Vettel would have gone the distance in Monaco – Pirelli

2011 Monaco Grand Prix

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Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull, Monaco, 2011

Sebastian Vettel would have finished in Monaco even without changing his worn tyres, say Pirelli.

Vettel ran for 56 laps on the soft tyres during the race and had Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button within half a second of him as his tyres wore down.

Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery said: “From the data we can see that Sebastian Vettel’s tyres would have gone the distance if he had continued to drive on them in the same way that he had been doing up to the red flag period.

“This means that he could have covered 62 laps, the equivalent of more than 200 kilometres, on the PZero Yellow soft tyre, with an extremely close finish”.

Following the race Christian Horner said Vettel had turned down an opportunity to change the tyres earlier in his stint.

Vettel was able to switch tyres during the red flag period late in the race.

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    42 comments on “Vettel would have gone the distance in Monaco – Pirelli”

    1. Surely it rather means Vettel would have been able to drive to the end. But Alonso would have still had a good chance of trying to finish in front of him, I guess.

      1. Agreed…going the distance doesn’t mean winning the race. The quotes make it seem like Pirelli’s main concern here is to point out durability, when in fact what SV did was an anomoly this year, no doubt helped by the race being at Monaco which is (obviously) gentler on tires than most venues, at least for SV.

        1. I don’t see any inconsistency there. They don’t say that Vettel would have won the race. In fact Pirelli were among the first to criticize the red-flag rules, claiming that it took away some of the excitement from the race.

      2. Not that definitive when you read it closely, is it?

        It does suggest however that if Vettel had continued to drive the same as he had been (not letting Alonso or Button past, feeling he could eek out the tyres) he would have won.

        1. Soumya Banerjee
          6th June 2011, 13:39

          What does it matter what Pirelli says? Vettel has not said anything, and with worn prime tyres in a racetrack like Monaco, and going by Vettel’s record(he crashed in an amateur fashion in 09), there’s no guarantee that Vettel would have won. Only the driver can have a say on his chances to win, more than the tyre suppliers. And as Vettel said he got lucky, so I don’t think there should be any argument to that.

          1. Pirelli would have inspected the tyre after the race and if anyone’s in a position to say how much a tyre is going to wear and how long it could last, it’s them.

            1. True but without question the tires were not in their prime window of performance, which is the only reason I brought up the motive for the quotes ie. like Pirelli wants to point out their durability out of paranoia that we will all think domestic Pirelli’s don’t last, when we all know they have been mandated by the FIA to make tires that degrade much moreso than last year’s Bridgi’s…

            2. To be honest, I think if Vettel could have gone to the end, Alonso wouldn’t have been able to get past.

            3. All they say Keith is that he would have finished. They don’t say what his pace would have been at the line.

          2. They never said Vettel would have won, they said if Vettel had continued on that pace he would have made it to the chequered flag.

          3. This has nothing to do with Vettel’s track record. To be honest, it has very little to do with Vettel! He’s not the only guy who can look after his tyres.

            Besides…everyone else’s tyres degrade aswell.

      3. Exactly. He would make the race distance on those tyres, but its not certain that he would finish in 1st.

        1. It says it’s not only making the race distance. They say it would have lasted if Vettel drove it like he did up to the red flag. Remember, he was still driving defensively, pushing only in places where it was absolutely necessarily. Meaning that he would have been able to continue to do that until the finish flag.

          In any case if and buts in sports are useless anyway.

          1. I doubt Pirelli could analyse exactly when and how Fernando was going to make a lunge for it. There is only a certain amount you can infer from number crunching.

            1. Agreed. And Alonso said he was going to have a go. Button said he was sitting back waiting for exactly that.

              But F1 is IF spelt backwards.

        2. Jeffrey Powell
          6th June 2011, 17:43

          I would assume that it was ment that the tyres would have been in a condition to maintain his driving in way to keep Alonso at bay.Alonso and Button would probably have been waiting in vain for Vettles tyres to ‘fall of the cliff’,and they being aware of the penalties for to forcefull driving,the result would I have no doubt been no different without the Red Flag.

    2. Given the importance of track position at monaco and the difficulty in overtaking I think if Vettel was able to stay out then he would have won.

      1. Mark Webber was able to pass in the last six laps is he so superior to Alonso and Vettel?

        1. Meant Alonso and Button!

          1. He wasn’t trying to pass Vettel was he…

            1. No. He was trying to pass Kobayahi who has a reputation for being a passing guru – arguably harder.

      2. Alonso made it clear afterward that he was going to make a move and figured as Vettel is leading the championship by so much he wouldn’t have risked getting hit. No matter if tyres did last I think at least Alonso would have got ahead, probably Button too as he was just sitting back preserving his own tyres waiting for the right moment.

    3. Given that Pirelli have been pretty much wrong about the durability of their tyres all season, I’ll read this as the tyres would have fallen apart after two more laps.

      1. Agree that Pirelli have been wrong in their predictions, but Vettel needed so few laps and he didn’t even need to push so hard as the circuit doesn’t help overtaking that he could have easily made it to the end in first place.

    4. “Pirelli believe Sebastian Vettel would have won the Monaco Grand Prix even without the suspension shortly before the end of the race, say Pirelli.”

      Don’t like to be critical of by far the best F1 site there is but find that very misleading!
      Pirelli said in their statement the tyres would have lasted, they did not say Vettel would have necessarily won on them.

      1. You’ve got me bang to rights on this one.

        The first sentence should match what is written on the blurb for the article on the home page, which is “Sebastian Vettel would have finished in Monaco even without changing his worn tyres, say Pirelli” – obviously I didn’t update it while editing the article.

        I’ve corrected it now, thanks for pointing it out.

        1. No worries! thought you were slipping up! lol

        2. Quick as ever, great job Keith!

    5. No matter. The race was what it was. Anything can happen.

    6. vettel was lucky to win, but he wouls still have got onto the podium… he himself said that there was a big enough gap after 3rd place so he could change tyres and rejoin in 3rd…. but since tha last podium slot was guaranteed, why not take the risk and stay out as the worse that can happen is that you finish on … 3rd :))), assuming both alonso and button would have passed…. simply and clever

    7. considering all this high-degredation was ‘supposed’ to be offering better racing, its funny how the race with the least amount of degredation (and less overtaking) has so far been the best of the year.

      monaco has actually been the only race i’ve found really exciting this year, several great battle’s for position which lasted multiple laps, no silly ctch-&-pass overtaking caused by drs, kers or the car in front’s tyres been so bad they couldn’t do anything to defend.

      hope we see more races like monaco this year and less like the 6 races prior to it.

      1. I liked Spain even better. The DRS and tyres just added to the suspense, instead of creating meaningless Turkey-style passes.

    8. Pirelli have no idea what their tyres do. They have been wrong every time.

      There is no consistency to the tyres at all.

      I really don’t think they have the sources to research before racing. They appear to be learning as they go along.

    9. even so, they said the res- super softs would last about 10 laps, and a few hours later said a one-stop is an option …. everybody was thinking …”they must refer to another race” … but here u have it

    10. They havn’t been wrong all the time generaly they say this race will be a 2 or a 3 stop and that is the way most teams would want to race. Then you get the guy in 2nd position changing his tyres super early to try and get an undercut on the leader and suddenly there’s an extra stop been added for the majority of the field. It’s not the tyres they’re failing to predict it’s the races and as a tyre supplyer that’s not exactly their job so yeah. Same thing here pirelli didn’t say seb would win they simply said he would finish even if he finished in 20th place

    11. There has been consistancy in the tyres watch what happens to ferrari at the next race with hard tyres. fyi hard tyres and prime tyres aren’t nessicerily the same thing. That’s why a team can struggle with primes one week and not the next.

      e.g spain to monaco in spain we had the hard and the soft and monaco the soft and the super soft the soft tyre has been the option all year bar monaco the teams know it well now hence why people ran well on the prime tyre in monaco the soft. and yet hated the prime tyre in spain which was the hard.

    12. Pirelli seem to be as clueless as the rest of us about the tyres :). They started the weekend saying the super soft may last only 10 or so laps and now they say that the softs could have lasted 60+

    13. Pirelli also said that the super-soft tyre would last less than 10 laps… lets face it they haven’t got a clue, why should we believe a word they say. Anyway as has been pointed out it just means he would of made the end, probably 6 seconds per lap slower / not winning the race, but really who cares. A bit of positive PR for Pirelli on a slow news day, I’ll never buy their tyres ever.

      1. Anyway as has been pointed out it just means he would of made the end, probably 6 seconds per lap slower / not winning

        Your suggestions are no different from that of Pirelli. They make the tyres, you sit in front of the TV and assume.

    14. @BBT…you are so right, I think they are clowns coming to races with stats that are not reliable. They make team strategies meaningless and expect a clap for that statement. I can never believe anything they say.

    15. Whatever we may have missed a Monaco finish like 92.

    16. The red Flag Rule should be changed to read you may change to a rain tire only.

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