james Allen

[FAn]

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2011/03/a-...melbourne/



Alonso battles Petrov (Ferrari)

Massa and Alonso: Ferrari on the back foot

Testing had indicated that the Ferrari was the second fastest car behind the Red Bull, with Ferrari competitive on long runs. But in Melbourne the car proved to be harder on its tyres than its rivals and this pushed them down the road of having to stop three times. They will have to get on top of this problem quickly if they are to compete for the title this year.

Alonso started fifth on the grid, but lost four places at the start. He passed Rosberg and Massa and gained another place when Button was penalised for an illegal overtake. But the Ferrari was proving hard on its tyres and he suddenly lost performance around lap 10/11. He had to stop on lap 12, coming out behind Petrov. Despite his setback at the start he was in the hunt for a podium against Webber and Petrov, who was only going to stop twice. Normally when you have a bad start you try to stop less often than your rivals, to regain track position, but that wasn’t an option for Ferrari.

The three stopper did allow him to push hard in each stint and it got him ahead of Webber at the final stop.

Renault could see what Alonso was doing, but did not react and stuck to their plan to stop twice. Alonso pushed hard, closing the gap to Petrov to 19 seconds, when the Russian pitted for the second time on lap 36. Alonso’s plan at this stage was to pit again leaving him enough laps at the end to catch Petrov using the advantage of new tyres against old ones. First he had to jump Webber and he managed that by staying out one lap longer before the final stop on lap 42.

Alonso then caught Petrov at over a second a lap in the closing stages, but the plan didn’t work because the soft tyres on the Renault held up well enough now that the car was running light on fuel and the track was rubbering in and being kinder to tyres. Petrov held his nerve and Alonso ran out of laps in which to pass him.

En la RAI enseñaron las ruedas de cuando cambiaron los neumáticos a Alonso y el ingeniero que tienen en la cadena de TV dijo que no tenían ninguna degradación , que aún podían aguantar más vueltas.

Cuando acabó la carrera comentaron que parecía como si en Ferrari hubiesen calcado de nuevo la estrategia a Webber para medirse con ellos y batirle a él porque lo consideran más rival que el de Renault, cosa que luego vino a confirmar Fernando en sus declaraciones. Aunque si no llega a ser por el fallo de boxes con la rueda y de Webber en su salida de pista no se yo si les habría salido bien.....

Y no olvidemos las palabras de principio de la carrera de Marc Gené sobre la estrategia referente de que a ellos les salía en el programa que tenían en el ordenador que a 3 paradas era más rápido que a 2. Creo que de nuevo les faltó improvisación (la que tuvieron en Monza el año pasado) cuando vieron que Petrov estaba delante de Alonso y podían adelantarlo con la estrategia y se cebaron en adelantar a Webber por lo dicho , porque lo consideran más rival al llevar uno de los Red Bull. Ahí perdieron la oportunidad de rebasar al ruso por el podio. No arriesgaron lo más mínimo en la estrategia.

Fernando dijo despues de la carrera que después de la parada iban a salir con mucha ventaja de tiempo por vuelta con respecto a petrov, pero que al final los neumaticos duros (que llevaba petrov) aguantaron más de lo previsto. Osea que si que tenian intencion de adelantar a petrov