2012 Spanish Grand Prix lap chart

17 comments on “2012 Spanish Grand Prix lap chart”

1. 

   sumedh
   13th May 2012, 22:07

   Looking at these charts, it does seem that Kimi had the best chance to win the race but the pit stops screwed him up. He was about 4-5 seconds behind the leader before the first pit stops, then he was 7-8 seconds behind before the second pit-stops and then he was about 18-19 seconds behind the leader before the third pit stops.

   And after the third pit stop, he clawed back almost all of this 19 second deficit.

   Lotus should have tried undercutting the leaders.
   1. 

      Umar Majid (@um1234)
      13th May 2012, 22:45

      couldnt have said any better, the lotus pit stops were slower than the ferrari and williams pits
      lotus need to improve their pits
   2. 

      Tom (@newdecade)
      14th May 2012, 17:18

      Maybe they were even a little too conservative throughout the race and could have pushed the tyres harder. The final stint pace from both cars was absolutely stonking
2. 

   Jeanrien (@jeanrien)
   13th May 2012, 23:15

   This visualisation show well how much pace the Lotus have at the end of the race, by far the quickest, Vettel having some nice laps on the 2-3 last … If only Lotus could find some pace while full fueledn they would defintly be a team to beat for the constructor champ, still expect them to continue to challenge and why not climb the order.

   Had Kimi pit one lap earlier, I think we would have had another story, but so easy to say afterward and it is so tied that very difficult to know how much they would gain or not, 3 laps earlier and he couldn’t push that hard and would have brought the same result, can’t blame Lotus to try …

   Very impressive lap times by Lewis during his 30 laps stint
3. 

   BasCB (@bascb)
   14th May 2012, 7:13

   Its really interesting to look at the lapchart for Hamilton, Webber and Vettel and compare how their race went.
4. 

   AdrianMorse (@adrianmorse)
   14th May 2012, 10:38

   Mark Webber spent the opening laps of the race stuck behind Felipe Massa, being badly held up. It seems the team’s decision to pit him early was, as in China, not a consequence of his lap times slowing but a strategic decision to get him into ‘clean air’.

   I don’t particularly like this strategy, especially in a race where freshness of tyres are a significant factors (ok, that’s most races). Webber, starting on brand new tyres, should have emulated Hamilton’s strategy in the first stint: just stay put behind Massa and save the tyres, then put in some good laps when the traffic in front peels into the pit lane. Hamilton, on used softs, was still setting green sector times by lap 12, when others had been into the pits two laps earlier.

   Back to Webber, he could have done the same thing, and then renew his attacks in subsequent stints on much better tyres. This brings me to another point, though. As much as I support Webber, he does have a tendency to get stuck in traffic. I’m not sure why, he’s a good wheel-to-wheel racer, but he just seems to lack the confidence to get a move done outside the DRS zones; within the zones, his Red Bull often lacks the straight-line speed.

   It’s not just Webber that’s a bit tentative with overtaking, though. If you look at the GP3 and GP2 races, you see drivers being much more adventurous with where they overtake. I’m not advocating that F1 driver madly lunge up the inside all the time, but sometimes you just ‘gotta make a move’ (he said from his armchair). Only Vettel and Kobayashi are the names that spring to mind that can really muscle their way past other cars, at the moment. Hamilton’s name used to be in that list too, but he is being understandably cautious this year. Schumacher is also a driver that tries moves, however he usually just runs into the back of people…
   1. 

      Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
      14th May 2012, 17:19

      It’s all very well saying that but staying behind someone loses you a lot of time and destroys your tyres, I think they made the right move. Obviously though the easiest way to solve the problem would just be to overtake.
      1. 

         AdrianMorse (@adrianmorse)
         14th May 2012, 19:26

         @vettel1, it’s been mentioned quite a lot in the recent Pirelli debate that driving in dirty air ruins your tyres, but is there really that much evidence to support that claim? If you’re trying very hard to stay within half a second in order to pass, then yes, that might ask a lot of your tyres. Just staying behind and maintaining a 1-1.5 second gap to a car that is slower won’t damage the tyres too much, I would expect. Like I said, Hamilton managed to make his used softs last until lap 14, even though he was continually in dirty air.

         In Webber’s case, staying behind Massa was not ideal, but neither is getting rid of a perfectly good set of softs. With the knowledge that Massa stopped on lap 10, which obviously they couldn’t be certain of, I think Webber would certainly have been better off waiting out the first stint.
         1. 

            Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
            14th May 2012, 21:31

            @adrianmorse – yes, of course it doesn’t make much difference if you’re not pressing for an overtake, but in dirty air the cars loose downforce and therefore loose grip and start to slide, which with these Pirelli’s absolutely destroys them. There is no problem though if the gap is maintained. Was it just a strategic call or were his tyres genuinely going off that quickly?
            1. 

               AdrianMorse (@adrianmorse)
               14th May 2012, 21:52

               @vettel1, if I remember the post-race comments correctly, it was just a strategic call, his tyres were still ok.
   2. 

      Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
      14th May 2012, 22:16

      @adrianmorse – was he actually making a genuine challenge on Massa though? I think he got close a couple of times but he couldn’t make the pass. Never thought I’d be saying this but Vettel looks like one of the best overtakers this year!
5. 

   Spanky Speed (@spankyspeed)
   14th May 2012, 11:02

   Would be nice to see a live “Race Chart” during the race, it tells you soooo much about what’s actually going on.
   This time I barely watched the race on TV, but followed the action on the live timing site and typed the gap times into Excel. In the low 50s laps it was already obvious that Vettel would pass Hamilton and Button.
   1. 

      Alehud42 (@alehud42)
      14th May 2012, 22:47

      Or you could just use a driver tracker, then you could clearly see that Seb was catching the two Maccas.
6. 

   Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
   14th May 2012, 17:04

   I wonder if the problem Red Bull had with their wings slowed them up a lot in clean air..
   1. 

      Alehud42 (@alehud42)
      14th May 2012, 21:13

      I still don’t understand the problem they had with the front wings. It was never clarified post-race.
      1. 

         Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
         14th May 2012, 21:35

         @alehud42 – neither do I, all I heard was what Kravitz pointed out which was that one of the smaller parts on the wing was flapping around; it must have been affecting the airflow quite significantly otherwise they wouldn’t have bothered changing them, that’s why I was wondering if it had slowed down their clean air performance.
7. 

   AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
   14th May 2012, 23:43

   Crikey, HRT were bad here. I know they’re not exactly record setters but this was a pretty bad weekend for them.

   Perez’s single solitary line makes for sad viewing :(

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