Newsgroup: it.sport.formula1.moderato
Titolo: [ENG-radio] French GP Race Analysis

French GP Race Analysis
Adam Cooper on how Ralf was tyred out in Magny-Cours
As the season goes on so the tyre situation is getting ever more complex. At
Magny-Cours Michael Schumacher's race was compromised because Ferrari did
not have enough brand new Bridgestones left over for Sunday. In contrast his
brother suffered because Williams did not have sufficient worn Michelins.
Try explaining that to the casual F1 TV viewer.
It's getting increasingly difficult to keep up with developments, but the
tyre war is so fundamental to how the races are unfolding that you cannot
ignore it, so please bear with me.
For some time teams have been opting to start with tyres that have three
qualifying laps on them, at least as far as the fronts are concerned, but
now the Michelin runners are actively using tyres that are not just
scrubbed, but have seen serious action before the race. In essence this is
to reduce the performance drop-off that the French tyres have experienced in
races.
The problem is that it's hard to find get two or three matching sets which
have done enough laps over the course of practice and the warm-up. And it
seems it's not just the quantity but the 'quality' of those laps that
counts. Two sets that have done the same amount of laps do not necessarily
behave in the same way when stuck on the car for the race. And as you will
see, even the experts aren't sure exactly why.
On the other hand the top Bridgestone teams were only too pleased to have
brand new rubber available for race day. At least that's how it was in terms
of the compound used at Magny-Cours last weekend. Who knows how it will
unfold at Silverstone?
Qualifying: birthday boy on top
He had to turn 26 to do it, but at Magny-Cours Ralf Schumacher finally took
his first pole position. And to the encouragement of the team, it was
achieved at one of the most technical tracks, and not at a high speed blast
like Imola or Montreal.
He made it by just 0.010s ahead of his brother. Michael was scuppered by
having to pass Jarno Trulli on one lap and, of all things, by Ross Brawn
getting on the radio and distracting him at an inopportune moment! He had to
work harder than he has done of late, and significantly had to use all four
sets of tyres (in fact his other qualifying times would have been good
enough for third, fourth and sixth on the grid respectively!
The McLarens were much closer to pole than they had been at either of the
last two races. David beat his team mate for the sixth time this year, but
he did it only on his final run, and Mika - who failed to improve on his
last two sets - was just 0.082s behind.
There were some other interesting things going on behind. Rubens Barrichello
was down in eighth place, 0.868s down on his team mate. A Ferrari insider
admitted that Rubens had ".lost his reference point," and there was good
reason for that. All of the Bridgestone runners went for the harder
compound, but up to and including Saturday morning Rubens was keen to use
the softer tyre. "It's the one I tried the whole three days of the test, and
yesterday," he explained. "I was the only one who wanted it."
One can only presume that he was overruled and asked to join the Michael on
the harder tyre - and his problem in qualifying was that it behaved a little
differently from what he had been using previously.
The harder they come.
Williams did split its options. At Michelin the situation was reversed, and
everyone went for the softer tyre, except Juan Pablo Montoya. This was
obviously expected to perform better on race day, but at the expense of the
last two or three tenths of qualifying performance. The likes of Prost's
Luciano Burti came very close to going the same way, but no one else was
willing to sacrifice grid positions. Montoya still qualified sixth, and that
gave everyone else - including his team mate - food for thought.
Two stops is standard strategy at Magny-Cours, and because the pit lane is
very quick relative to the track layout, stops are less costly than
elsewhere. As usual there was distracting talk of one being possible, with
Montoya the obvious candidate. There was also the chance that some folk
would opt for three.
The warm-up created a little confusion, for Ralf was well down the order.
That led some to wonder if he was running high fuel levels and therefore
considering a single stop. Or was he just indulging in a spot of
gamesmanship to set Ferrari thinking? In fact he spent the session carefully
putting extra mileage on the tyres he planned to use for the race. As
expected he went to the grid with some fairly worn looking Michelins.
Meanwhile Ferrari had an interesting choice to make. Michael had run one set
of tyres on Saturday morning, and as we've seen four in qualifying. That
meant he had just two of his allocation of seven sets left. But a two-stop
race required three sets, so which stint should he sacrifice?
The answer came when a scrubbed set was fitted to the car on the grid. Team
mate Rubens Barrichello did the same, although he was actually destined to
make three stops and require four sets of tyres.
"We thought the first stint might be a little bit of a procession," said
Ross Brawn, "and we wanted to keep the better tyres for when we thought it
might be more critical."
The race
After four clean starts at races notorious for first corner carnage, it
seemed unlikely that we'd get through the first lap unscathed, especially
with tensions running high after the previous weekend's 'one move'
controversy.
True to recent form Michael made a relatively poor getaway (although this
time a clutch problem rather than any inadequacy in the launch control was
to blame). This ensured that Ralf was able to do his own thing into Turn 1.
However Michael nearly got beaten away by Coulthard, so he had to be fairly
aggressive in squeezing the Scot as they swooped into the lefthander.
The result of all this was that the top three stayed in grid order - but
missing of course was Mika Hakkinen, who did not make it beyond the
formation lap. This was not related to the stalls that DC suffered in Spain
and Monaco, nor to the instant retirements Mika had in Brazil and Austria.
Following a lengthy post-mortem Ron Dennis announced that it was a 'gearbox
assembly problem.' After DC's glitch with the errant suspension bolt in
Canada, it must have been painful indeed.
Back to the race. The trend at both Montreal and the Nurburgring was for
Ralf to drop back in the early stages, and then catch up and pressure his
brother before the first stop. This time he was in front, so logic suggested
that Michael would stay with him initially, and then drop back a little as
his own tyres passed their best and Ralf peaked. And that is exactly what
happened, although Ralf admitted he also had a brake problem:
"The first 10 laps I just couldn't find a balance with the car. I tended to
lock the wheels into the hairpin and actually I was lucky to have a bit of
space in the first two laps not to lose my position there, because I had to
go wide from the beginning."
After eight laps, Michael was still just 1.0s behind his brother. That grew
to 1.8s by lap 16, and then 3.0s by lap 23. That was still just about close
enough to take advantage of any slip-ups in or around the pit stops.
As far as the leaders were concerned the pit action started when Rubens came
in on lap 21, and his short time stationary (just 7.0s) indicated that he
might be on a three-stopper.
Ralf came in on lap 24, exactly one third distance. But for the second race
in a row he made a costly error. This time he selected first gear a little
too early, and that was just enough to catch out the guy on the right rear
wheel. The stop went out to 10.3s, and with a set of tyres that looked as
old as the ones he'd just had removed, he resumed.
"Ralf selected first gear before he should have done," said Patrick Head,
"and that means the wheel kicks round as it selects first gear, and it meant
that the wheel jumped off its pegs as [the mechanic] was just in the process
of putting it on. It's something we'll sort out."
Michael was due to stop on the very next lap, so he had just that one lap to
make up the 3.0s deficit. Conveniently, the Williams stop did the job for
him. Michael was no doubt told on the radio about Ralf's delay, as if he
needed any encouragement to go quicker, that was it.
It was a perfect stop of 7.7s, and a short fill guaranteed that he got out
ahead of his brother. On a set of brand new tyres he put on a quick spurt
just to open up the gap and turn the screw on the Williams man. But in fact
Ralf was in trouble, for he wasn't as comfortable on this second set of
tyres as he had been on the first - the same pattern that we saw in Germany,
only worse.
Here's how the tables were turned at the stop:
Gap Ralf to Michael lap 23: +3.027s
Ralf
Lap 23: 1m16.822s
Lap 24: 1m19.911s (into pits)
Lap 25: 1m38.487s (including stop)
Lap 26: 1m18.127s
Michael
Lap 23: 1m17.419s
Lap 24: 1m16.865s (told Ralf is pitting)
Lap 25: 1m19.229s (into pits)
Lap 26: 1m33.910s (including stop)
Gap Ralf to Michael lap 26: - 2.743s
As you can see Michael gained by putting on a spurt when he knew Ralf was
pitting, and that led to a quicker in-lap. As we've seen, the difference in
their stop time was 2.6s, and the rest came from Ralf being too slow on his
first lap out of the pits.
"I had understeer/oversteer just everywhere and it was difficult to drive,
just sliding round the whole circuit, and that's why I was so slow."
DC pays the price.
In fact pretty soon Ralf's concern was not keeping up with Michael, but
staying ahead of DC. The Scot had been 5.5s behind Ralf before the stops,
and after pitting on lap 26, the gap was down to 2.9s on lap 27 and 1.1s by
lap 31. But at that point Coulthard was forced to take a stop and go for
speeding in the pitlane. David had already been fined $1750 for doing
6.8km/h over the practice limit on Friday afternoon. In the race he was
5km/h over, at the very end of the pit lane, but as with Ralf's white line
offence in Germany, you can't be a little bit pregnant.
"He just got it wrong," said Ron Dennis. "He just disarmed the pit lane
speed limiter too early. He misjudged it and exceeded the speed limit by
five kilometres in the last loop."
Again a white line was the key, this time the one that cuts across the pit
exit and marks the end of the speed limit zone. Immediately before it was a
shadow from a footbridge, and it could even be that David was thrown by its
unfamiliar position. The stop came at 2.36pm, and was thus 36 minutes later
than the end of the Friday and Saturday sessions. And unlike white lines,
shadows tend to move.
Before the stop he was just 8.3s behind Michael, but that grew to 32.4s. It'
s interesting to note that a stop and go at Magny-Cours costs around 24s,
whereas Ralf lost 30s at the Nurburgring, simply because of the layout of
the pitlane.
Any thoughts of victory, and even the podium, now appeared to be over for
DC. Not only that, Ralf was falling ever further back from his brother. What
for a while had been an intriguing three-horse race was now reduced to
another demonstration run by Michael.
The Ferrari ace took another new set of tyres at his second stop, but found
them less effective than the middle set. "It looks like there was too much
pressure in the tyres because I never had the same grip as before," he
noted. Fortunately he was miles ahead by then, and was able to cruise to the
flag. His radio went down before the end, which is why he received signals
to cut the revs on his pit board.
Ross Brawn said that the strategy of saving the brand new tyres for the
second and third stints had worked: "It seemed to, yes. Michael was very
cautious on the last set, because what we concerned about was that it was a
longish stint. We wanted to make sure that before the end the tyres didn't
go away, and he'd be defenceless against someone coming on strong. When he
went out and the situation stabilised in the third stint, then he backed off
a lot to make sure he had good tyres if he needed them, and he didn't need
them."
Best of the rest
Fortunately there was at least some entertainment going on behind. As Ralf
continued to struggle, Juan Pablo Montoya, going well on his harder tyres,
caught him up; indeed between laps 31 and 37 he cut the gap from around 10s
to almost nothing. Once he got behind Ralf, his lap times dropped, and the
team was faced with an interesting dilemma that was not perhaps in the game
plan when the Colombian was put on different tyres.
Although Barrichello and Coulthard seemed to be safely behind, they were
still a threat, and it seemed silly to leave Montoya stuck behind his team
mate. But would you want to be the one to ask Ralf to move over?
By some unfortunate co-incidence, Ralf apparently had radio problems
throughout the race. "I didn't hear anything from the team after the start.
As long as you don't speak to the team you don't notice. At a certain stage
I didn't get a real answer, I just got noise in one ear. One didn't work at
all."
The FW23s ran in tandem for some seven laps before Ralf came in for a new
set of tyres on lap 44, a few laps ahead of schedule.
"Ralf was going so slowly," said Patrick Head. "It was not so much to better
Juan's position, but we were very concerned that we were dropping back into
Barrichello's and Coulthard's clutches. Ralf obviously had a major problem
at the time with the balance of the car, and instead of just himself it was
taking both cars back into a position where they could have lost two places
on the track."
Bringing Ralf in early appeared to been the most diplomatic option available
to the team, but in fact the German insisted that stopping when he did was
his decision: "The team got me but I couldn't hear the team, as something
with my ear pieces was wrong. I just called the team to tell them I was
coming in, so whatever the team wanted, I don't know."
The decision certainly helped Montoya. With Ralf gone he was able to lap
quickly, and enjoyed a few laps in the lead thanks to his unusual stop
schedule, and when he finally made his late last stop on lap 50 he emerged
ahead of Ralf. But on the very next lap he slowed and stopped with an engine
problem, and what would have been second place was lost. Thereafter Ralf had
an easy run to the runner-up spot: "With the third set it came a bit better
but never as good as at the start."
Rubens v David
Once again circumstances had cost us an intriguing on-track battle, but
fortunately another one developed in the closing laps as Coulthard caught
Barrichello. Early on Rubens had been switched to a three-stopper, and with
David having had a stop and go, he too had effectively made three stops,
albeit without the benefits of lower fuel levels and tyres that he could run
hard on.
In the end he just couldn't find a way past the Ferrari, although he very
nearly pulled off a repeat of last year's move on Michael, when the
Brazilian was wrongfooted while lapping Jean Alesi. In fact Barrichello's
final set of tyres (scrubbed after using new rubber in the second and third
stints) had blistered, and he was having some trouble. His eventual reward
was third, which was no mean achievement from eighth on the grid. Had the
three-stop strategy made the difference?
"It's difficult to say until I go back through it," said Brawn. "But what it
did do is give him good tyres at the right time, so he was able push.
Instead of having to drive round on the edge of the tyres, he was able to
drive flat out every stint, which was important for him. Obviously we
benefited from David's problem, but Rubens drove a very good race and
managed to make the most of the new tyres and the strategy."
The odd thing is that a quick driver who qualifies badly normally makes
progress by doing fewer or later stops than those ahead, rather than the
other way round.
"Yeah, I know. Maybe we're wrong! But quite frankly we did expect the tyres
to be a little bit more fragile than they were. They were much more durable
than we expected. So I don't know if that was very significant, that
strategy, but it certainly gave him a bit more fun having new tyres to
charge around on."
To summarise, here is how the pit strategy unfolded for the leading
contenders:
Stints for leading drivers
1. Michael Schumacher: 25-20-27
2. Ralf Schumacher: 24-20-28
3. Rubens Barrichello: 21-15-18-18
4. David Coulthard: 26-25-21 (not including stop and go)
5. Jarno Trulli: 25-22-25
6. Nick Heidfeld: 21-21-29 (71 laps)
Ret: Juan Montoya: 30-20-22 (projected)
As at the Nurburgring it's clear how many variations are possible even on
the two-stop theme, with different teams having their own ideas about how to
split the second and third stints. This table also shows why Brawn was
concerned about Michael's third set of tyres lasting over a long 27 lap run.
One presumes Ralf was originally expected to run 24-24-24 before making his
premature second stop.
The big question is this - how would DC have fared without his stop and go?
Well, he would have been stuck behind Ralf during the middle stint, and had
he not forced a way by, everything would have depended on the timing of
their second stops.
Even if Ralf had gone to his pre-arranged limit, David would have stayed out
longer and would certainly have got past and claimed second. It's impossible
to say whether he would have got anywhere near Michael, but the earlier he
had a clear track, the more chance he would have had of at least forcing the
World Champion to maintain his pace. And as we've seen Schumacher was only
too happy to back off and keep his tyres in good shape.
While it's obvious that Michael could have gone quicker, it's also true that
David lost a lot of time stuck behind Rubens. The following table makes for
interesting reading:
Gap Michael to Coulthard
Lap 31 - before stop and go: 8.376s
Lap 33 - after stop and go: 32.490s
Lap 71 - one lap prior to Michael backing off for the finish: 19.571s
During his chase he also set the fastest lap of 1m16.088s. "We were
competitive," said Ron Dennis. "That's the most important thing, to be
competitive. Of course we want to have a result, and then you look at the
gap and think what could have been and all these things, but at the end of
the day it's the result that counts. But it's less painful than being
uncompetitive, I can assure you."
Confused? You will be.
Finally, back to where we started. I hinted after Monaco that some Michelin
teams had considered not changing tyres at the stops, and at the Nurburgring
Benetton went ahead and left the fronts on. They did the same with Giancarlo
Fisichella at Magny-Cours after inspecting the tyres that came off Jenson
Button's car on the previous lap. Strange days, indeed.
Meanwhile Jaguar appears have got a better grip (sorry.) on the tyre
situation than the other Michelin teams. Eddie Irvine was fast throughout at
the Nurburgring, and in Magny-Cours he was again flying, when not being held
up by the likes of Panis and Frentzen. He eventually set sixth fastest lap.
Eddie spent three years in Japanese F3000 and did virtually nothing else but
test tyres, and that knowledge has clearly come in useful as he and his
engineers have got a good handle on what works and what doesn't. So how do
you get the best of out of the Michelins?
"I don't know," said Irvine, somewhat unconvincingly. "Well I do. But it
took lots and lots of work to find out, so **** off."
But the big headache for Michelin is what went wrong with Ralf's second set,
which was ostensibly identical to the first. Both were used over three laps
in qualifying, and then given more mileage in the warm-up, as Michelin boss
Pierre Dupasquier explained:
"Both sets, the first and second, were very close in the way they were
prepared. But maybe somehow there was a difference."
It's worth noting however that on two of Ralf's qualifying sets he did not
set a representative time, so therefore they were not worked as hard when
they were new as the tyres he did a hot lap on. Did that explain the
discrepancy come the race?
"That may be the answer to our question. We don't know. Any difference in
the power you put on the tyre, the work you ask from the tyre, all those dif
ferences may affect them. Although usually it doesn't."
And what of the difference between doing a slow formation lap and then a
start with the first set, and going hard out of the pits straight away with
the second?
"Anything may and will."
As I said, it's all getting a bit complicated. But there's an easy way for
Michelin to simplify things for all its runners.
"Obviously it would help if we were in a position to use new tyres," says
Patrick Head. "But at the moment that isn't the case, so it's something that
between us and Michelin we've got to be looking at."
"That's what happens with two manufacturers," says Ross Brawn. "Their
philosophy is obviously different to our philosophy. I think the new tyre
approach is better, because you can keep new tyres. If you end up spending
all your day scrubbing tyres, it's difficult. Whereas I think the new tyre
approach is easier to handle..."

 discrepancy come the race?
Buona analisi IMHO
--
Zen
Tessera #112 JFC

differences may affect them. Although usually it doesn't."
..(forse) dal fatto che con due set Ralf è andato meno forte in
qualifica rispetto agli altri due (mamma mia, che casino!!).
Ralf avrà pure sbagliato nella gestione delle gomme, ma è certo che il
fenomeno che gli è capitato è molto strano (gli altri non lo hanno
avuto e Montoya era l'unico con le dure) e molto difficile da capire.
-- 
Ciao, Muttley