Rosberg on pole, eh? Don’t think many saw that coming. The last time he was on pole, we were all certain that he would fall back in the race, and we’re equally sure this time. Last time he won. Surely it won’t happen again…
It is to the Ferraris on the second row that all eyes turn after the performance on Friday. With the most likely opposition from the race runs starting on the fourth row, Ferrari must go in to the race as heavy favourites. The big unknowns are the race performance of the Red Bull – Vettel looks on again to maximise a difficult weekend, and quite what the Force Indias might manage. With penalties it looks like they’ll share the third row. They are definitely podium candidates. As for the pole sitter – I imagine that a top five finish would be considered a success.
It will be interesting to see if Raikkonen can make progress from his starting position (seventh after penalties I think). I would expect it, and it looks like two stop race will be possible for some cars. Certainly I’m expecting McLaren to try it again – with the other major candidates being Lotus and Force India. By my reckoning, a two stop race is worth about 5-10 seconds in race time over a three stop, depending on quite how large the degradation is. If the degradation is significantly less than Friday, and it usually is less, then a two stop race will be clearly faster if the tyres last.
The mediums appear to be worth a little over the hards – maybe about 0.2s per lap, and being able to run mediums rather than hards for a stint will be worth of the order of 3s, and new tyres instead of old about 5s. All these little bits can add up to quite a lot after 57 laps.
I’ll be very interested to see if Hamilton can make progress – because I wouldn’t expect him to get very far, and he is likely to have his hands full with McLarens and Toro Rossos. Based on Friday, Webber has a much better shout at forward progress, as does (depending on which Romain turns up) Grosjean. Hamilton will almost certainly be much faster than he was yesterday, but it probably won’t be enough.
So, all set for an interesting race. But probably for second…
Postscript: This is shorter than usual, mainly because I’m away with (real) work next week – so it will be Friday before any of the race analysis is posted.
intelligentF1 
mattpt55
April 20, 2013
Booo…Real work. I will raise my hand and state that Rosberg on pole did not occur to me in the slightest. I’m also wondering if Hamilton’s lack of pace may have been ultimately related to the rear suspension failure he suffered. I will stick my neck out and say I am not convinced that FI can get a podium, but not due to outright pace, but rather the other things (pit stops, strategy calls) that I feel they haven’t quite got up to par with, at least relative to the top 4 teams at the moment. That’s just my impression though (well pit stop time not so much), rather than actual data.
I hope all this intrigue and penalties make the race a little more exciting than usual, although I must confess I feel robbed that we have yet to see Vettel and Webber settle their differences on track. One can always hope.
And now for a little real work myself.
intelligentf1
April 20, 2013
Good thought on Hamilton – maybe. You could also be right about Force India – but the possibility after qualifying that they could be genuine contenders is quite something… Let’s hope they have a clean race – they haven’t managed that for a bit…
Seb vs. Mark will come – and the waiting will make it better…
lt50
April 20, 2013
I was surprised by Mercedes’ pace. I just don’t understand how they cannot transfer that into race pace. They have been having this problem for a number of years already and yet they couldn’t solve it. Maybe it has to do with the way they construct the car that is heavy on tyres.
But honestly from watching f1 for so many years, I have not seen a team unable to transfer their qualifying pace into race pace. I mean it is that simply. If you can go fast in qualifying, you should also go fast on race pace. I was hoping that the way they have improve the car into qualifying top position can also be translated into race pace. But that is wishful thinking.
Nice work intelligentf1. I was wondering whether you watch the FP3, whether Mercedes
improve in their long stint. I couldn’t tell actually.
intelligentf1
April 20, 2013
The requirements to be fast in qualifying and fast in the race were essentially the same in the refuelling years. The cars never had that much fuel onboard. When Pirelli started providing higher deg tyres to spice up the show, this meant that the way the tyres are used optimally in qualifying is very different from the use in the race. Therefore, which is great for the fans, a fast qualifying car is not necessarily a fast race car. There is a compromise involved, and Mercedes’ design philosophy is skewed too much in favour of pure performance (as I guess is Red Bull’s) for the current regs/tyres.
There are trends – a fast car is a fast car – if the pace gaps were 4s covering the top ten (as in the 1980s) not 1s, the order of the cars from qualifying to race would not change much – just the relative gaps. So we are seeing much more effect because the field is close – long may it continue…
The long runs in FP3 were done with much lower fuel loads – which makes it much harder to do anything meaningful. I don’t think I can gain much from it.
SamH
April 20, 2013
Any speculation on whether Massa can spring a surprise starting on the hards or do you think it isn’t a significant differential?
intelligentf1
April 20, 2013
Cant’ see it making a huge difference. The tyres last longer, but the pace difference is small. It may help those who are thinking about two-stopping to see how far he gets. He may become a factor if his pace is good – but he hasn’t been close to Alonso so far this year, and I think that’s part of the reason for going to hards.
grav4
April 20, 2013
Nobody saw it coming.Thanks again for the analysis. I think Rosberg pole is more due to others (ALO, RAI) failing to quantify the performance they had shown earlier combined with ROS outperforming himself. Sad that RAI could not find the performance gain others found in Q3,or at least match his Q2 time, he would be starting 4th next to ALO after penalties, which should make it more thrilling for us fans. Now with MAS going for a long first stint and Force Indias having 6km/h higher top speed, it seems ALO has half work done for tomorrow, should there be a normal race. VET also seems to be getting the best from a not so good weekend. Intelligentf1 it seems Force Indias, confirmed your expectations based on pace analysis, looking good for a podium, unless they mess up again.
Tom Millard (@tommillard)
April 21, 2013
Very very hot at the track by all accounts. Might tilt the playing field back towards Lotus, although Kimi will have to get past the other two-stoppers (presumably both Force Indias).
We didn’t see any super-hot track temps across the Malaysia weekend so not easy to estimate how each car will be affected by the thermal deg. Anyone any thoughts?
grav4
April 21, 2013
Thinks Lotus’ balance might have been affected by the cooler Saturday temp in quali. Could be better today, but as said in my previous post, given the 2 stoppers (FI) in front of him and MAS on a long first stint,I think have damage is done (given a normal race)(hasn’t even saved tyres as GRO). Alonso should be well in front but race for second should be exciting. But then let’s wait and see, that’s why we love Formula1.
Tom Millard (@tommillard)
April 21, 2013
You’re probably right. But if (if) the Lotus is faster than the Force India in the first stint, the DRS should be enough for him to cruise by. Will definitely be interesting to see the behaviour of the tyres of each car at extremes.
Bert
April 23, 2013
I can’t wait for your race analysis i am really looking forward to it. I think a lot of your predictions came true. But in real life unexpected things happens. I wonder and probably a lot of others too, if Alonso could have been fighting with Vettel without the DRS problem. I think his pace was really good but in the last stint it looked like he also had a very high tyre degradation and could not fight for more points anymore. Hamiltons pace was in the beginning really bad and later on it was better but nothing to write home about in my opinion. So I was really surprised he managed to get to the fifth place. And everybody talks about the bad performance of Mclaren. But I thought they had a much better performance than in the other three races. But with races against each other they gave their advantage away. And when you look at the tyre punctions from Hamilton and Massa it looked like it was not due to debris I think. Maybe a stupid question but do you think it is allowed in F1 to cool the tyres with water like they do with drifting. That will give a real advantage in controlling the tyre temperature. Maybe a bit more weight with carrying the water.