jameshans92: 2012 Indian Grand Prix tyre strategies and pit stops

Monday, October 29, 2012

2012 Indian Grand Prix tyre strategies and pit stops | 2012 Indian Grand Prix

2012 Indian Grand Prix tyre strategies and pit stops is an original article from F1 Fanatic. If this article has been published anywhere other than F1 Fanatic it is an infringement of copyright.

Lewis Hamilton’s five-wheel change for McLaren was the fourth-quickest pit stop of the race.

Indian Grand Prix tyre strategies

The tyre strategies for each driver:

	Stint 1	Stint 2	Stint 3
Sebastian Vettel	Soft (33)	Hard (27)
Mark Webber	Soft (30)	Hard (30)
Lewis Hamilton	Soft (32)	Hard (28)
Jenson Button	Soft (25)	Hard (35)
Fernando Alonso	Soft (29)	Hard (31)
Felipe Massa	Soft (28)	Hard (32)
Kimi Raikkonen	Soft (27)	Hard (33)
Sergio Perez	Soft (14)	Soft (5)	Hard (1)
Pastor Maldonado	Soft (27)	Hard (3)	Hard (29)
Nico Rosberg	Soft (27)	Hard (33)
Romain Grosjean	Hard (36)	Soft (24)
Nico Hulkenberg	Soft (28)	Hard (32)
Bruno Senna	Soft (26)	Hard (34)
Michael Schumacher	Hard (1)	Soft (32)	Soft (22)
Daniel Ricciardo	Hard (27)	Soft (33)
Paul di Resta	Soft (28)	Hard (32)
Kamui Kobayashi	Hard (36)	Soft (24)
Jean-Eric Vergne	Soft (1)	Soft (32)	Hard (26)
Vitaly Petrov	Soft (31)	Hard (28)
Heikki Kovalainen	Soft (32)	Hard (27)
Timo Glock	Soft (31)	Hard (27)
Pedro de la Rosa	Soft (32)	Hard (10)
Narain Karthikeyan	Soft (26)	Hard (32)
Charles Pic	Soft (28)	Hard (31)

Sebastian Vettel delayed his first pit stop as he was still going strong on the soft tyres after half distance.

“I felt very good on the soft tryes and was competitive,” he said. “I could have stayed out even longer I think, but at some stage you have to cover. McLaren and Ferrari were quick on the hard tyre today, so it was important to have a gap to them.”

However McLaren could not get as much performance out of the soft tyre compared to the hard, as was clear from practice. Team principal Martin Whitmarsh said: “We found it difficult to coax sufficient pace out of the [softs], but our car was the fastest in the field on the [hards].

“The trouble was, by the time we were running on [hards], the gap to the cars ahead was a bit too large.”

Indian Grand Prix pit stop times

How long each driver’s pit stops took:

	Driver	Team	Pit stop time	Gap	On lap
1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull	20.707		33
2	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	20.800	0.093	29
3	Mark Webber	Red Bull	20.808	0.101	30
4	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren	20.852	0.145	32
5	Romain Grosjean	Lotus	20.976	0.269	36
6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	21.100	0.393	28
7	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	21.322	0.615	33
8	Sergio Perez	Sauber	21.336	0.629	14
9	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus	21.404	0.697	27
10	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	21.490	0.783	27
11	Jenson Button	McLaren	21.509	0.802	25
12	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	21.654	0.947	28
13	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso	21.658	0.951	33
14	Pastor Maldonado	Williams	22.003	1.296	27
15	Bruno Senna	Williams	22.047	1.340	26
16	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham	22.445	1.738	31
17	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso	22.637	1.930	27
18	Charles Pic	Marussia	22.692	1.985	28
19	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber	22.726	2.019	36
20	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham	22.967	2.260	32
21	Pedro de la Rosa	HRT	23.830	3.123	32
22	Paul di Resta	Force India	23.948	3.241	28
23	Sergio Perez	Sauber	24.508	3.801	19
24	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT	24.544	3.837	26
25	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	25.036	4.329	1
26	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso	25.097	4.390	1
27	Timo Glock	Marussia	27.303	6.596	31
28	Pastor Maldonado	Williams	28.053	7.346	30

Red Bull were the fastest team in the pits for the third time in the last seven races.

But McLaren’s pit stop for Lewis Hamilton was impressively quick – the fourth-fastest of the race – given that it included a change of steering wheel.

“During that first stint I started having a downshift problem,” explained Hamilton. “I was having to change down with my right hand instead of my left, so the team elected to change the steering wheel at the pit stop.”

“I’ve never had to change a steering wheel during a race before. We’ve done it in Barcelona testing before, but never in a race. Even so, the guys did it fantastically quickly, under immense pressure, so I want to say ‘well done!’ to them all.

“I took the wheel off before I’d even stopped the car, and threw it out of the car. The team then fitted a new one, I clicked it into first gear, and I was away – all in just a bit over three seconds flat.”