Qualifying times corrected for fuel load: the real story of speed differentials
The result was that this really was a race of two halves with unexpected difficulties complicating qualifying and race-day finally bringing a somewhat more expected pattern. Once again I have corrected all the Q3 times for fuel load. The method I use gives the best possible result without access to the Doppler-shift engine sound analysis that the teams use to finesse the same calculations. Admittedly they are trying to guess fuel load before the race. I know the relative fuel loads as I have the easier task of working things out after the event. So it may just be that this set of fuel-corrected times is more accurate than anyone in the paddock had access to before the race. What a very pleasing thought for an analyst on a shoestring budget. Here is my best estimate of the times that each driver would have set in Q3 if they had all had the same fuel on board as the lightest car. Which was Felipe Massa’s Ferrari:
Robert Kubica 1’ 38.619
Heikki Kovalainen 1’ 38.649
Lewis Hamilton 1’ 38.684
Kimi Raikkonen 1’ 38.715
Nick Heidfeld 1’ 38.828
Felipe Massa 1’ 38.989
Jarno Trulli 1’ 39.279
Nico Rosberg 1’ 39.433
Sebastian Vettel 1’ 39.627
Sebastien Bourdais 1’ 39.977
This is a very intriguing set of hypothetical times. I also think that is an utterly plausible set of data. Remember that the teams themselves have a good grasp of the relative equal-weight potential of all the cars. They spend a lot of time and money gathering this information and processing it through their computers, whereas I have spent some time but no money at all. The unexpected weather on Saturday would have been a wild card, but the principle remains the same: tactical fuel decisions would have been taken on a fairly sound guesstimate of these relative potential Q3 times. Everyone wants to be high up the grid, but a low fuel start with a car that was not going to have great race-pace in the warmer weather conditions on Sunday would condemn you to simply fade away down the order in the race itself.
First let’s look at the raw times in which less than one tenth of a second seperates the fastest four drivers. A great Q3 laptime from Kubica. Heidfeld is a couple of tenths slower, possibly because of his greater dislike of the wayward feel of the cars on cold tyres. McLaren not only very strong in the cool weather but enjoying very equally matched drivers. The team is putting everything behind Lewis. As the equipment is equal, and once again Heikki is a shade faster (by three and a half hundredths!), the team had to achieve the desired outcome through strategy. Heikki was given a hefty three laps of fuel more than Lewis in order to drop him behind his team-mate on the grid. Vettel shows the expected comfortable three tenths margin over Bourdais. The fuel loads they carried in the real Q3 reflect the logic of their situation. Vettel carried fuel for an optimum strategy. Bourdais carried an extra lap of fuel because he had to avoid interference with Vettel’s first stop without being too penalised himself.
When we come to Ferrari things get much more interesting. The first thing that has to be said is that Kimi Raikkonen was faster than Felipe Massa in qualifying once you correct for fuel. More than half the press corps do not understand the issue and the others cannot be bothered to think it through. But this was yet another qualifying in which Kimi started heavier than Massa and therefore ended up behind him on the grid in spite of having driven faster. As Kimi is suffering a hugely hostile reaction from the press, and accusations of ‘poor qualifying performance’ (which has an objective basis but is actually a rather complex technical issue), I have to say that it is just as well that he is such a phlegmatic Finn. Just remember how Felipe Massa reacted when he found himself in a similar position with McLaren. So why is Ferrari handling Q3 in this way? I feel that there are two possibilities in Valencia. Actually, I believe that both of these things are true but let’s look at them one at a time:
Ferrari was pragmatic in the face of their engine worries
In Hungary a con-rod failure destroyed Felipe’s engine and robbed him of an excellent win. It was that engine’s second race. Kimi was on a fresh engine in Hungary. So this was Kimi’s second race with an engine that may have been in exactly the same spec as the one that blew in Hungary before the end of its second race. It is quite probable that the Ferrari team were very fearful that Kimi’s engine was not going to last the distance in Valencia. I had considered voicing this concern before the race, but decided not to make it public. It seemed such bad karma.
Under these circumstances it would be perfectly logical to run Felipe light in an effort to capture pole in the hope that the race itself would then come to Ferrari as the weather improved on Sunday. No point in doing that with Kimi as he would have to conserve his engine on Sunday in an attempt to get the car home. This is what appeared to happen. In the race Massa set the fastest lap for the first time this season while Raikkonen was a whole seven tenths slower. This is what I have termed a “door-kicking” margin in an earlier posting. A gap of this magnitude can only be a car issue. As Kimi is actually faster in the races than Felipe, as well as faster in qualifying when you correct for fuel, the inescapable conclusion is that he had the suspect engine running on a very conservative ECU map. This is also borne out by his dramatic slowing towards the end of the race in Hungary. The team said something about rear suspension trouble, but the fact remains that he dropped away from Glock, who there was little chance of passing anyway at such a circuit, almost as soon as Massa’s engine let go. This was engine conservation with the next race in mind. Too no avail as things turned out in Spain.
Ferrari made an inspired decision in qualifying
My own belief is that there are no team orders in Ferrari at this stage of this season. Or at this point in any previous season in recent years for that matter. Eddie Irvine summed up the situation perfectly when he said that racing alongside Schumacher was like being hit over the head with a baseball bat every weekend. In spite of everything Eddie and his engineer could muster, Michael was either faster in qualifying, or started the race on a superior strategy and got past anyway. Intra-team rivalry reached such a pitch in later years that the technical staff were becoming frustrated by Rubens Barrichello’s insistence on running different set-ups from Michael’s. So focussed were Rubens and his engineer on getting some sort of advantage that would allow him to jump his team-mate that they took risks with set-up and strategy that often dropped him down the order in the races. The team lost valuable constructor’s points as a result.
Naturally, team orders must come into play in the end game of the championship. But this is still the development of the game and there continues to be everything to play for. The two Ferrari drivers and their respective engineers are still racing each other. Think of this as a tandem bicycle race with the driver at the handlebars and his race engineer sitting behind him. A good result needs a big effort from both men.
Look at the fuel corrected times for Q3. Felipe could expect to be way down the order if he took a standard fuel strategy. He would then be bottled up behind slower cars in a race that would be frustrating indeed. I think that Rob Smedley made an inspired move. He sent Felipe into Q3 on a very light fuel load indeed. In the cold weather of Saturday afternoon Felipe’s raw pace was slow. He was only sixth fastest in fuel-corrected terms. Smedley was gambling that the warmer track temperature that was expected on Sunday would slow the McLarens and help the Ferrari. He guessed that Felipe would have such good race pace compared with the McLarens that he would be able to pull enough time in even a very short first stint to maintain his lead after the McLaren stops. He was right, and it was the decision of a tactical genius.
The television coverage showed how shocked the McLaren people were when Massa stopped for fuel so early. They were probably convinced that Hamilton was going to be the first to stop and suddenly realised what a huge gamble Ferrari had taken the previous day. What a masterstroke for Felipe. But what a frustrating day for Raikkonen and his engineer when his engine failed to survive in spite of being nursed during the race.
Could this have been a factor in what appeared to be Kimi’s error in setting off before his indicator light was switched to green? Without this disaster he would have jumped Kovalainen at this stop. Massa’s race was also notable for the careless release of his car (in Felipe’s case the traditional ‘lollipop’ is used) straight into the path of Adrian Sutil. If Massa had not swerved to his right and let Adrian through the cars would certainly have tangled. So there may be inspirational stuff happening in the Ferrari team but there is also an ominous hint of a return to a Chinese fire-drill chaos. Already two engines have cracked under the pressure and we have to hope that the pit-wall and garage crews will not crumble as well. Will both drivers now enjoy engines free from the vulnerability of their previous ones? Spa is a race that Ferrari can be expected to win. If the weather is good. And there is still no end to the autumnal conditions as this dreadful European summer continues without end…..
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