2011 Formula 1 season: Pirelli’s strategic call of teams working well than speedy cars
The 2011 Formula 1 season has kicked off and the first three of the scheduled 19 races are over in Australia, Malaysia and China.
So far, the strategy of using the Pirelli tyres has been the decisive factor for winning and losing races. Speed and pace is still a virtue but the Pirelli tyres have taken over all minds to design and plan a good strategy for their cars on the track.
Pirelli tyres were heavily criticised by all the teams and officials because their degradation rate was too high and the teams thought that some precious time will be lost in pitting so many times in a single race. Pirelli however, stated that the high degradation
was demanded by the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) to improve overtaking.
As the season started in Australia, all teams praised Pirelli for giving such a high percentage of overtaking in the race.
The strategy of using the right type of tyres at the right time has taken more importance in the teams than any other parameter.
The FIA induced two more changes to the overall of the car to improve overtaking: DRS (Drag Reduction System) and KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System). Both systems give, more or less, equal boost to the cars therefore is not as crucial as the tyre selection.
The strategy of using the Pirelli tyres is about 85 percent important in the car. From the last few races, it is evident that the speed of the car can only get it far in front in a matter of seconds, but a fresh set of tyres can get it close to the podium.
Lewis Hamilton has given a very good example of this in last race. Driving a slow car, MP4-26, The Brit managed to outpace the RB7 of Vettel in the final few laps because he had fresh set of tyres, whereas Vettel’s tyres were almost 20 laps old.
The German had a strategy of having only two pit-stops which saved him almost 25 seconds of pit time. Hamilton was on three pit-stop strategy and still managed to take the lead from Vettel. The Brit finished the race almost six seconds ahead of Vettel which
makes it almost 30 seconds ahead of Vettel, if the pit-stop time is included.
Another example of tyre strategy was shown by Mark Webber of Red Bull who did a remarkable job in bringing the car home in third place after starting from 18th place. Webber stated that 18th place in Qualifiers
meant that he had more fresh tyres than any of the top drivers, who used it in Qualifiers. Webber did three pit-stops but was still able to beat 15 cars and took the third place on the podium.
16 races are still to go and a lot more Pirelli-induced strategic races will be contested and the most important factor that the teams will think about is the Qualifiers.
Mostly the soft compound and low fuel is the best combination in Qualifiers but Webber’s performance in the Chinese Grand Prix raised many eyebrows. Webber saved all the sets of tyres and in the race, he used all options to take the best possible result
of them.
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