Barcelona, May 10, 2015 – A variety of different two-stop and three-stop strategies characterised the battle for the podium at the Spanish Grand Prix a closely poised race where tyre strategy made a crucial difference.
While Nico Rosberg led from start to finish for the first time all year, stopping just twice, his Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton went head-to-head against Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel on opposing tyre strategies.
Hamilton adopted a three-stop strategy, after dropping some places at the start. Vettel stuck with a two-stop strategy meaning that he had to hold of Hamilton’s faster car in the closing stages of the race, once more guaranteeing a thrilling finale.
Rosberg used the medium-medium-hard strategy that we predicted as being the most likely scenario before the start of the race, eventually winning by half a minute. In fact, all the drivers chose to start the grand prix on the medium tyre, which was up to 1.5 seconds faster than the hard compound in Friday’s second free practice session.
Hamilton, however, converted to a three-stopper – with two opening stints on the medium and then a penultimate stint on the hard tyre, which gave him the flexibility not to have to stop again if necessary.
Williams driver Felipe Massa was the only driver to use the same strategy as Hamilton, ending up sixth from ninth on the grid.
After a disappointing qualifying, Kimi Raikkonen adopted an alternative two-stop strategy. The Finn used the hard tyre for his middle stint with the aim of benefitting from the extra speed of the medium at the end of the race, in a battle against his countryman Valtteri Bottas (Williams).
With wear and degradation very much in line with expectations, both two and three stops were equally possible, with drivers and teams able to adapt their strategies to suit their particular race circumstances.
The teams will now remain in Barcelona for the first in-season test on Tuesday and Wednesday, where a number of third drivers will be taking the wheel as well as the regular pilots.
Nico Rosberg -We had a perfect weekend here in Spain. We have a fantastic car and everybody did a really great job in the break, so thanks to the team for everything. My start was great for the first time this season. From there I was able to control the pace and I never felt in danger throughout the whole race. I’m so happy about this win. It’s still early days in the season so it’s good to close the points gap to Lewis. I will continue to push hard – starting with a home race for me in Monaco!
Lewis Hamilton –I got off to a poor start with too much wheel spin and had to fight hard just to keep third. From there it was always going to be tough as it’s difficult to run right behind another car here and even tougher to pass. I managed to stay close enough to Seb before the first stops but unfortunately we lost a bit of time there. In the end, we went for a three stop strategy to try something different. That call was made quite early on as it was clear it wouldn’t have worked to stay out for that long and, again, passing on track was almost impossible. Luckily we had the pace to make it work. Nico was then 22 seconds ahead with 15 laps to go which was a big gap. I pushed really hard to close up until about 6 laps from the end but I was only gaining about a second per lap which wasn’t enough. So, damage limitation on a difficult weekend for me. But I’m grateful that I could score some good points for the team.
Sebastian Vettel: “All in all, I think third is the best we could do for the pace we had. I don’t think there’s anything wrong, it think it was just something coming together and maybe this is not the best week end for us in terms of competitiveness, but I believe it’s probably more down to conditions rather then something being wrong with the car. For some reasons we didn’t find the same rhythm of the last two events, but I’m sure that in a couple of races we’ll come back stronger. In terms of strategy, we went for two stops because we thought it would have been the best choice for the race: we have to be fair and accept the fact that Mercedes was the best team today. I think we’re going in the right direction. We know that there is a gap, but we’re fighting make it soon”.
Toto Wolff, Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport
That feels like two P1 results today after such a demanding race. Nico did the perfect job this afternoon: he had a great start, built the gaps that he needed and made his two-stop strategy work in a fantastic way. He was controlled and composed throughout. Lewis lost a position on the start, then had a slow first pit stop, and that left him stuck behind Vettel’s Ferrari in the second stint. At that point, we knew that the only chance of getting past Sebastian was to do something different with the strategy but it was still a bold move to try the three-stopper. It was only going to work if Lewis managed to overtake on track and he made it work with great moves on Räikkönen and Bottas – he was decisive when he needed to be and showed some incredible pace on the prime tyre. As Lewis was building the gap he needed ahead of Sebastian in his third stint, we actually compromised Nico a little bit by leaving him out longer than optimum before his second stop. This made sure the two cars didn’t trip over each other on track, while running different strategies, and gave Lewis the clear air he needed to build the gap to secure P2. Following Lewis’ final stop, it was clear after a few laps pushing that the pace difference between the cars wasn’t big enough for him to challenge for the win, so we then told both drivers to bring the car home. It’s a great feeling to take a one-two finish at this circuit, which is a really severe test for the complete car package, and a confirmation that the updates we brought in a number of areas correlated to the track and delivered a good performance improvement. Well done to everybody back at both factories, now we will get our heads down and start working for Monaco.
