24-09-2014, 22:39
http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2014/09/a-...om-alonso/
Fernando Alonso
Alonso – caught between a rock and a hard place
The Singapore Grand Prix showed a more competitive Ferrari, but this result will seem like a missed opportunity to the Scuderia, as they know they could have finished second, equaling their best result of the season.
Alonso missed the chance to qualify third on Saturday; the lap time was in the car, but he couldn’t put his three best sectors together in one lap. He made up for it at the start, by passing both Red Bulls, but had to give one place back for cutting a corner. Nevertheless he was back in second place after the second round of pit stops, thanks to an undercut on Lap 24, where he took Supersofts and got ahead of Vettel. But the plan was destroyed by the Safety Car, for which Red Bull were better prepared (see above).
It meant that after just seven laps in that third stint, Alonso had to pit again for softs. Had he not pitted under the Safety Car, rejoining fourth, he would have lost far more places by pitting later, rejoining into traffic and then having to overtake many cars to get back to fourth or better.
Had he stayed out on supersofts and gone to Lap 45, for example, he would have rejoined in heavy traffic. He would still have been obliged to take Softs, as he had not yet used them. Vergne did something similar and went from 14th to 6th, so it was possible to pass cars, but the pack ahead of Vergne was more closely bunched than the front runners Alonso was racing against and so there’s no evidence that Alonso would have been able to get a better result than 4th by doing what Vergne did.
He would need to have matched Hamilton’s pace for 10 laps after the Safety Car to clear the traffic and attack the Red Bulls at the end. Ferrari clearly didn’t think that was possible.
He also had some difficulties warming up the Soft tyres; it took three laps after the Safety Car was withdrawn for Alonso to get close to the Red Bull’s lap times.
Another less well reported fact is that brake temperatures were very high for all runners and this conditioned how hard they could push throughout the race. Hamilton was fortunate that Rosberg was sidelined, not just because he was able to score 25 unanswered points, but also because a hard race with Rosberg would have risked overheating his brakes.
Fernando Alonso
Alonso – caught between a rock and a hard place
The Singapore Grand Prix showed a more competitive Ferrari, but this result will seem like a missed opportunity to the Scuderia, as they know they could have finished second, equaling their best result of the season.
Alonso missed the chance to qualify third on Saturday; the lap time was in the car, but he couldn’t put his three best sectors together in one lap. He made up for it at the start, by passing both Red Bulls, but had to give one place back for cutting a corner. Nevertheless he was back in second place after the second round of pit stops, thanks to an undercut on Lap 24, where he took Supersofts and got ahead of Vettel. But the plan was destroyed by the Safety Car, for which Red Bull were better prepared (see above).
It meant that after just seven laps in that third stint, Alonso had to pit again for softs. Had he not pitted under the Safety Car, rejoining fourth, he would have lost far more places by pitting later, rejoining into traffic and then having to overtake many cars to get back to fourth or better.
Had he stayed out on supersofts and gone to Lap 45, for example, he would have rejoined in heavy traffic. He would still have been obliged to take Softs, as he had not yet used them. Vergne did something similar and went from 14th to 6th, so it was possible to pass cars, but the pack ahead of Vergne was more closely bunched than the front runners Alonso was racing against and so there’s no evidence that Alonso would have been able to get a better result than 4th by doing what Vergne did.
He would need to have matched Hamilton’s pace for 10 laps after the Safety Car to clear the traffic and attack the Red Bulls at the end. Ferrari clearly didn’t think that was possible.
He also had some difficulties warming up the Soft tyres; it took three laps after the Safety Car was withdrawn for Alonso to get close to the Red Bull’s lap times.
Another less well reported fact is that brake temperatures were very high for all runners and this conditioned how hard they could push throughout the race. Hamilton was fortunate that Rosberg was sidelined, not just because he was able to score 25 unanswered points, but also because a hard race with Rosberg would have risked overheating his brakes.
Fernando es de otro planeta