Drivers will want to use the hard tyre as little as possible during the Indian Grand Prix.
With the hardest tyre in Pirelli’s range offering little grip on the slippery circuit, drivers may try to get away with using it for just one lap in the race.
Longest stint comparison
- Drivers had enough trouble getting the soft tyres to work on the low-grip track – the hard tyres proved very difficult to use. Felipe Massa said: “Probably the hards are too hard for this track and it would have been possible to run the same compounds we had in Korea in two weeks ago, because the track surface is very smooth.”
- Kamui Kobayashi added: “With the hard ones you cannot really drive here, while with the soft tyres it was still not easy to heat them up and get them to work properly, but there is no comparison to the hard ones.”
- Pirelli’s Paul Hembery admitted the tyre was too hard for the circuit at the moment: “Working out exactly how the tyres degrade is tricky because the track is still cleaning, having started off very dusty before clear racing lines emerged. This dust has a significant effect on tyre performance, as the tyres can grain due to sliding and rear wheelspin. As the performance gap between the soft tyre and the hard tyre is notable here, the key to race strategy will be getting the softs to last for as long as possible.”
- Hembery added he expects a “two to three stop strategy” for most drivers in the race.
- At this stage it seems likely drivers will spend very little time on the hard tyres in the race. Hembery said strategies could be similar to those seen in Germany, where Sebastian Vettel and Felipe Massa only used the harder tyres for one lap at the end of the race.
This chart shows all the drivers’ lap times (in seconds) during their longest unbroken stint:
https://www.racefans.net/charts/2011drivercolours.csv
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | |
Sebastian Vettel | 87.717 | 91.974 | 86.492 | 87.663 | 103.336 | 93.597 | 90.046 | 88.666 | 86.32 | ||||
Mark Webber | 87.366 | 98.124 | 87.083 | 98.72 | 86.5 | ||||||||
Lewis Hamilton | 94.361 | 94.945 | 92.725 | 92.739 | |||||||||
Jenson Button | 93.493 | 92.241 | 91.584 | 95.699 | 91.544 | 91.112 | 90.979 | 92.526 | |||||
Fernando Alonso | 101.363 | 86.458 | 101.247 | 86.216 | 99.916 | 92.248 | 85.93 | ||||||
Felipe Massa | 91.425 | 91.658 | 91.177 | 93.165 | |||||||||
Michael Schumacher | 92.198 | 93.066 | 92.315 | 92.453 | 95.374 | 91.804 | 92.543 | 93.89 | |||||
Nico Rosberg | 93.608 | 93.329 | 93.794 | 93.33 | 93.205 | 92.972 | 92.855 | 92.305 | 94.175 | 92.104 | 99.627 | ||
Bruno Senna | 93.96 | 92.786 | 94.106 | 92.111 | 92.486 | 92.785 | 92.581 | 92.01 | 91.764 | 94.393 | 91.763 | 91.368 | |
Vitaly Petrov | 93.44 | 93.155 | 92.433 | 92.788 | 97.227 | 91.509 | 92.079 | 91.524 | 92.772 | 92.118 | 93.297 | 91.025 | 91.33 |
Rubens Barrichello | 89.362 | 97.856 | 91.881 | 88.691 | 102.46 | ||||||||
Pastor Maldonado | 92.874 | 93.971 | 88.887 | 89.293 | |||||||||
Adrian Sutil | 94.886 | 93.106 | 93.353 | 92.711 | 95.286 | 93.055 | 93.049 | 94.755 | 92.611 | ||||
Paul di Resta | 97.562 | 95.818 | 95.955 | 95.136 | 95.366 | 94.481 | 94.393 | 94.048 | |||||
Kamui Kobayashi | 94.952 | 92.372 | 92.586 | 96.76 | 92.23 | 91.876 | 91.759 | ||||||
Sergio Perez | 93.605 | 93.292 | 93.017 | 93.303 | 99.064 | 92.966 | 92.477 | 96.345 | |||||
Sebastien Buemi | 91.306 | 92.188 | 89.272 | 95.505 | 88.814 | 102.628 | 93.8 | 92.181 | 87.868 | ||||
Jaime Alguersuari | 94.044 | 93.818 | 93.944 | 93.757 | 93.202 | 92.846 | 92.971 | ||||||
Heikki Kovalainen | 93.884 | 93.835 | 94.441 | 93.619 | 93.886 | 98.386 | 93.31 | 93.701 | 93.388 | ||||
Jarno Trulli | 95.384 | 95.885 | 94.453 | 94.385 | 93.91 | 93.546 | 93.916 | 94.075 | 93.905 | 94.688 | 94.718 | 97.291 | |
Narain Karthikeyan | 95.359 | 94.92 | 94.488 | 100.576 | 94.62 | 94.145 | 94.843 | ||||||
Daniel Ricciardo | 95.103 | 96.508 | 94.407 | 95.143 | 99.422 | 96.373 | 94.341 | 93.673 | |||||
Timo Glock | 93.13 | 92.148 | 91.633 | 91.615 | 96.103 | ||||||||
Jerome d’Ambrosio | 95.948 | 93.383 | 92.593 |
Ultimate lap times
An ultimate lap is a driver’s fastest three sector times combined.
- Lewis Hamilton was quickest in the first session but slipped to fourth in the afternoon. He said: “We looked quick this morning. This afternoon, however, I had a problem with the driveshaft ?óÔé¼ÔÇ£ it felt like it was causing some wear and tear so it prompted me to end the session a little early. We?óÔé¼Ôäóll fit a new gearbox for tomorrow, so the car will hopefully start behaving a bit better. That should make things closer at the front.”
Complete practice times
- Michael Schumacher had a problematic second session: “This morning, I was happy with the balance of the car,” he said. “However this afternoon was more challenging for us. We weren’t really able to get into working properly for various reasons, including the red flag, and therefore tomorrow we need to work on the set-up for both qualifying and the race.”
- The Renaults were eighth and 11th, which Bruno Senna said was in line with expectations: “Both cars were in the positions they should be and the track looks like it could be an ally for our car.”
Speed trap
- Sergio Perez topped the times and, as in Korea, the two Toro Rossos showed excellent performance through the speed trap.
# | Driver | Car | Engine | Max speed | Gap | |
1 | 17 | Sergio Perez | Sauber | Ferrari | 323.6 | |
2 | 19 | Jaime Alguersuari | Toro Rosso | Ferrari | 321 | 2.6 |
3 | 18 | Sebastien Buemi | Toro Rosso | Ferrari | 320.7 | 2.9 |
4 | 16 | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber | Ferrari | 319.1 | 4.5 |
5 | 12 | Pastor Maldonado | Williams | Cosworth | 318.4 | 5.2 |
6 | 11 | Rubens Barrichello | Williams | Cosworth | 318.4 | 5.2 |
7 | 7 | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes | Mercedes | 317.5 | 6.1 |
8 | 6 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | Ferrari | 317.4 | 6.2 |
9 | 5 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | Ferrari | 317 | 6.6 |
10 | 3 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren | Mercedes | 316.1 | 7.5 |
11 | 15 | Paul di Resta | Force India | Mercedes | 316 | 7.6 |
12 | 10 | Vitaly Petrov | Renault | Renault | 315.9 | 7.7 |
13 | 4 | Jenson Button | McLaren | Mercedes | 315.8 | 7.8 |
14 | 14 | Adrian Sutil | Force India | Mercedes | 315.7 | 7.9 |
15 | 9 | Bruno Senna | Renault | Renault | 315.6 | 8 |
16 | 2 | Mark Webber | Red Bull | Renault | 312.5 | 11.1 |
17 | 1 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull | Renault | 312.3 | 11.3 |
18 | 8 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | Mercedes | 312.2 | 11.4 |
19 | 24 | Timo Glock | Virgin | Cosworth | 309.8 | 13.8 |
20 | 25 | Jerome D’Ambrosio | Virgin | Cosworth | 309.1 | 14.5 |
21 | 21 | Jarno Trulli | Lotus | Renault | 308.3 | 15.3 |
22 | 22 | Narain Karthikeyan | HRT | Cosworth | 308.3 | 15.3 |
23 | 20 | Heikki Kovalainen | Lotus | Renault | 308.3 | 15.3 |
24 | 23 | Daniel Ricciardo | HRT | Cosworth | 308.1 | 15.5 |
2011 Indian Grand Prix
jayntj
28th October 2011, 15:27
Its intresting if any FI qualify and are aggressive can they possibly start on hards and pit in lap2.
BBT (@bbt)
28th October 2011, 16:54
Need to watch FP3 before any predictions… IMO more unknowns than normal. Have to say Ferrari are looking better from that though.
BasCB (@bascb)
29th October 2011, 7:54
That FP3 proved to show a pretty usual picture, although the Ferrari’s seem to have closed up again
AdrianMorse (@adrianmorse)
28th October 2011, 17:18
A slow day for comments, so far (except for the ludicrously large discussion on penalties for failing to appreciate yellows), so I’ll put up some of my thoughts.
A surprisingly strong Ferrari so far this weekend, which makes me wonder what the difference is between developing this year’s car and stopping the development of the car, and trying out bits from next year’s car. I also wonder whether Ferrari set its times on newer tyres than its rivals, since teams no longer followed the practice of first running on the harder tyre for the first hour of FP2, and then doing one run on the soft tyres for a quick time.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
28th October 2011, 17:55
I was thinking along the same lines as Hempbrey with regards to the Nurburgring strategy employed by Vettel and Massa. I imagine that Vettel will occupy his customary position, making sure he’s 1s ahead of the pack for the 3rd lap in. We might see him a little less conservative than usual for him to be able to pull out a gap sufficient enough to pit for the prime tyre.
verstappen (@verstappen)
28th October 2011, 18:22
I agree with you Bruno, but Petrov probably not!
But maybe they were on different programs and their places only indicate that.
(hmmmm, commenting from PC, I love it, after iPhone)
John H (@john-h)
28th October 2011, 19:54
Start on hards and pit on lap 1. That’s my advice!
HS
29th October 2011, 6:07
Why is that better than start on the softs and pit for hard tyres on the last lap?
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
29th October 2011, 17:41
Gives you a little more time to rectify any strategy problems you may have.
You may not have the option of pitting on the last lap if you’re defending a position.
John H (@john-h)
28th October 2011, 19:56
As a comment on your comment on your lack of comments may I say nice comment.
Phil T (@)
28th October 2011, 23:03
Not everyone can pit on lap one, unless they are all going to stack, 24 cars in the pit lane ?!