Chinese Grand Prix 2011: Raceday - Formula One Highlights (Part 4)
Owing to different grid positions, it was perhaps safe to assume that the two Red Bulls had contrasting strategies backed by different set ups to the respective cars – Webber’s Red Bull was perhaps eating up its tyres due to greater down force?
Moments later, the pit lane got a somewhat unexpected visitor as Jaime Alguersuari ducked inside for an early stop. Toro Rosso opted for another set of soft compound Pirellis for the Spaniard. However, as the youngster sped past the pit lane making his way
back on track, his right rear wheel came off.
Back on track, Nick Heidfeld managed to get past Sebastien Buemi to take 12th position. Alguersuari on the other hand, slowly limped off in his three wheeled car towards the side of the track to retire from the race – Drama for Torro Rosso as
they had been consistently in the Top-10 during the course of the weekend. Falling prey to perhaps, a case of pit stop negligence would’ve definitely been difficult to take for Alguersuari and his race engineer – With refuelling evidently banned since last
season as the 80 litre tank was replaced with the 250 litre tank, virtually changing tyres only should be done with little error perhaps.
Michael Schumacher dived into the pits. The German opted for the soft compound tyres as well. A second later, Mark Webber’s Red Bull joined the seven time world champion in pit lane.
The race headed into lap 12. Nico Rosberg, after some inspired bit of driving, continued to keep the two Ferraris in his rear view mirrors - The ‘young’ German driver has proven time and time again this season that the Mercedes GP is potentially an extremely
competitive car. Meanwhile, Paul di Resta entered the pits and brought his Force India to a standstill in front of the team garage.
Moments later, Buemi was further being pressurized to hand over his place – The sole remaining Toro Rosso looked a touch off pace. After problems with the pit stop for one of their cars, were there potential mechanical issues on the horizon to further dent
Toro Rosso’s day?
13 laps of the race were completed and already cars were showing signs of stress. While the Pirellis have proven to be too hot to handle so far this season, the Toro Rosso pit crew gave it a whole new meaning.
To be continued in part 5...
Tags: