2012 European GP tyre strategies and pit stops

26 comments on “2012 European GP tyre strategies and pit stops”

1. 

   andae23 (@andae23)
   24th June 2012, 22:48

   Are my eyes tricking me, or do I see that the two fastest pit-stops were done by McLaren?

   Looking at this, it’s a shame that the safety car and following chaos got in the mix: Vettel, Grosjean, Raikkonen, Kobayashi and Alonso were on 3-stoppers, whilst Maldonado, Hamilton, Rosberg and Hulkenberg all were on 2-stoppers.
   1. 

      Aditya Banerjee (@)
      25th June 2012, 9:54

      Neither of Vettel, Grosjean, Raikkonen, Kobayashi or Alonso were on three-stoppers.
2. 

   Traverse Mark Senior (@)
   24th June 2012, 23:14

   Did McLaren hire Nigel Mansell as Hamilton’s front jack man? Seriously though, if Lewis doesn’t win the world championship this year, he can lay the blame squarely at the feet of Whitmarsh.
   1. 

      baldgye (@baldgye)
      24th June 2012, 23:20

      indeed, everything he seems to do in the race is undone by the pit stops… Maldonado shouldn’t have ever been in the position to drive into Lewis becasue he should have come out ahead of Alonso…
      1. 

         @HoHum (@hohum)
         24th June 2012, 23:29

         As @prisoner-monkeys will explain to you, it must have been Hamiltons fault.
         1. 

            timi (@timi)
            25th June 2012, 9:28

            @hohum Why do all your comments goad @prisoner-monkeys…?
            1. 

               @HoHum (@hohum)
               26th June 2012, 6:55

               Tit for tat.
   2. 

      Snafu (@snafu)
      25th June 2012, 14:22

      the front jack failed…it was a simple failure not a human error.
      1. 

         Himmat
         25th June 2012, 15:46

         But exceptionally slow reaction from the McLaren pit crew. They could still have come out in front of Raikkonen.
      2. 

         Traverse Mark Senior (@)
         25th June 2012, 17:44

         @snafu I would agree with you if this was a one off failure, but it has become a regular event for McLaren to screw up Hamilton’s race. I wonder how McLaren will ruin Hamilton’s race at Silverstone? My money is on one of the pit crew accidentally stabbing Lewis.
      3. 

         DaveW (@dmw)
         26th June 2012, 15:40

         Who designs and builds the jack and develops the procedure for its use? Today Whitmarsh is beating his chest in the press about how quick one of the stops was. It’s really disgusting to hear them crowing about their stops when Hamilton regularly has time to knit a sweater while the crew services the car. Who cares that they shaved .12 seconds off the record when they gave up 10 seconds in another stop due to design and operational failure. They need to crawl before they can fly, get the basics down before going for a trick jack. This has now become a hallmark of Whitmarshes regime—hey, don’t blame us [insert new operational or part failure] was out of our control.
   3. 

      kimithechamp (@kimithechamp)
      26th June 2012, 18:31

      Pretty disasterous indeed. Dancing around blaming Lewis, giving two thumbs up for pits… Without a jack failure and a wheel nut catastrophe, Lewis gets out in open air perhaps. Could have helped him save enough tire to get through…
3. 

   schooner (@schooner)
   24th June 2012, 23:39

   The “what ifs”, as always, are endless, but that 11 seconds that Hamilton lost on his abysmal 2nd pit stop would have come in pretty handy at the end of the race.
   1. 

      AdrianMorse (@adrianmorse)
      25th June 2012, 10:22

      @schooner, it would have meant that Hamilton had been in P3 at the restart (behind Grosjean but in front of Alonso, Ricciardo and Raikkonen) rather than P6, which probably didn’t have much impact on the race result, with Hamilton running out of tyres at the end. Or perhaps Hamilton would have been able to look after his tyres and keep Alonso behind, who knows?
      1. 

         DaveW (@dmw)
         26th June 2012, 15:47

         It’s ifs and buts but the key point is that the man that won the race followed Hamiliton into pit row and drove by him while the team were fumbling around with the jack(s). The only two cars that would have been head of him were to retire with mechanical failure. No one can see the future, but this is precisely why McLaren need to stop patting themselves on the back for their stops. In this case, they lost their man a realistic chance to win.
4. 

   OOliver
   25th June 2012, 9:40

   Mclaren had the spare jack ready as if they were expecting the jack to fail. It really is a sad sight to see a very professional and experienced team make so many errors in every race. HRT look even more prefessional sometimes.
   1. 

      babis1980 (@babis1980)
      25th June 2012, 12:19

      I strongly disagree with you. The jack was made for a reason. I am sure that the team analyzed their problematic pit stops and found out that a new jack would solve some of their problems. Ok, it is a new concept and failed in the 4th pit stop that was used. So they had a spare to the side. McLaren would be like HRT if they hadn’t had the spare!!!! And most importantly, the first and the third pit stop that they used it were the fastest of the race and the second was the ninth fastest. So it is a worthy new concept that they should try to perfect until Silverstone.
      1. 

         kimithechamp (@kimithechamp)
         26th June 2012, 18:36

         I’d dissagree. Seems like a giant failure if it still costs you several positions.
         The “ah we fixed this so this other thing can go wrong” isn’t really a net positive. And are Button’s pit stops relative?
5. 

   ChrisJung
   25th June 2012, 13:52

   Has anyone else of you been wondering why they didn’t try a third stop for Jenson Button for the final 10 laps or so? By the time he was still ahead of the flying Schumacher/Webber duo and had a comfortable lead (somewhere between 15 – 20 seconds if I remember correctly) over Rosberg, who pitted just a bit earlier to also catch him at the end as it was obvious all those guys would still catch Jenson as his tyres were totally worn off. So taking another set of fresh tyres, I think that well-timed third stop would have brought him into contention to fight for like 6th or even 5th place. The fact that he was hardly inside the points (before Hamilton and Maldonado dropped out) would have been another reason to go for that risk, don’t you think?
   1. 

      Himmat
      25th June 2012, 15:48

      McLaren are become lazy in their thinking. Under Ron Dennis, they were known to be the most cunning team in terms of pit strategies. Not anymore though…
      1. 

         Aditya Banerjee (@)
         26th June 2012, 7:27

         Under Dennis? Really?
         What happened at Budapest ’98?
         1. 

            kimithechamp (@kimithechamp)
            26th June 2012, 18:42

            It’s better than this sentence; “What happend to McLaren for a few years?”
6. 

   BaKano (@bakano)
   26th June 2012, 7:22

   I think that pit work is one of the reasons why Lotus has not won a race. Grosjean lost around 3,5s in the pits to Vettel (at the time 2nd and 1st), Raikkonen lost around 2s to Alonso (in the end 2nd and 1st).
   They need then to recover this time, and sometimes there are not enough laps and I’m not even considering when they loose position in the pits and need again to pass slower cars.

   I haven’t seen this analysis yet, although many people have mentioned their bad strategy, but I’m convinced that slower pit-stops from Lotus are a direct cause to them not finishing even higher, when they clearly have the consistently fastest car in the pack
7. 

   AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
   26th June 2012, 13:06

   Indeed, consistency is key from McLaren. It looks like their mechanics were spot on but just had some faulty equipment. Perhaps they need to conduct some quality checks?

   Almost .3s is one hell of a gap in the pits for Hamilton’s stop, impressive!
8. 

   PJA (@pja)
   26th June 2012, 18:35

   It is all very well McLaren having the quickest pitstop of the race but they have to consistently achieve quick pitstops.

   Without the mistake on Hamilton’s second stop he would have still being ahead of Alonso and with track position it is possible he would have won the race when Vettel and Grosjean retired.

   At the very least we probably would have been a good battle between Alonso and Hamilton for the victory.
9. 

   F1Rollout (@f1rollout)
   26th June 2012, 19:16

   Raikkonen’s pit stop are only 24th and 32nd fastest..If they improve a bit..they can provide him an opportunity to fight for a win..just like Ferrari provides it to Alonso.

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