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Formula 1's tyre strategies work for Webber

Roar Rookie
21st April, 2011
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Roar Rookie
21st April, 2011
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Webber's Formula 1 Pirelli Tyres for use in the Chinese F1 GP

Red Bull Racing mechanic checks Mark Webber's tyres for the Chinese Formula One Grand Prix at the Shanghai International Circuit (Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

One can only imagine the despair Mark Webber must have felt during Formula 1 Grand Prix qualifying on Saturday afternoon as he was pushed down the order in the dying seconds of Q1 – and left stranded in 18th.

The grim looks about the Red Bull garage made no bones about the disaster befalling the Australian, a disaster compounded by the fact that his teammate, Sebastian Vettel, stormed to his third consecutive pole of the season at China.

Come race day, Webber faced a tough afternoon, mired as he was back with the Williams and Lotus machines.

But he was also in rather a unique position amongst the cars with genuine race pace. Because of his early exit in Q1, Webber still had three brand new sets of the option tyre available for the race.

All the front runners had, with the exception of Lewis Hamilton, used all of their options in qualifying, which meant that the short ‘window’ when the soft tyres are at their absolute fastest had already been driven through.

Webber started the race on the hard tyre and found the early going difficult, making up only two positions in his first stint. At this point, even a top ten finish was looking questionable.

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But Webber was feeling confident, for he knew that every time he came into the pits for the rest of the afternoon, his mechanics were bolting on fresh, fast options. Which they did as soon as possible, pitting Webber at the end of the ninth lap.

This was four laps earlier than his two-stopping teammate, and five earlier than Lewis Hamilton. Webber made the most of it.

He scythed through the field, regularly running 1 second faster than the rest of the field and eventually setting a fastest lap of 1:38.993. With this kind of pace, he was easily able to ‘pay back’ the time lost while making an extra pit-stop compared to Vettel.

Directly after one of the best races of his life, and snatching an invaluable podium position, Webber said, “When you still see P17 on your board after 15 laps, or whatever it was, you think ‘how is this going to come?’ But then all of a sudden I just felt comfortable with the car.

“I had a few sets of tyres left from after qualifying so that helped a bit. Maybe that is the best way to do it all the time, not even take part in qualifying and just go from there!”

He may well have been in jest, but he also raises some very interesting questions for F1 strategist as we look forward to Turkey.

Clearly, the performance of the Pirelli tyres has been one of the big talking points since testing began at the beginning of this year.

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Much higher rates of tyre degradation has been found by most teams and with limited sets of rubber available over a race weekend, compromises have to be made come race day.

Hamilton is the prime example here, having made only one soft tyre run in Q3 so as to have a fresh set for the race the next day.

This strategy seemingly paid off, as with fresher tyres than Vettel in the closing stages of the race, he was able to track down and overtake Vettel who tyres were clearly finished.

And of course, just 2.4 seconds behind Vettel was his Australian team mate, who started the race 18 positions behind him, did an extra pit stop and made 14 over-taking manoeuvres.

With overtaking now more of a realistic possibility because of DRS teams with genuine race pace could look to some rather extreme qualifying options.

Imagine if Webber had managed to get through Q1 on the hard tyre (something he came close to doing anyway, if he hadn’t had tyre warming issues).

Once in Q2, use a set of options to ensure you make it to Q3, and then use the hards to set your ultimate grid position. This means starting the race on the hard tyre, while still having two sets of fresh soft tyres for the race.

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Does the lower grid position cancel itself out by having an additional set of the faster options? One suspects that in Turkey, with the enormous pressures placed on the tyres by the unrelenting Turn 8, most teams will be forced to make three stops.

Starting from 10th on the grid with hard tyres fitted means a potentially longer first stint, then three short stints on primes, leaving the fresh sets for the last two runs, when the track is up to temperature and fully rubbered in. Would anyone dare try it?

Perhaps not, but the teams now have options available to them if qualifying doesn’t go their way.

Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton demonstrated during the Chinese Grand Prix weekend the incredibly complex relationship between qualifying and tyre strategy this year.

The driver who masters it best will ensure success as the European season gets underway.

(Additional research: Mark Franklin)

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