Phil Prew reveals McLaren planned only two stops for Chinese Grand Prix – Formula 1 news
Formula 1 McLaren race engineer Phil Prew has revealed that the team set a plan, before the Chinese GP to take only two stops in the race.
However, he said drivers felt more degradation of soft tyres during the race and took third stop after taking the planned two.
McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton’s three-stops were very crucial to him for passing and catching Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel for the race lead.
Prew told the media, “There was an awful lot going on. And a great deal was changing through the race, depending on tyre choice and how the different cars used their tyres and how the drivers used the tyres as well.”
He went on to add, “We were working out how the tyres were going to behave, and how long they were going to last, once we'd established that, once the drivers were giving us feedback about tyre performance, that dictated very much our strategy, and that's
when we adopted the three-stop.”
McLaren team described Hamilton’s drive in Shanghai race as ‘magnificent’ as he put his superb performance with three-stop strategy to end Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel’s runs of triumphs at the Shanghai circuit.
Hamilton finished his fastest run of the race, ahead of former race winner, Vettel. He put his all efforts on the race, especially during the last laps of the course and ended his run with 25 points for the team.
Before the start of the race, Hamilton decided to use the soft compounds of Pirelli in the race which paid in the end.
He added that the team was pushing to improve their performance in the race. In addition, the car also gave great response to both its drivers. Jenson Button has finished the race in fourth place with 12 points for McLaren.
Team principal Martin Whitmarsh paid tribute to Hamilton’s outclass performance in Chinese Grand Prix and said that both of their drivers really worked hard over the race, and completed their great run against the strong rivals of Formula 1.
After the Chinese GP victory, the whole team especially Hamilton is looking for many successes like this in the remainder of 2011 season.
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