2 stopper from the beginning. They didn't have the race pace as RBR but they messed up their strategy by trying to race different cars at different times - webber in the beg, and vettel later.
By having web on 3-stop instead of 2, rbr earned themselves a 1-2. Gros would've won ahead of web-vet if rbr.
I don't think they were covering Webber, else they would have pitted earlier. The laps leading to that stop, Grosjean was losing time hand over fist to Vettel. The Lotus couldn't make the primes last as long as the Red Bull could. In hindsight they should have stayed out longer in the first stint so not to stress their prime stints.Sevach wrote:Imo Biggest mistake was pitting so early second time around, a 24 lap final stint was too much, as people said they went halfway between the "proper" 2 stop strategy and Webber's 3 stop.
They should've ignored Webber and went longer in the middle stint.
No offense to Alonso - but that stat became meaningless ever since they changed points systems, and especially more than doubled them since 2010.Kiril Varbanov wrote:Right after Suzuka, Alonso became the top scorer ever in F1, overtaking MSC - http://www.f1technical.net/news/18856
I agree. Lotus should not have tried to cover Webber at all. If they went with a proper two stopper and covered Vettel the result would be Webber-Grosjean-Vettel 1-2-3.spin1/2 wrote:Lotus' mistake was to cover Webber at the 1st stop, in order to maintain the lead. Instead they should've stuck to the 2 stopper from the beginning. They didn't have the race pace as RBR but they messed up their strategy by trying to race different cars at different times - webber in the beg, and vettel later.
By having web on 3-stop instead of 2, rbr earned themselves a 1-2. Gros would've won ahead of web-vet if rbr.
[...] Seb was on prime tyres as was grosjean, but grosjean's tyres were in better shape at that time than when webber came behind him with fresh mediums. There is absolutely no excuse for webber to be stuck behind grosjean for 6 or so laps when vettel got passed him straight away. Different wing level had nothing to do with traction (just compare hulk's traction in korea with half the wing of mercs and ferraris behind him). Vettel perfectly forced grosjean on the tight inside line trough the chicane and then got a much better exit taking a wider line. One thing I noticed is that Vettel was constantly gaining on grosjean trough that final chicane by going aggressively over the kerbs. Something webber failed to do.radosav wrote:Vettel had better traction out of chicane than Webber, due to setup or something else, i don't know, but difference in traction was obvious,Vettel could overtake Grosjean even without DRS.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usMrvh1Q ... detailpageJuzh wrote:Didn't seem like a problem for Vettel.radosav wrote:People forget that when they decided to put Webber on three stop strategy they forced him to overtake Vettel or both Vettel and Grosjean at some point of the race. And with his traction out of corners at Suzuka that wasn't an easy job.
I am not sure that lap times show that Webber was harder on tyres and that his tyres were going off. This is his statement after the race: ''“After that first stop the guys said we were still on two [stops]. No problem, look after the tyres, get to the target lap, and that was the plan. I was looking to wait, off the back of Romain, and try to squeeze up to the back of him between laps 28 and 31, 32, which was the target lap.” Webber said.raymondu999 wrote:Well we know that the Red Bull in Vettel's hands could still have managed a 2-stop from Webber's first stop (as evidenced by Vettel's middle prime stint lasting some 23 laps. Webber had to average 21 per stint from his first stop to make things work.
But with Webber having to pit at L11 as opposed to Vettel's L15, that shows that Webber was harder on his tyres. Webber has traditionally been harder on Pirellis than his teammate anyways - so it was definitely in the car, but we don't know whether or not Webber could have eked it out as long. His laptimes at the end of said stints is also a different matter
