DUnBAr/LAt
Vettel is already sailing clear as Massa surges past the Mercs
RACe 15.00, 27.10.2013
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EtHErington/LAt
Sebastian Vettel stylishly clinched his fourth straight world championship with a devastating victory won through sheer, pummelling, relentless pace, delivered within a strategy made tricky by the extreme wear rate of the softer option tyre around the Buddh International Circuit. Yet this 26-yearold phenomenon made it look child’s play. Two of the other three men to have won four titles – Juan Manuel Fangio and Alain Prost – had not yet won a grand prix when they were Vettel’s age. Fangio, in fact, had yet to even make his debut. Are even Michael Schumacher’s records safe from Vettel’s grasp? But brilliant though Vettel was on Sunday, he was helped by a strategy that turned out to be the right one. Only hindsight tells us this. On the eve of the race, most were accepting that twostopping was the optimum, but whether it was better to be starting on the soft tyre (like Vettel) or the medium (like Red
‘Vettel’s task was to sprint clear in the knowledge that he’d soon be in for tyres’ Bull team-mate Mark Webber) was about as clear as the view in the New Delhi smog. As it turned out, a crucial Red Bull set-up decision taken on Friday evening for both cars – made because the extreme blistering of the soft after very few laps made it obvious that whatever strategy was chosen was going to involve overtaking other cars – turned out to favour the Vettel strategy. “After Friday we took some wing off and put on a longer top gear, on the basis we were going to have to go through traffic at some point,” explained Red Bull technical chief Adrian Newey. An RB9 fast enough Van der Garde was first retirement after opening-lap incident
on the long straight to maximise the benefit of DRS ensured that Vettel was always mega-quick, even as he was storming through traffic. Vettel’s early-race task from pole was going to be to sprint clear in the full knowledge that he’d be in after very few laps to change to the more durable mediums. But thereafter he needed to get within 21 seconds of Webber before Mark pitted, if he was to jump him at the next stop. That sounded like a tall order. Webber’s task, as the best-placed medium-tyred car on the grid, was to make maximum use of his second-row slot, hope that any soft-tyred cars ahead of him soon pitted out of his way (not all the cars were as punishing to the softs as the Red Bulls), then run flat-out in clear air up front to build up a gap, once Vettel stopped, of 21s or more. Not to denigrate Vettel’s faultless, aggressive and fast drive, but the effectiveness of DRS, in combination with the RB9’s fairly strong top speed, allowed Seb to actually lap faster by constantly benefiting from DRS as he made his way from 17th after his lap-two stop. Webber had no aid from DRS once he was at the front, and this allowed Vettel to punish his team-mate’s poor opening lap. As Seb rejoined the track after his stop he was now 14 seconds behind Mark, and that was the biggest the gap ever was. Vettel’s DRS-assisted pace and instant overtaking, combined with Webber’s time loss in the first seven laps behind
was in prospect never played out. Both men went into this race hugely motivated: Vettel because he wanted to win the title in style by taking a sixth consecutive race victory, one of the few records he didn’t already own; Webber because, going into the last four races of his F1 career, he was still intensely competitive and had not yet won a 2013 grand prix, such has been his team-mate’s monopoly – and that ‘stolen’Malaysia win. It was vital to Webber’s prime-tyre opening stint that he capitalise fully on his grid slot. But he failed to do that. After an iffy start off the line – with Vettel sprinting away up front from the two Mercedes and Felipe Massa’s faststarting Ferrari – Webber, in fifth, had Fernando Alonso to his outside as they approached Turn 1. The corner was Webber’s, but he chose to take a lot of inside kerb – too much, as it turned out. The Red Bull was thrown across the track and made light contact with the Ferrari, a piece of Alonso’s frontwing endplate flying off. With Alonso’s and Webber’s momentum onto the uphill drag to Turns 2 and 3 compromised, so Nico Hulkenberg and Kimi Raikkonen dragged past them, the Lotus then rubbing with the Red Bull through Turn 3. From fourth to seventh, with six soonto-be-slow soft-tyred cars ahead of him, the playing out of Webber’s strategy had just got off to an awful start. But all was not lost yet. Let’s see how quickly they
the most downforce. This track and compound combination made for a perfect demonstration of how there is a threshold of tyre strength, below which the best cars are penalised and above which they dominate. This has long restricted the full potential of Red Bull in the Pirelli era, and has been a major reason for the tyre politicking that’s been such a theme of this season. Around Buddh, the RB9 on softs was good for a fabulous qualifying lap 0.8s clear of the field, but was hopeless after three to four race laps – significantly fewer than even the next-worstafflicted cars could manage. On the medium, it could retain its devastating qualifying advantage into the race. We had the essential competitive mechanism of the season laid out bare in India, for all to see and understand. As Vettel screamed clear of the pack, so Massa slipstreamed by the Mercs of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg down that long smoggy back straight, slicing boldly ahead into the tight Turn 4 to take up second place. Hulkenberg’s Sauber, Raikkonen, Webber and the
friday
HONE/LAT
Vettel’s lap-two pitstop meant he had plenty of passing to do from 17th…
1052 Rosberg reports his FP1 handling woes: “Big oversteer in high speed and a bit too much oversteer on the entry to slow speed.” 1055 Alonso’s gearbox breaks: “I went to third and then I got neutral.” He cruises to the pits. 1101
…but carved past Bottas and Gutierrez…
Chilton asks rhetorically: “What just happened? Bloody jumped out of gear.”
McLaren of Sergio Perez (like Webber, on mediums) followed. The other McLaren of Jenson Button went round the outside of Turn 4, with Alonso on the inside. As Jenson came back off the exit kerb at just the moment Alonso was oversteering, trying to get the power down, they snagged. The Ferrari’s already damaged front wing was now properly done for, while the McLaren took some sidepod and tyre damage. Alonso would be in at the end of the second lap for a replacement wing, with Button coming in after six laps when the affected tyre finally punctured. That pretty much ruined the races of both drivers, given that they were on the mediums and therefore needed to do long stints. From 17th on the grid, Romain Grosjean reckoned he needed a good start to have any hope of a good result – and he’d failed to get one. After Paul di Resta pitted in front of him at the end of the first lap to get rid of his softs, the Lotus was stuck behind Esteban Gutierrez’s Sauber – which had jumped the start – for a lap but then
EY/LAT
Rosberg leads Merc team-mate Hamilton on way to second
STALEY/LAT
…and finally Perez too
DUNBAR/LAT
‘Lotus’s Alan Permane was irritated by Pirelli’s advice and saw no reason to comply’
THOMPSON/GETTY
Vettel and Webber had chosen their strategies independently. For Red Bull, and almost everyone else, twostopping was the only way of doing the race. The early blistering of the left-front soft left way too much remaining distance for just a single set of mediums. Pirelli’s strict camber and pressure limits, keeping stress off the structure of the tyre and minimising the risk of failures, combined with the punishing challenge of Turns 10/11/12, meant the tyre crown was taking all the load which, on the left-front, meant blistering“worse than I’ve ever seen”, according to one engineer. All cars were afflicted but the Red Bulls more than any, because they have
began picking cars off. His was an interesting strategy based around the Lotus’s famously easy tyre usage. He was using the soft for his first stint and hoping to get it to last 12 laps, from where he intended to run to the finish… “One stop? No way. Impossible. Forget it,”exclaimed one rival of that prospect. Pirelli agreed. It had advised that the soft should not be run for more than 15 laps and the medium no more than 35. Which, if adhered to, made a one-stop impossible for the 60-lap race. But it was only advisory. Lotus’s Alan Permane was irritated by that and saw no reason why his team should comply.“I went down to see Charlie [Whiting, race director] to see what his views were and he was happy for people to not stick to that,”he explained.“Our tyre wear said we were fine to go further than that and Charlie felt it was unfair to base everyone’s race on the car with the hardest tyre use. We felt we could do 48 laps on the medium and that’s why we knew we had to get Romain to 12 on the softs.” Vettel was 2.5s clear of the pack at the end of the opening lap. Next lap he came in! This was earlier than expected, even of a soft-tyred Red Bull. But it actually made perfect sense. On the Red Bull, that front-left wasn’t going to last for more than a handful of laps – and when it went it would lose whole chunks of time. Avoiding that risk, Seb was in and under way again on fresh primes after a 3.1s stop. He rejoined behind Max Chilton’s Marussia, 14s and 11 places behind Webber. Massa led for the next six laps, while Webber waited patiently in the queue. He went by Raikkonen with the aid of DRS up to Turn 4 on the sixth lap but
1104 Massa reports: “Lost completely the grip on the left side. It oversteers, the car.” 1106 Maldonado loses control of the rear of his car and spins at Turn 16. 1114 Hamilton reports: “The car’s all over the place.” 1124 Calado spins at Turn 15. “Coming in,” he says. 1409
Kimi spins at Turn 3 in FP2.
1453 Hulkenberg says: “Very understeery. Outside left-front shoulder is making a blister, I’m not sure… there’s a funny bump.” 1457 Di Resta reports: “The front-right tyre looked like it was blowing up on the straights.” 1459 Vettel is told: “People are struggling on the options, the tyres are falling apart.” He replies: “Blistering on the left-hand side.” 1507 Maldonado’s frontright wheelnut flies off, and his tyre deflates in the pitlane entry: “I’m losing the wheel.” He’s told: “Just pull the car over somewhere safe.” 1518 Kimi complains about the option tyres “only being good for a lap or two” but he’s urged to keep pushing “until you think they’re unsafe to use.” He says: “I want to do at least one more lap on the other tyres.” 1526 Vettel is asked to test torque setting five. “Negative. I don’t like torque five.” 1529 Webber is advised: “Try lifting more in Turn 8 to improve Turn 9.” 1530
Hulkenberg is happy: