2013 Spanish Grand Prix analysis: Where Sunday's race was won and lost
Examining just how far off the pace the race was, why Rosberg only stopped three times, and the extent of Alonso's superiority...
Wednesday 15 May 2013 10:09, UK
And just how slow was Lewis Hamilton?
Hamilton's lap charts from Sunday's race make grim reading for Mercedes. Although the Briton just about kept pace with the frontrunners through his opening stint thanks to team-mate Nico Rosberg effectively acting as a roadblock, the 2008 World Champion's lack of pace became abundantly clear during his second. Whereas Alonso regularly set times in the 1:29s with a best of 1:28.703 after making his first stop of the afternoon, Hamilton never once went quicker than 1:30.460 between laps nine and 24 after putting on the hard tyres at his first call to the pits. Worse still, the W04 suffered such excessive tyre degradation that it started to rapidly lose what little comparable speed it had scarcely halfway through the stint - from lap 19 until pitting on the 24th, Hamilton's average time was 1:33.0. By comparison, Alonso completed his second stint with a 1:30.3 after five successive laps in the 1:29s. There was a night and day difference between the Mercedes and Ferrari on Sunday. Was Fernando Alonso's victory nearly punctured?
In a weekend in which tyres became the depressing pre-eminent topic of F1 conversation, Ferrari were relatively unaffected by Pirelli's frail rubber as Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa claimed the team's best combined result in 46 races. Indeed, Alonso's second victory of the season was all-but assured once his third pitstop was successfully executed on lap 36. However, there was a small potential fright for the Scuderia in the laps approaching the race leader's fourth and final stop when data in the garage showed one of the F138's tyres had developed a slow puncture. Given the spectacular delamination seen on Paul di Resta's Force India during Friday Practice following a cut to the tyre, the Ferrari pitwall took a safety-first approach and brought Alonso's final stop forward by two laps to L46, meaning his fourth stint was a reasonably short 13 laps. "We had the data that the tyres were starting to go down slowly and our strategy was to stop him two laps later," Stefano Domenicali explained. "But in order not to risk anything, because we were controlling the pace of Kimi, we brought him in to avoid any extra stress on certain corners." But had it caused any real concern? "It was not a serious problem," added the genial Italian. But had it occurred just a few laps beforehand, rather than at the culmination of a stint, Alonso's victory push really could have been punctured. Would Nico Rosberg have been better off four-stopping?
One of the initially more curious aspects of an often bewildering race was Mercedes' decision to stare down the barrel of their tyre-wear nemesis and attempt what turned out to be non-conventional three-stop strategies with both of their cars. While Lewis Hamilton's grim race was ultimately converted into a four-stopper, polesitter Rosberg persevered with his pre-race plan of conservation and ultimately came home sixth - which in light of his team-mate's travails, wasn't such a bad result. While Hamilton, in an unbalanced W04, cut his losses a mere 11 laps into his second stint on lap 36 despite his previous seven laps combined having actually been fractionally faster than his team-mate's, Rosberg carried on with his set of hard tyres all the way to lap 47. By that time he was lapping in the low 1:30s, which was often still within half
Hamilton's lap charts from Sunday's race make grim reading for Mercedes. Although the Briton just about kept pace with the frontrunners through his opening stint thanks to team-mate Nico Rosberg effectively acting as a roadblock, the 2008 World Champion's lack of pace became abundantly clear during his second. Whereas Alonso regularly set times in the 1:29s with a best of 1:28.703 after making his first stop of the afternoon, Hamilton never once went quicker than 1:30.460 between laps nine and 24 after putting on the hard tyres at his first call to the pits. Worse still, the W04 suffered such excessive tyre degradation that it started to rapidly lose what little comparable speed it had scarcely halfway through the stint - from lap 19 until pitting on the 24th, Hamilton's average time was 1:33.0. By comparison, Alonso completed his second stint with a 1:30.3 after five successive laps in the 1:29s. There was a night and day difference between the Mercedes and Ferrari on Sunday. Was Fernando Alonso's victory nearly punctured?
In a weekend in which tyres became the depressing pre-eminent topic of F1 conversation, Ferrari were relatively unaffected by Pirelli's frail rubber as Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa claimed the team's best combined result in 46 races. Indeed, Alonso's second victory of the season was all-but assured once his third pitstop was successfully executed on lap 36. However, there was a small potential fright for the Scuderia in the laps approaching the race leader's fourth and final stop when data in the garage showed one of the F138's tyres had developed a slow puncture. Given the spectacular delamination seen on Paul di Resta's Force India during Friday Practice following a cut to the tyre, the Ferrari pitwall took a safety-first approach and brought Alonso's final stop forward by two laps to L46, meaning his fourth stint was a reasonably short 13 laps. "We had the data that the tyres were starting to go down slowly and our strategy was to stop him two laps later," Stefano Domenicali explained. "But in order not to risk anything, because we were controlling the pace of Kimi, we brought him in to avoid any extra stress on certain corners." But had it caused any real concern? "It was not a serious problem," added the genial Italian. But had it occurred just a few laps beforehand, rather than at the culmination of a stint, Alonso's victory push really could have been punctured. Would Nico Rosberg have been better off four-stopping?
One of the initially more curious aspects of an often bewildering race was Mercedes' decision to stare down the barrel of their tyre-wear nemesis and attempt what turned out to be non-conventional three-stop strategies with both of their cars. While Lewis Hamilton's grim race was ultimately converted into a four-stopper, polesitter Rosberg persevered with his pre-race plan of conservation and ultimately came home sixth - which in light of his team-mate's travails, wasn't such a bad result. While Hamilton, in an unbalanced W04, cut his losses a mere 11 laps into his second stint on lap 36 despite his previous seven laps combined having actually been fractionally faster than his team-mate's, Rosberg carried on with his set of hard tyres all the way to lap 47. By that time he was lapping in the low 1:30s, which was often still within half
