Turkish Grand Prix 2011: Raceday - Formula One Highlights (Part 9)
The Red Bull 1–2 had finally been compromised. With a ‘foreign’ car in their midst, was it likely that Sebastian Vettel would have to face a similar situation to the one he faced in China? The Red Bull seemed to eat up its tyres relatively more as compared
to the rest of the frontrunners, which arguably gave the Ferrari a fair shout.
Meanwhile, things weren’t all sunny for the Ferrari camp as Jenson Button looked to pile on the pressure on Felipe Massa as the former looked to get a way past – The Brazilian had already crippled under pressure a few laps ago, were we going to see something
different in round 2 of the battle or was it going to be simple case of déjà vu?
With Button and Massa busy fighting out for track position, the duel attracted the likes of Vitaly Petrov as the Renault driver managed to close the gap on the duo and was effectively fighting out for the same slice of the pie. Meanwhile, Michael Schumacher
made his third pit stop of the race.
Nick Heidfeld’s team told him to conserve his tyres if he couldn’t find a way past Rosberg. However, Rosberg himself seemed to encounter similar issues which meant that the opportunity was always there to gain a position for the Renault – Tough call; track
position or wearing out Pirellis?
A lap later, Rosberg’s team told him there was a lot of blistering on the soft tyres that he ran his first stint with, so he had to take extra care of his next set of soft compounds to make them last to the finish. The German was on his second set of hard
rubber at that moment. Interestingly, Petrov and Heidfeld were also on the same tyre sequence as the Mercedes – Perhaps, the hard compound tyres were not an ideal match for the Istanbul Park circuit?
The race headed to Lap 34, Rosberg got off the racing line and dived straight into the pits. The German driver took on a set of soft tyres as planned and came out on track in 11th position. The race still had 20 odd laps to go; a tall order for
soft compounds, perhaps? However, in his desperation to last the race on the same set of tyres, was he further opening himself to lose track position?
Article to be continued in Part 10 of Turkish Grand Prix 2011: Raceday - Formula One Highlights
Tags: