Did Ferrari’s early pit stop for Sebastian Vettel leave him at risk of the puncture which ruined his race?
Vettel made his only pit stop of the race on lap 18. This came after several attempts to overtake Max Verstappen on the track had failed.
His early change to a fresh set of soft tyres succeeded in getting him ahead of Verstappen. But it also meant he began to lose tyre performance earlier in his final stint than his rivals: A predicament not helped by a heavy lock-up while fighting with Valtteri Bottas.
Eventually Vettel’s front-left tyre let go. This came shortly after his team mate had also suffered a tyre failure. However while Vettel’s appeared to be directly connected to the length of his stint, Raikkonen’s seemed to be a different kind of problem.
Apart from the emergency late-race pit stops these failures provoked, the British Grand Prix was another race where most drivers only needed one pit stop.
2017 British Grand Prix tyre strategies
The tyre strategies for each driver:
| Stint 1 | Stint 2 | Stint 3 | Stint 4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lewis Hamilton | Super soft (25) | Soft (26) | ||
| Valtteri Bottas | Soft (32) | Super soft (19) | ||
| Kimi Raikkonen | Super soft (24) | Soft (25) | Super soft (2) | |
| Max Verstappen | Super soft (19) | Soft (30) | Super soft (2) | |
| Daniel Ricciardo | Super soft (32) | Soft (19) | ||
| Nico Hulkenberg | Super soft (24) | Soft (27) | ||
| Sebastian Vettel | Super soft (18) | Soft (32) | Super soft (1) | |
| Esteban Ocon | Super soft (20) | Soft (30) | ||
| Sergio Perez | Super soft (23) | Soft (27) | ||
| Felipe Massa | Soft (25) | Super soft (25) | ||
| Stoffel Vandoorne | Super soft (26) | Soft (24) | ||
| Kevin Magnussen | Soft (37) | Super soft (13) | ||
| Romain Grosjean | Super soft (23) | Soft (20) | Super soft (7) | |
| Marcus Ericsson | Soft (28) | Super soft (22) | ||
| Daniil Kvyat | Super soft (1) | Soft (26) | Super soft (23) | |
| Lance Stroll | Soft (22) | Super soft (20) | Super soft (8) | |
| Pascal Wehrlein | Soft (2) | Medium (1) | Soft (28) | Super soft (19) |
| Fernando Alonso | Super soft (20) | Soft (12) |
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2017 British Grand Prix pit stop times
How long each driver’s pit stops took:
| Driver | Team | Pit stop time | Gap | On lap | |
| 1 | Felipe Massa | Williams | 27.583 | 25 | |
| 2 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 27.733 | 0.150 | 25 |
| 3 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | 27.858 | 0.275 | 32 |
| 4 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull | 27.910 | 0.327 | 32 |
| 5 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 28.056 | 0.473 | 49 |
| 6 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas | 28.099 | 0.516 | 37 |
| 7 | Fernando Alonso | McLaren | 28.269 | 0.686 | 20 |
| 8 | Lance Stroll | Williams | 28.335 | 0.752 | 42 |
| 9 | Romain Grosjean | Haas | 28.361 | 0.778 | 23 |
| 10 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 28.363 | 0.780 | 18 |
| 11 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 28.476 | 0.893 | 24 |
| 12 | Daniil Kvyat | Toro Rosso | 28.630 | 1.047 | 27 |
| 13 | Marcus Ericsson | Sauber | 28.825 | 1.242 | 28 |
| 14 | Sergio Perez | Force India | 28.942 | 1.359 | 23 |
| 15 | Romain Grosjean | Haas | 28.998 | 1.415 | 43 |
| 16 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 29.057 | 1.474 | 49 |
| 17 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 29.147 | 1.564 | 19 |
| 18 | Esteban Ocon | Force India | 29.194 | 1.611 | 20 |
| 19 | Stoffel Vandoorne | McLaren | 29.337 | 1.754 | 26 |
| 20 | Lance Stroll | Williams | 29.849 | 2.266 | 22 |
| 21 | Pascal Wehrlein | Sauber | 29.861 | 2.278 | 2 |
| 22 | Pascal Wehrlein | Sauber | 29.941 | 2.358 | 3 |
| 23 | Nico Hulkenberg | Renault | 30.841 | 3.258 | 24 |
| 24 | Pascal Wehrlein | Sauber | 31.250 | 3.667 | 31 |
| 25 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 35.204 | 7.621 | 50 |
| 26 | Daniil Kvyat | Toro Rosso | 45.538 | 17.955 | 1 |
Mike Dee (@mike-dee)
16th July 2017, 19:51
Still strange. Bottas ran 32 laps on the soft, and heavier fuel load (albeit a couple of laps behind the safety car). Magnussen even 37 laps, and Ricciardo did 32 on the super soft.
I can’t believe that the single lock-up when fighting with Bottas should have been sufficient to cause these problems; didn’t look that massive.
@HoHum (@hohum)
17th July 2017, 0:31
Tyre unpredictability is now substituting for “Bernies sprinklers”, just for fun, while the race is fresh in your mind imagine it with tyres that can run the race from start to finish without massive degradation and failure. Would Vet have passed Ver ?, Would Bottas have passed Rai ? How long would those top 6 battles have lasted without them being separated by pit stop strategy ? Just saying.
Matti Ripattila
17th July 2017, 11:49
Tires blowing up in the end hid the fact that Ferrari once again (tried to) sacrificed Kimi in favor of Seb. Kimi was only 5 sec behind Ham at lap 18 when Seb pitted. Seb was 12 sec behind Kimi. At that lap Kimis tyres started to go, but they did not pit him. They started to calculate how to get them change positions. They kept him out till lap 24. Kimi was then 12 sec behind Ham, and when he returned to track, Seb was only 5 sec behind him. They say they are trying to win constructions, but with that kind of thinking it will never happen. If they had pitted Kimi around when Seb did, he would have been quite close to Ham in the end too, and within on little mistake from Ham to challenge for the win. Now he was only few secs in front of Bot two laps before the end. Merc and Bottas say: “never give up” Ferrari says “give up if it’s not Seb closer of winning”.
Haven’t read anything about this obvious observation, wonder what race the si called experts were watching…