HRT: Pit stop problems delay Ricciardo

41 comments on “HRT: Pit stop problems delay Ricciardo”

1. 

   Tyson Evans (@bobtehblob)
   31st October 2011, 11:47

   Now I know why he finished behind Karthikeyan…
2. 

   Girts (@girts)
   31st October 2011, 11:53

   So Ricciardo lost 42 seconds because of the pit stop problems but still finished right behind Karthikeyan. Daniel probably didn’t even try to pass Narain in the final laps knowing that this is a very special race for his team mate. Looks like it’s been another promising weekend for the young Aussie.
   1. 

      Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
      31st October 2011, 12:03

      @Girts – No, Ricciardo was around half a minute behind Karthikeyan. Factor out the extra pit stop and he’d have been ten or so seconds ahead.
      1. 

         Girts (@girts)
         31st October 2011, 12:05

         You’re 100% right.
         1. 

            Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
            31st October 2011, 12:17

            @Girts First time for everything :-)
            1. 

               bosyber (@bosyber)
               1st November 2011, 7:59

               LOL. So, that puts Karthikeyan’s result into perspective. Hm, would that have put Ricciardo ahead of the Virgin of d’Ambrosio? Guess Virgin must be glad he had that wheel issue then!
3. 

   KF1
   31st October 2011, 11:57

   Narain finished 30 seconds ahead of Ricciardo. In the end he would have been within a few seconds of him even if Ricciardo didn’t have problems. So I’d say he did a good job considering he was out of the car for so long .. he had pretty much the same pace as him.
   1. 

      Girts (@girts)
      31st October 2011, 12:04

      You’re right about the gap of 30 seconds, I saw that Ricciardo was right behind Karthikeyan shortly before the end of the race but then Ricciardo had to pit one more time in the penultimate lap.
   2. 

      Fixy (@)
      31st October 2011, 14:05

      I saw during the race Narain was for some time in 14th-ish poisitions, which looked quite impressive. He was quick in qualifying and beat Daniel, but now I know why ;)
   3. 

      Enigma (@enigma)
      31st October 2011, 14:14

      Agreed, I’m a bit surprised how solid Karthikeyan’s performance was, he wasn’t too slow and not far behind Ricciardo.
   4. 

      Mike (@mike)
      2nd November 2011, 14:46

      within a few seconds of him

      I don’t agree.

      Factoring in those ridiculously slow laps before his extra stop (indicative of a problem) He lost maybe, 60 seconds, maybe more even. So I think he would have been almost half a minute up the road.

      But, that is subjective and using some guess work.

      What the graphs do show however, is that Ricciardo was substantially quicker. The first stint is a good example, it not being effected by blue flags.
      1. 

         spike (@spike)
         3rd November 2011, 14:26

         I don’t agree either.1 lap before he had the problem with his wheel after the first round of pit stops,i worked out he was 17.3 sec up the road.And your right Mike with the slow laps and extra long pit stop he lost around 58 sec.

         I reckon without the problem the gap would of been 25sec before the blue flags.

         It would be good to see him at Torro Rosso in a better car.
      2. 

         ron101
         4th November 2011, 14:32

         Don’t know if you guys saw this pic shows narains damage front wing suffered, there is left cascade and endplate missing.
         this would have result in lose of downforce, so all those who are criticizing narain’s performance this can be a factor for narain losing time to Dan in first few laps.
         1. 

            Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
            4th November 2011, 14:35

            I did say he damaged his front wing at the start.
         2. 

            spike (@spike)
            5th November 2011, 3:47

            I wasn’t criticizing narain’s drive at all.I think he drove awesome for a guy who hasn’t been in a car for a while.But i still think without any mechanical problems for both of them the gap would of been alot more than just a few seconds as has been suggested.
4. 

   QuantumForce
   31st October 2011, 12:00

   Still, Karthi had to pit for another wing..Wonder if the damage alter the balance of his car..Ricciardo only had a tiny tyre problem, the car was still drivable..

   However, Ricciardo does deserve a seat is STR by 2013….
   1. 

      bosyber (@bosyber)
      1st November 2011, 8:02

      However, “Karthi” did that to himself. But yes, it does show he got a good pace out of the HRT, true.
5. 

   QuantumForce
   31st October 2011, 12:05

   Having said that, STR seems to be doing well..I dont see any reason why they would change their line up for next year (2012)..Hence the reason i said Ricciardo deserves a seat for 2013
6. 

   Mahir C
   31st October 2011, 12:12

   Dont know how Karthi managed to receive no penalty for blocking. He sure wasnt very popular with the drivers lapping him.
   1. 

      KF1
      31st October 2011, 12:26

      Its extremely difficult to let drivers pass on the fast infield section. And he did not break the rules he had 2 or 3 blue flags before he had to let them through and he did that.
7. 

   KF1
   31st October 2011, 12:27

   Btw just found out that Narain had serious damage to his front wing and Im sure that lost a lot of downforce and time.
8. 

   marco_ferrari
   31st October 2011, 12:52

   Great job by Narain in matching Ricciardo! Thumbs up from me! :)
9. 

   On the contrary
   31st October 2011, 12:56

   Having monitored the lap times of all the cars ahead and behind of the HRT cars, I am impressed with following things
   a) HRT seems to have figured out good car launch procedures, looking at the number of places their drivers are making up since Monza, Liuzzi was bit unlucky in Monza when he had no place to go after jumping as high as 15th. Narain and Daniel pretty much maintained 15/16 in the race after making up places on race start.
   b) for a guy jeered at (by almost all posters on this blog) Narain did impressive job, his lap times were consistently matching the cars around him throughout the race. Given the hype around Ricciardo and given the fact that RedBull thinks this driver is worth investing in, its interesting to see Narain whose only mileage after Valencia was 250 odd miles ( and 66% of them in wet conditions) he was competitive through out entire weekend, matching much race ready Ricciardo on pace in every session of the weekend.

   c) To those who are blaming Narain (and Daniel) for not obeying blue flags. The lap charts show a different story, both HRTs were losing 4 seconds in the laps where they had to let cars pass by.

   Looking at his lap times Narain can hold his head high, that he was getting maximum out of his car every single lap he drove over the weekend. Again goes to underline importance of having the right car under you in F1.

   RedBull and Helmut Marko will be re-evaluating Ricciardo for sure, after all the guy didn’t even win the feeder series he was racing this season. dropping Brendon Hartley may not have been such a good idea.
   1. 

      bosyber (@bosyber)
      1st November 2011, 8:07

      I don’t thinks most of us thought Karthikayan was rubbish, but he isn’t clearly better than Liuzzi either, and thus putting him in the car for this race must have been purely a money issue. That’s what I at least objected to.

      You are right that HRT seems to be doing a better job with what they have got than Virgin manages.

      On their relative pace, those 4 seconds are an interesting bit of knowledge, and help put their relative pace in perspective: a lot of the time lost will be due to that, and differences might partly be explained by the place on the track where they have to let someone by.

      It also shows why now Lotus is able to do better: having enough pace to stay on the same lap as the leaders far into the race gains you several seconds of blue flag loss.
10. 

    OukilF1 (@oukilf1)
    31st October 2011, 13:08

    Just found out Narain has a plastic bag stuck under his car’s airbox!! ..Wonder where that came from :P
    I think he was lucky it didnt get inside the airbox as im sure it will cause him some engine or gearbox failure

    here is the video http://www.twitvid.com/W8YGD
    1. 

       Enigma (@enigma)
       31st October 2011, 14:13

       @oukilf1 Interesting, thanks for sharing.
11. 

    ivz (@ivz)
    31st October 2011, 14:14

    With all the talk which Red Bull driver should be driving for STR etc, wouldn’t the smart thing to do is hold a drivet test?
12. 

    ivz (@ivz)
    31st October 2011, 14:16

    With all the talk which Red Bull driver should be driving for STR etc, why dont they just run a driver test? Put them all in the same car and go from there. Or is that too simple?
13. 

    ivz (@ivz)
    31st October 2011, 14:19

    Sorry, first post shouldn’t be there, stupid phone
14. 

    smifaye (@)
    31st October 2011, 14:36

    I was shocked to see Karthikeyan ahead of Ricciardo but I’m glad we know why know! Otherwise Ricciardo isn’t the driver I thought he was.
    1. 

       On the contrary
       31st October 2011, 19:08

       Compare the lap charts between NK and DR right from FP1 through race, NK was at same pace as DR all through the weekend, including their qualifying lap times.

       While race performance one can have an excuse of extra pit-stop and everything that this blogger is trying imply to belittle Karthikeyan’s weekend, but the lap times in front stint when DR and NK both were running unimpeded are closely matched. The second half of race once they started to get lapped is not really a fair comparison for either of them, coz you can see both of them losing time by lifting off for the lead lap cars.

       So overall NK did put up a strong performance as compared to the more hyped Redbull Junior driver especially in the light that DR has had more recent experience in that car than NK.
15. 

    TED BELL
    31st October 2011, 15:19

    I payed closer attention to the HRT team at this event mostly to see if I have been overly rough in my critique of them so far during the season. I wish I could say that I have been wrong about the performance level of these cars, but the truth is harsh and sometimes the truth hurts but they aren’t very good and for the most part are simply numbers filling out grid positions. They were so far off the mark that it was painful to see. It is beyond me how they can continue to exist. The sum of their parts, team , drivers , cars and their sponsors at this time seem to be in what must ultimately become desperation to continue to compete. Nowhere close to collecting points , even a single point and what they bring to Formula one is simply being a mobile chicane for the top teams. Often I am aggressive in my comments about how I see it in F1 but with HRT I feel bad for them and hope that someday some result will justify and reward those in the team who have given so much so far.
16. 

    tasimana
    31st October 2011, 19:06

    The HRT is the worst car on the grid and Daniel or Tonio or anyone else aren’t going to be world beasters in it. Toro Rosso the nexr step to see him progress.
17. 

    AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
    31st October 2011, 21:24

    I thought Karthikeyan’s result might be a little too good to be true. That said, it looks good on paper and to be out of the car for so long and fair up slightly better than previous attempts is still alright.
18. 

    Doance (@doance)
    1st November 2011, 3:01

    Remember how bad HRT were in Australia? They only had their car ready a week before. Then they couldn’t run it on Friday. So they only had a few laps in P3 before qualifying, where they were obviously going to fail badly.

    They’re doing better now I guess.
19. 

    wasiF1 (@wasif1)
    1st November 2011, 3:11

    Karthikeyan should be proud & happy of what he has achieved in this race.
20. 

    charan
    1st November 2011, 5:42

    here is a good comparision
    DR-92.95
    NK-92.99

    almost as fast as RD.
21. 

    LawFish (@lawfish)
    1st November 2011, 14:53

    Take a look at the lap time consistency for both HRT drivers, especially toward the end of the race.
    1. 

       Downunderdog (@downunderdog)
       2nd November 2011, 10:31

       I’ve tried to figure that out, but with the colours used it’s hard to work out who’s time is who’s.
       1. 

          Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
          2nd November 2011, 10:35

          @downunderdog If you hover over a data point it shows you whose it is. You can also turn off the line you’re not looking at.
          1. 

             Downunderdog (@downunderdog)
             2nd November 2011, 17:55

             Thanks, got it.

Comments are closed.