Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton
has won the Japanese Grand Prix with a medium-medium-hard tyre strategy from
second on the grid. The Englishman gained the lead at the start and then
built up a sufficient advantage that he was able to rejoin the race without
losing command after both pit stops. He has now matched the benchmark of
Ayrton Senna, with 41 wins, while Mercedes registered its eighth one-two
finish of the season.
The three drivers behind Hamilton used a different two-stop strategy:
medium-hard-hard. Throughout the top 10, there were a number of different
strategies designed to help give drivers a tactical advantage, aided by the
timing of the pit stops. Nico Rosberg, in particular, used the ‘undercut’ to
pit earlier than his direct rivals and move up to second place, having
dropped to fourth after the start. Sebastian Vettel finished third for
Ferrari: only Hamilton, Rosberg and Vettel can now theoretically win the
championship this year.
The majority of competitors stopped twice in Japan, with just Sergio Perez
(Force India), Daniil Kvyat (Red Bull), Felipe Massa (Williams) and Will
Stevens (Manor) stopping three times. Perez, Massa and Red Bull’s Daniel
Ricciardo all picked up punctures as a result of Turn 1 incidents, which
forced them all into first-lap pit stops. Following Carlos Sainz’s broken
front wing after a collision, some debris left on the track caused a number
of cuts to the tyres, without consequence.
Track temperatures, which peaked at 42 degrees, were the warmest they had
been all weekend in Suzuka, adding a further complication to the strategy.
The teams headed into the Japanese Grand Prix lacking dry weather data, as
the two free practice sessions on Friday were dominated by rain. All the
drivers started on the medium tyre, apart from McLaren’s Jenson Button, who
started on the hard compound.
Paul Hembery, Pirelli motorsport director: “There was a strong and
consistent performance from both our nominated tyres from start to finish of
the Japanese Grand Prix, despite the highest track temperatures we have seen
all weekend, as well as the high energy loads and abrasive surface that
Suzuka is famous for. We saw a wide variety of strategies in place
throughout the race and different thinking on the best way to use the tyres,
with the timing of the pit stops turning out to be crucial. With the rain on
Friday, the teams did not have their usual amount of data heading into the
weekend, which made the way that they were able to read the race and get the
best out of the tyres all the more impressive.”
Truth-O-Meter:
We predicted a two-stopper as being the best option for this 53-lap race,
starting on the medium, changing to the medium again on laps 16-18 and
finally the hard on lap 33-35. Hamilton followed our prediction almost
exactly, stopping on laps 16 and 32. |