Toro Rosso: Alguersuari climbs to seventh

2011 Italian GP team review

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Focussing on race set-up paid off again for Jaime Alguersuri.

Sebastien Buemi Jaime Alguersuari
Qualifying position 16 18
Qualifying time comparison (Q1) 1’25.164 (-0.17) 1’25.334
Race position 10 7
Laps 52/53 52/53
Pit stops 2 2

Toro Rosso drivers’ lap times throughout the race (in seconds):

https://www.racefans.net/charts/2011drivercolours.csv

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53
Sebastien Buemi 133.341 142.601 132.192 93.194 94.682 92.235 91.652 91.489 91.12 91.198 91.142 91.129 91.36 90.975 90.933 96.01 110.907 89.786 90.589 90.091 89.7 89.454 89.37 90.008 89.473 89.263 89.579 89.208 89.213 89.261 89.212 89.201 88.937 89.054 89.103 89.15 89.236 89.253 89.843 94.305 110.034 88.867 88.919 89.511 88.585 88.798 90.378 89.48 90.012 90.183 88.202 88.677
Jaime Alguersuari 126.976 143.127 135.4 93.975 94.234 92.744 91.754 91.727 91.215 90.835 90.991 90.704 91.625 90.317 90.38 90.861 90.849 90.528 91.061 94.23 108.592 89.578 89.683 89.355 89.195 89.384 89.55 89.282 89.75 89.51 89.246 88.768 88.755 89.316 88.699 88.544 88.834 88.827 88.617 88.567 92.363 108.215 88.963 88.558 89.765 88.628 88.811 88.488 88.357 88.791 89.089 89.278

Sebastien Buemi

Start tyre Soft
Pit stop 1 Soft 24.234s
Pit stop 2 Medium 24.086s

Crashed at Parabolica early in second practice but out-qualified his team mate for 16th on the grid.

Buemi suspected damage from the first-corner accident slowed his car during the race.

He was passed by Bruno Senna and Paul di Resta in the closing stages and went off at the Rettifilio chicane at one point.

Sebastien Buemi 2011 form guide

Jaime Alguersuari

Jaime Alguersuari, Toro Rosso, Monza, 2011
Start tyre Soft
Pit stop 1 Soft 21.988s
Pit stop 2 Medium 22.279s

After reaching sixth in qualifying in Spa, Monza was some of a reality check. Alguersauri was eliminated right at the end of Q1, admitting “my lap was simply not quick enough”.

He climbed to 11th on lap one and briefly got in front of Felipe Massa before being re-passed by the Ferrari driver.

On lap 18 he capitalised on the battling Sergio Perez and Pastor Maldonado to pass both of them for seventh place.

He came out of his final pit stop ahead of Paul di Resta who wasn’t able to catch the Toro Rosso before the end of the race, leaving Alguersuari a career-best seventh.

“I am very happy with my race today,” he said afterwards. “I think I would like to start even further back on the grid for the next one, because it seems that whenever I have a poor grid position, I finish in the points!”

Jaime Alguersuari 2011 form guide

2011 Italian Grand Prix

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    Keith Collantine
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    25 comments on “Toro Rosso: Alguersuari climbs to seventh”

    1. Hey Keith, do you mean climbs to 7th?

      It was a good drive though. Admittedly Liuzzi did his best to help

      1. Yes. Oops!

      2. Help his former team :P

    2. I think i fail to get the joke in the title about climbing to 18th Keith!

      Alguersuari did “climb” from 6th in Spa qualifying to 18th here, but it doesn not really fit, does it?

      He must have been relieved to get that 7th place with DiResta failing to get him, just like Hamilton failed to get Alonso.

      1. Ah, yes not it makes more sense!

        1. ..unlike your comment here, which makes no sense at all lol

    3. Keith, how did Sebastien Buemi overtake Sebastien Buemi? ;)

      Anyways, another commanding race performance from DJ Squire.

      1. If he could get his qualifying together he would be doing really well. I think this aspect of his driving is the only thing keeping Buemi in contention at the moment. I never really rated him when he first started but he is beginning to grow on me.

        1. perhaps he knows the game better and purposely concentrates only on race set up?

          he qualys 18th instead of 16th, but his race pace is much much better.

          His turn around from first few races where he looked totally lost, for me is the comeback performances of the season. Very impressive.

      2. And this is how Buemi overtakes buemi :)
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBVuvIPe0tc

      3. Changed it, thanks.

    4. So this is already the 9th time in 13 races this season when a driver who is eliminated in Q1 finishes in the points on the next day.

      China: Mark Webber 18th – 3rd
      Turkey: Kamui Kobayashi 23rd – 10th
      Spain: Nick Heidfeld 24th – 8th
      Canada: Jaime Alguersuari 18th – 8th
      Valencia: Jaime Alguersuari 18th – 8th
      Britain: Jaime Alguersuari 18th – 10th
      Hungary: Sebastien Buemi 23rd – 8th
      Belgium: Michael Schumacher 24th – 5th
      Italy: Jaime Alguersuari 18th – 7th

      1. Interesting that!

      2. Mistake – Alguersuari – 24th – 8th in Canada…

        1. You are right, he qualified 18th but actually started from the pits.

          I found one more mistake myself. In Germany, Kobayashi finished 9th on Sunday after having started from 17th on the grid but actually he had qualified 18th and moved up one position because of Buemi’s grid penalty. So that makes 10 times in 13 races when someone is eliminated in Q1 but finishes in top 10 afterwards.

          1. could this be to do with tyres?

            i found it interesting that Rosberg chose not to chase pole and went for the hard tyres, because this is perhaps why.

            If you go out in Q1, and if you only set one or two flying laps on the softer tyres to do so, then you have two fresh sets of tyres for the race, plus the ability to start on hards, and finish on softs, thus having that extra driveability at the end of the race where a lot of overtaking has happened this year (China/Malaysia for example).

            Again with Jenson in Spa, perhaps being behind with the hard tyres phase out foo the way early on, gave him the best possible set up for the rest of the race, with three sets of softs in good/perfect condition.

            This actually makes a lot of sense, and but also seems a bit mad, that they are still going for glory with soft tyres, sometimes two runs in Q3, knowing full well that it is knocking off about 5-10 laps from the performance of those tyres the following day.

            I think we’ll see more of this, certainly from p11-p17, and perhaps more drivers like Nico, who know they won’t get pole, but are thinking more about the race pace and where they will be stronger.

            I certainly would prefer to get the hard compound out of the way, and be racing at the car’s fullest potential right at the end of the race, low fuel, soft tyres, why would anyone plan to do things differently to this??

            1. I thought that when I first realised it was happening, but then I plotted the data for last year too and it was happening just as much in the 2010 season (before Pirelli tyres).

              Maybe it just makes people go more banzai on their strategy? Possibly people see what happens in front of them at the start and can follow people down gaps that open up into the first corner (and also can see where incidents are and avoid them)? It was happening on Bridgestone rubber last year as well though so it isn’t solely down to that.

    5. Great performance from Jaime again… To be honest I
      didn t expect him to do so well at Monza as it was one of his weakest tracks previously… But at least it shows how greatly he has improved on stop/go circuits with long straights and not so many fast corners like Montreal, Valencia or Monza… I believe it is not the end and 6th place for Toro in Constructors championship is not impossible…

      1. Correction – is still possible… :)

    6. That was awful by Buemi – he was going around the outside of Rosberg and kind of bounced of him when touching rear wheels. Rosberg did move a little forwards just before, but Buemi should be more careful. It’s entirely his fault his car was damaged throughout the race.

      Terrible.

      1. Not really. The alternative was to go on the gravel, which could also damage the car or get stuck, at the speed he was going. Besides, F1 drivers have little practice at driving slowly around other cars.
        The bigger damage at this point was the position loss; while Buemi, along with Barrichello, Senna and one of the Force India’s followed the track and had to slowly negotiate the stricken cars, the rest of the field behind them cut the corner.

      2. I don’t think there was a lot he could do to avoid it really. Anyway, good save by him after also apparently having his car hit by Trulli (I think).

    7. Their ‘for the race’ approach paid off. Now I think many medfilder want to be eliminated in Q1 :P

      1. It’s that fabled 18th position!

    8. Soild stuff from Jaime. Witnessing the battle between himself, Kobayashi and Barrichello for 17th was great.

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