2011 Formula 1 Thread

[schimahen]

How about Fernando Alonso at the start? Diving on the inside and taking the lead was beautiful to see!

Also Alonso demonstrated that, when on equal tires, soft or hard compound, he can keep Red Bull Racing behind. He had a little trick. Webber was behind Alonso, so, Alonso collected Webber at the beginning of a corner up to half way through, and then sped off leaving Webber to try again and catch-up with the Ferrari. This little trick nearly eliminated the advantage Red Bull Racing has with the design and blown diffuser which result in massive grip in slow corners. Very clever driving.

On the other hand, Hamilton made the mistake to use his KERS to much during a whole lap, because he had little or no KERS left at the beginning of the main straight. The McLaren team tried to tell him to do something different, but he did not really pick up on that.

By the way, Vettel had no KERS issue during the race. It was just clever thinking by Red Bull Racing to only use the system when really needed, as proved to be the case during the last 10 laps of the race in Barcelona.

Nick Heidfeld drove a anonymous race, but still managed to go from position 24, last on the grid due to gearbox problems during qualifying on Saturday, to 8th place in the race and picking up points. Webber showed this is possible too, earlier in the season. Therefore, great drive Quick Nick!

There was one thing that puzzled me during the race and that was the Ferrari pit stop.......

Pit stops by Ferrari were slower the they can be in Barcelona. Why? They needed to change tires, but when doing so, they started with the front tires and only when the new front tires were put on, the started taking off the rear tires. That’s where they lost 2 seconds easy on every pit stop. Why? I don’t know.......Yet!