Hi, I’m James Vowles, I’m here to answer
your questions about the Spanish Grand Prix.
The first question is around Valtteri’s
start and why he lost so many
places off the line.
It was really two effects.
The first was his initial reaction time was
just slightly behind that of Stroll, Verstappen
and Lewis, so he lost that initial jump off
the line.
The next element is the further forward you
are, the less you have the impact of the tow
from cars in front and Stroll and Verstappen
were able to use that to good effect and get
alongside Valtteri.
The actual start itself once the reaction
time was done was competitive relative to
those three cars, but the damage was unfortunately
done right early on in that start procedure.
Once Valtteri was back in P3, we were reviewing
options and there were
really only two on the table.
The first is to go longer, force Verstappen
into an early stop, make sure he covers you
and then go much longer than him, and do an
overcut and overtake on track.
The second is obviously the undercut, the
one that is most known about, but to do that
you need to be very, very close to the car
in front and on the first stint, we simply
weren’t there.
We were dropping off the tyre curves and we
weren’t able to get close enough to Verstappen.
Understandably so, Valtteri had been fighting
through traffic to get up to that point and
had lost a little bit more of the shine outside
the tyre.
On stint two, there was an opportunity for
an undercut, a very small one.
It appeared for a lap and that was it, and
it was very marginal to take a Medium and
then undercut.
But it existed.
We debated it, it was definitely an option
that we went through on the pit wall, but
there were also options we felt by going longer
and it was really balancing those two.
Perhaps unbeknownst as well, there was a bit
of a distraction of a thunderstorm that was
taking place nearby and the concern as to
whether that could maybe push across the circuit.
All of that combined meant we left that opportunity
on the table and went for the ling stint.
Wrong decision I think in hindsight, I think
we had an opportunity to undercut, just on
that one lap around lap 39.
Either way, Valtteri did a sterling job trying
to recover, did a brilliant job getting back
into the P3 and we look forward to the next
event.
All of the top 10 were on that Soft tyre and
it was a fast tyre relative to the Medium
but had quite strong degradation and around
about lap 20 or so, that degradation started
to get higher.
We were waiting for Verstappen to stop and
see what tyres he fitted.
We had a comfortable gap with Lewis, and it
made sense to see where he would go to and
how our stint would pan out.
When Verstappen stopped, in Lewis’s case,
it was very straightforward.
We cover him and make sure we don’t lose
that buffer that he has worked so hard to
build up.
In the case of Valtteri, his tyres were also
dropping, more so than Lewis’s because he
had to fight through traffic early on in that
stint.
What we wanted to do is make sure we didn’t
lose any race time we didn’t need to to
Verstappen, to present opportunities later
in the race.
That wasn’t a stint that we were going to
be able to do anything, but if we waited,
we would lose several seconds of important
race time which could cost us later in the race
So, we decided to box both cars.
There was 10 seconds between them, and we
have a pit crew that is incredibly good at
dealing with these situations and again did
a great job on the day.
A one-stop was something that we discussed
the morning of the race and in fact as we
came into work, the temperatures were quite
a bit lower, there was a lot of cloud cover
and perhaps that may just be enough to push
us in that direction.
However, it was highlighted as an outside
opportunity.
We knew that some of the midfield cars, some
of the cars behind may try it and indeed it
be one of their best defences against some
of the cars behind them, but in our case based
on what we saw on Friday, we felt the two-stop
would be the best overall strategy for both cars
In the case of Valtteri, being caught up in
that early traffic, it really meant that we
couldn’t hit the target stop lap we needed
to get to which was around about lap 29, lap 30.
You would have seen Perez going to that lap,
some of the other cars behind trying to target
that lap.
And even then, it’s not a nailed-on one-stop,
it’s a very, very long stint to be doing
on your second tyre.
Around lap 20, our degradation increased,
and it was fairly clear from that point, that
it would be very tricky to do a one-stop.
Not impossible, but as you can see in this
plot, what we have done is illustrate what
a two-stop looks like, Soft, Medium, Medium,
which is the race that Lewis did, and what
the one-stop looks like.
And towards the end of the race, that one-stop
is in dire trouble.
Now in fact, these are the curves that we
have as an average across teams, but Valtteri
was in a worse situation on that first stint
so it would have looked even more poor than
this at the end of the race.
So, to answer the question, did we consider
it?
Absolutely, we always consider all options
going into it but on this occasion, it wasn’t
available to us.
For Valtteri’s final stop we had a choice
between a Medium and a Soft.
The Medium would have been in a new state,
the Soft was a used tyre that we had used
in Qualifying.
When we make those decisions, we review all
of the data available to us in the race.
We review what happened on the first stint
and the second stint for both of our cars.
We knew how they had performed on each of
those compounds, how fast they were, what
the life was and how they would be able to
push them at the end of the race.
We don’t just do that for ourselves, we
do that for all competitors and on balance,
the Soft was actually a faster tyre for 19
laps based on everything that we could see.
If we compare stint two, which is when we
are on the Medium, to the first stint of the
race, we were actually just a few tenths offset.
Now, some of that is going to be in the management,
some of that is going to be depending on the
car position, but there wasn’t much to tell
between the two tyres at that stage and that
was comparing a new Medium to a used Soft.
At the end of the race when Verstappen took
the Medium, it made somewhat sense to also
offset ourselves on compound to him.
The temperatures had come down, the track
was cooling, and we felt it could give us
our best opportunity.
But the reality is, on the model, both the
Medium and the Soft looked like we had an
opportunity to overtake and pass him.
As Valtteri got back out, we were surprised
that the times weren’t quite where they
needed to be and Valtteri was having to do
a lot of protection of that tyre to stop it
overheating.
More than we had anticipated and ultimately,
the pace wasn’t strong enough with that
tyre in order to get the overtake.
Following every Grand Prix, we do an in-depth
review of all of our elements, be it strategy,
aero, tyres, set-up.
We ensure that we understand and take away
what we can as lessons so we can apply them
immediately to the following Grand Prix.
Clearly following Silverstone, there was a
lot of focus on the tyre, the tyre management
and the overheating that we experienced during
the course of that race including the blistering.
We had but a few days to get on top of this
and clearly you are not going to change the
car dramatically between those two events.
Barcelona is slightly different, it’s a
higher downforce track, we run a bigger wing
than we do at Silverstone, but other than
that you are not going to fundamentally change
the design of the car.
So, you work with what you have, which is
set-up and management.
We highlighted that there were a few areas
where we weren’t quite optimum at Silverstone
if we had to go back there, but the problem
is, without racing at the same circuit and
the same conditions you can’t validate that.
And as we went into Barcelona, there were
a few tweaks on set-up and a few tweaks on
how we were going to approach the weekend
and use the tyres.
I’m happy to say that the incredible work
that was done over those, really just a few,
days really paid off during the course of
the race.
We were managing the tyres, as was Verstappen,
but when we needed a bit of performance it
was there and available.
And Lewis was just able to eke out a tenth
at a time at the key points in the race.
And really, it paid dividends.
Again, for Valtteri, the P3 car, the car that
was following the other two in the dirty air
for most of the race, and that’s what makes
overheating even worse, was able to really
bring it home, scythe through traffic and
even get just about within undercut range
of Verstappen.
That’s an incredible change of where we
were just seven days before.
Now, the reality is, are the problems fixed?
It’s unlikely.
The situation that happened at Silverstone
is different to what we had in Barcelona.
We have to keep learning; we have to keep
improving.
But what I’m happy to report is that the
conditions we had in Barcelona were some of
the most difficult this year.
It was as warm, it was as sweltering on track
and the reality behind that is, we performed
well in those conditions, and we need to keep
improving and moving forward.
We have spoken a lot about the tyres over
the last few weeks, but it’s incredibly
warm and when it’s this warm, we have ambient
temperatures around 33 degrees, track temperatures
around 55, the drivers suffer as well in these
conditions.
It’s mentally exhausting but also physically
exhausting, and to put some numbers to that,
they lost over 2 kilos of fluid during the
Barcelona Grand Prix.
They have a drinks bag and they are able to
take a little bit of fluid back on board,
but clearly, we don’t store that amount
in the car, so they are net down.
And it’s incredibly difficult, the more
laps they do the more physically exhausted
they are and you would have seen that after
the race.
Thank you very much for all of your questions
and we look forward to answering them again
after the Belgian Grand Prix
