British Grand Prix 2012
What Was The Deciding Factor In The British Grand Prix?
Page: 1
Getty Images
"The race was another intriguing battle of race strategy between the leading teams."It’s not easy living in England during the summertime. Year after year, we look forward to the months between May and September, a short window in which we hope for blisteringly hot weather so we can enjoy a glass of Pimm's in the park, a game of cricket, or strawberries and cream under the sun during Wimbledon.
But this year, predicting what the English weather will do in the summer months has been about as easy as guessing the numbers on a lottery ticket. What we’ve had so far is an unseasonably hot May, followed by a deluge of rain that has caused widespread flooding and, as we saw at this weekend’s British Grand Prix, rain of biblical proportions on the opening Friday, which turned Silverstone’s parking lot fields into bogs and led race organizers to turn tens of thousands of fans away from Saturday’s qualifying.
Not only does the changeable British weather impact fans, it also makes the job of Formula 1 team strategists an extremely taxing one. This is because they have to try to make a call on how long to run on their limited allocation of wet weather or intermediate tires during practice, as well as trying to make a call on qualifying.
Teams are accurately able to judge when a bank of rain is approaching in the pits or on the pit wall to within a matter of minutes and relay that information to the driver over the radio; this is all made possible by tapping into local weather systems via an internal F1 intranet. Meteo France, the official Formula 1 weather supplier, is so precise that it can predict everything a team needs to know about during a race, from wind strength and direction to the more vital information of when the first drops of rain will fall and where.
Of course, no system is foolproof, and even if it is accurate to within minutes, a car may still have to negotiate a sudden burst of rain on normal compound tires before completing the best part of a lap to pit for intermediates or wet tires, or risk staying out in the hope that the shower is just passing and the track will quickly dry again. But the weekend started badly, taking these complex tactical decisions out of the hands of the teams. After extreme conditions limited cars to only a handful of laps on Friday, qualifying took place in ever-changing conditions, and race organizers made the controversial decision to stop the second qualifying session with only minutes remaining after another downpour. It worked out perfectly for Fernando Alonso, who would not have made it through but for the stoppage, and he squeezed through before pipping Red Bull’s Mark Webber to his first pole in almost two years.
Sadly, for British fans, it was not a happy outing, not only because of the weather but because local heroes Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button also suffered in the conditions. Although Hamilton, renowned as a good driver in wet conditions, was fastest on the extreme wet tires during Q2, both he and Button struggled to get the intermediate compound tires operating at optimum temperature. Button failed to make it through to Q3, winding up a lowly 16th on the grid, with Hamilton starting eighth. Both cars ran with different setups in the race, which was a sign that things weren't right with the car and that they weren't confident aerodynamically. Hamilton struggled for grip on his second set of hard tires and was never able to make inroads, finishing eighth (two places ahead of Button).
For pole sitter Alonso and Webber, the race was another intriguing battle of race strategy between the leading teams -- Ferrari deciding to put Alonso on the faster-wearing soft tires at the end of the race, with Red Bull choosing to get them out of the way early on. Ultimately, Red Bull’s tactic paid dividends, with Webber reeling in and passing Alonso as the Ferrari’s softer tires started to lose grip.
What with the Grand Prix results and Andy Murray losing his first Wimbledon final to a rampant Roger Federer under a closed roof, the weather has not been kind to British sports this weekend. Oh, well, there’s always the Olympics.
The Work Mistake That Will Get You Fired
