Turkish Grand Prix 2011: Raceday - Formula One Highlights (Part 12)
Welcome back to the action from the Istanbul Park circuit in Turkey.
The front running cars were about to start Lap 41 of the race. The race leader, Sebastian Vettel ducked into the pits and took on a set of hard compound tyres. Rubens Barrichello and Adrian Sutil followed suit and made their last stops as well. The Williams
and Force India had opted for a 3 pit stop strategy while the Red Bull went for the ‘conventional’ 4 pit stop deal.
Sebastian Vettel still came out ahead of Alonso’s Ferrari – Leading by a comfortable 7 second advantage and looked set for his 3rd race victory this season. As far as Alonso was concerned, the time to make his move was now. Vettel’s option tyres
were still relatively cold and any outside chance of making a lunge for the race lead meant capitalizing now. On the flip side, conserving his own, relatively old tyres, was also vital.
Maldonado made his third pit stop of the day, a lap later. Lewis Hamilton was over 40 seconds behind Vettel after his disastrous pit stop and looked to have next to no chance of catching the leaders.
Nico Rosberg’s on board radio sprang to life as the race headed to Lap 44 with word from the Mercedes camp advising the German driver to adjust his front wing. Perhaps that was the reason the Mercedes was lacking straight line speed and was eating up its
tyres quicker.
Sebastian Vettel, Nico Rosberg and Jenson Button were not expected to stop again while Fernando Alonso, Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton were. Meanwhile, Maldonado had to serve a drive through penalty for speeding in the pits on his previous lap.
Soon after, Nico Rosberg came back into the pits for a second set of soft tyres. Since the German driver had already taken 2 option tyres, there was also the option to stick with a 3 pit stop strategy and end the race with his current set of soft tyres.
However, while the soft tyres are noted for delivering a quick performance as they heat up quicker, they also wear out sooner – Reverting to a 4 pit stop strategy seemed to be a sensible option.
Turning our attention back on track, Sebastien Buemi was easily able to dispose of Michael Schumacher for 10th position.
Article to be continued in Part 13 of Turkish Grand Prix 2011: Raceday - Formula One Highlights
Tags: