Chinese Grand Prix 2011: Raceday - Formula One Highlights (Part 17)
It appeared that going for a 2 pit stop strategy was not the way to go about handling the Shanghai circuit. However, all was not lost for the Red Bull camp. While Vettel lost out a position on one end, their second driver, Mark Webber, on a 3 pit stop strategy,
was able to do the same to Ferrari’s Felipe Massa. The Brazilian was also on a 2 pit stop strategy and failed to keep the Australian behind – The story for Red Bull: Vettel in 2nd, Webber up to 5th.
Turning our attention on the car on provisional pole, Lewis Hamilton was opening up a comfortable gap from Vettel. He was effectively 1.2 seconds clear in the space of a single lap. Webber on the other hand, was by no means done in his quest for a podium
spot. The veteran was hot on the heels of Nico Rosberg. In this case however, both drivers were on a 3 pit stop strategy which meant that tyre wear was not an issue.
With that said, the Red Bull looked to be a much better car going into the corners but came out second best in the high speed straights – The Mercedes was making full use of the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) to propel its way out of tight spots while
Webber seemed to be rueing his decision of going light by not to have the KERS on his car.
A couple of cars back, Paul di Resta was in a tight duel with Vitaly Petrov and Kamui Kobayashi for 9th position – The Renault, Sauber and Force India appeared to be somewhat evenly match on the day. While this might have been disappointing for
Renault, the other two cars were definitely on their way up.
Turning our heads back to the Webber versus Rosberg battle, Webber made another lunge as he tried to brake as late as possible to cover for the lack of straight line speed. The experienced Australian locked up his front tyres and managed to overtake the
young German to gain track position. However, Rosberg tried to fight back and both cars ran wheel to wheel for the next series of corners until Webber was finally able to get all four Pirellis in front of the Mercedes’ front wing and effectively take 4th
spot.
To be continued in part 18...
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