Tyre wear fears prove unfounded – except for Sauber

2011 Korean GP analysis

Posted on

| Written by

Sauber were uncharacteristically hard on their tyres

Despite concerns about high tyre wear in the Korean Grand Prix, most teams managed to get through the race with just two pit stops.

But the Sauber drivers – whose car is usually one of the kindest on its tyres – had to make three after failing to make the super soft tyres last.

Here’s all the data from the Korean Grand Prix.

Pit stops

Red Bull did not use any of their soft tyres during qualifying, saving them for the race. But Sebastian Vettel didn’t need them – he used just one set at the end of the race.

Team mate Mark Webber, who’s tended to be harder on his tyres this year, used two sets.

Normally if any team’s been able to get away with making fewer pit stops this year it’s been Sauber – but in Korea the opposite was true. Sergio Perez’s second pit stop was later than most but even so he couldn’t get to the end of the pits on his super soft tyres. The loss of pace followed by an extra pit stop dropped him from 12th to 16th.

Vitantonio Liuzzi was the only other driver to make three pit stops, but that was because he pitted for a new front wing on the first lap.

Race progress

As the race history chart shows, Vettel pulled away quickly from Lewis Hamilton at the start, only to lose his 4.8s lead when the safety car came out.

His gains in the second stint weren’t as great until Hamilton started to come under pressure from Webber. The battle on their out-lap on lap 34 cost them three seconds to Vettel.

Fernando Alonso spent the first half the race behind his team mate. Would he have finished higher if he hadn’t been stuck there?

Perhaps not, given that he dropped back from Massa once they passed Nico Rosberg on lap 27.

However it may simply the case that Alonso had concluded from his earlier efforts that he couldn’t pass Massa on the track and resolved instead to try to look after his tyres, run longer and jump ahead via the pit stops – which is exactly what he did.

Lap chart

Webber gained a place on the first lap for only the second time this year – he also did so in China, when he started 18th.

The off-line side of the grid proved less of a disadvantage than was expected

All lap times

It was a surprise to see Red Bull bring Webber into the pits for his final stop on the same lap as Hamilton. If he had enough life in his tyres to keep going, keeping him out would have given him a chance of getting ahead – as Alonso did to Massa. His lap times give no sign that his tyres were going off because his performance was restricted by being stuck behind Hamilton.

It’s possible they had no choice in the matter. Korea’s unusual, partly blind and high-speed pit lane entrance may make it difficult for drivers to react to a car in front of them pitting by choosing to stay out – especially when they’re as close as Webber was.

If Red Bull didn’t know McLaren were pitting they may have been pitted Webber in a bid to get him on fresher tyres sooner and pass Hamilton that way.

2011 Korean Grand Prix

    Browse all 2011 Korean Grand Prix articles

    Image © Sauber F1 Team

    Author information

    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...

    Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

    21 comments on “Tyre wear fears prove unfounded – except for Sauber”

    1. Really interesting to see how hard it proved to judge tyre wear. I saw a picture posted of what Perez tyres looked like at his last stop. The construction was layed bare!

      1. spelling fail, sorry guys!

      2. @BasCD I’d like to see the picture!

        1. oh sorry for typo!! I meant @BasCB !

        2. it was sent by tweet from nt Tweets

          (via wtf1_co_uk)

          RT @JaumeSallares: Lastima q no aguanto el set d S-Soft d @checoperez17 twitpic.com/715at2

          1. Thanks mate! Wow…

    2. There have been always high tyre wear warning but teams have coped it beyond expectation. I think this shows F1 teams’ excellence of their engineering.

      1. However failure of Sauber is really disappointing. I really expected them more than this.

        1. @Eggry It is weird. They were outstanding with their tyres in Melbourne. I guess I can let them off this once!

      2. And shows how good the drivers have become at preserving tyres as much as possible while losing as little time as they can (not all of them of course). But obviously the engineers play the biggest part in it, Haug was delighted after the race that they could make the XS tyres last on the heavy car which he thinks would have been impossible for them a few races back.

    3. Slightly disappointing we didn’t get to see Vettel carry out the planned strategy but it does make a mockery of when he said earlier in the week they will probably have to stop 4 times (at least I think it was him?). They must get so paranoid!

      1. Actually he brought up the idea about five (!) stops.

        Before the race I read contradictionary comments on tyre wear in the preview quotes.

        Some were anticipating very high, some very low tyre wear.

        1. @atticus-2 Yea I remember now, he said 4 or 5 stops. I think there is a formula in place here…whatever the highest number quoted is, halve it!

    4. Once Felipe was passed by Fernando, the latter reached a six-second gap on him. But after that, the gap remained the same.

    5. It seems how the Pirellis work is that the greener the track, the higher the wear. Come race day when the dark grey line has worn in they can hammer in lap after lap with less slip of the tyres.

      1. Yeah I think thats right, nice observation. :)

        1. I mean it could be the same with any tyre…

          1. Yeah iits the same with any tyre . Green track. – less grip, leads to both understeering and oversteering, which in turn leads to tyre degradation. Once there’s a rubbered in line, the slippage of the tyre is minimalised.

            This also leads me to question the title of the article Keith. The claims of high tyre degradation were founded, but just proved to be incorrect, so saying they were unfounded is in itself unfounded. Oh the irony :D

      2. I hope Pirelli will construct even softer tyres for 2012. The soft and the supersoft tyres are pretty much balanced in terms of the speed-wear tradeoff. The medium tyre has no durability advantage over the soft tyre and the hard tyre is way too slow. I’d love to see tyre battles as we saw in the first races of the season.

    6. Remember both Kobayashi and Perez both broke their front wings, which put them out of sync, but the reports of Perez’ tyres on his final stop are extraordinary.

    Comments are closed.