After two days of very hot
weather, the German Grand Prix was held in wet conditions nearly all the way
to the finish, leading to a chaotic race with multiple pit stops and four
safety cars. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen eventually won the race, having
stopped five times, ahead of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel and Toro Rosso’s
Daniil Kvyat.
KEY MOMENTS
- A wide mixture of strategies (from 3 to 6 stops) were used throughout the
64-lap race due to changeable weather conditions. All the tyres in the range
were used at various points, with the exception of the hard.
- A total of 78 pit stops were made, with the drivers using 97 sets of tyres
throughout the race
- All the drivers started on full wet tyres, after three formation laps
behind the safety car. The teams then reacted to changing grip and
circumstances, with the timing of the final stop onto slick tyres proving to
be crucial to the race outcome.
- Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel started from the back of the grid
following a technical problem in qualifying. He used a five-stop strategy to
finish second on a near-identical strategy to Verstappen.
- Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton went off twice and stopped six times (like
Haas’s Kevin Magnussen) en route to 11th.
- Drivers had to take care not to overheat the intermediates on a drying
track, which nonetheless coped very well with the conditions.
- Ambient temperatures at the start of the race were 22 degrees centigrade,
while track temperatures were 28 degrees. By the end of the grand prix, the
surface was mainly dry.
HOW EACH TYRE PERFORMED
HARD C2: This was the only tyre of the range not to be used at all during
the race.
MEDIUM C3: Just five drivers (including Verstappen) used this compound for a
limited number of laps, as the soft was performing better in the damp and
cool conditions.
SOFT C4: Used by all the drivers at the end of the race and claimed fastest
lap with Verstappen, who earned the extra point.
INTERMEDIATE: The tyre used most extensively during the race, with a number
of stints in excess of 20 laps.
WET: All the drivers started on this tyre but most changed them early in the
race during the first safety car.
MARIO ISOLA - HEAD OF F1 AND CAR RACING
“For the strategists this was one of the hardest races of the year to call,
as they had to constantly anticipate and react to rapidly changing
circumstances, both when it came to judging the grip and maximising the
opportunities presented by all the safety cars. On top of that, the
conditions changed a lot from sector to sector. As a result though, strategy
made a real difference this weekend, especially when it came to working out
when to make the final move to slick tyres for the last stint. The three
drivers on the podium in particular took full advantage of the capabilities
of the soft tyre on a drying track at the end of a thrilling and
unpredictable race. When it was wet, the intermediate tyres proved their
versatility in a wide range of conditions, which was crucial as none of the
drivers had experienced any proper running on the wet-weather tyres, so
there was no real basis on which to judge the crossover points. Now we have
collected a lot of data on the intermediate. Congratulations to all the
podium finishers, and also to Racing Point and Lance Stroll who led the race
close to the end thanks to their strategy call.” |