Adam Cooper F1

Having been on the receiving end of some criticism after China Pirelli F1 boss Paul Hembery said he was satisfied with the performance of the company’s hard and medium tyres in Bahrain today.

Pirelli had intended to bring the hard and soft, but changed its mind immediately after Malaysia – well before last weekend’s race in Shanghai.

Hembery believes that teams could aim for two stops, something that Jenson Button achieved in China.

“It was pretty good,” said Hembery of Friday. “To be honest we expected the track to be a bit dirtier, when you come to circuits like this, particularly here when you can often get sand blown onto the circuit quite a lot, we  expected a little bit more dust and graining on the rear tyres, which we didn’t actually see.

“So that was good, it meant we probably had a better P1 than you’d normally have on such a track. A few people were running 22-23 laps, which is pretty much in line with what we want to see, with this sort of circuit.

“There’s a big variation between the teams in terms of the peak performance between the compounds, between 0.5s-0.8s is where we think it is. There were a few that were much bigger, but we think that’s an anomaly. We see from the wear levels that a two-stop is probably feasible, we came into the race thinking that three would be most likely, but looking at today’s data two, if there’s a little bit more track evolution, could be possible.

“Degradation levels are about 0.115 on the harder tyre, and probably up to double that on the medium. Here the harder tyre seems to be working better than it did in Malaysia, where the medium tyre was used more as the race tyre.”

Mark Webber is bullish about Red Bull’s prospects in Bahrain after finishing FP2 in second place, behind Kimi Raikkonen.

However he didn’t do as many laps as he wanted to during the afternoon, and was thus missing a little long run knowledge.

“We didn’t get to do enough laps unfortunately in P2,” said Webber. “I will have to rely on Sebastian’s data, and see how it went for him. Overall when I was on track I was not too bad at all, I’m pretty happy with the car. But never, ever rest on our laurels, there’s still areas to improve, and we need to say how we’re progressing on both cars as well in terms of developments, and pick out what we need for tomorrow.

“I think the car looks really competitive, but again we see Kimi arrive for one lap every now and again and he’s still very, very fast. Kimi is strong, Ferrari are strong, Mercedes is still there as well. It’s very, very tight, the first three or four rows are very, very tight on time, and the Force Indias are in there as well.”

Webber does of course go into qualifying with the three-place penalty he picked up in China.

“Let’s see how qualifying goes, and then after that obviously the race is more important. Especially for me with the penalty, for sure I won’t be starting on pole! But I need to clear people in the race somehow.”

Jenson Button says that McLaren’s best chance of scoring some decent points in the short term to try different strategies.

Button hauled his MP4-28 into fifth place in China after stopping only twice as opposed to the three stops of his opposition.

“I think it’s been a difficult start to the season, as we all know,” said Button. “The first race was stand-out bad for us. Since then we’ve made a lot of improvements and I think we understand the car a lot more. Here, it’s a very different circuit to Shanghai. It’s very front limited in Shanghai.

“Here it’s rear limited – tyres. Last year it was a really tricky race to look after those tyres. I’m not sure if it’s going to be the same case this year, but we will see. We’ll know a lot more at the end of practice, P3, and we can tell you a little bit more in qualifying.

“I think we’ve been improving since the first race. Every race we have made improvements, and I think maybe these circuits suit the car a little bit more, in terms of where we have to put the car in terms of set-up. But to finish fifth at the last race and to beat some very quick cars, I think to do that we had to try something different. We beat every single car on the grid, at least one of the drivers, which is positive I think.”

Button was pleased with his China performance: “P5 is not where we want to be, but I think we have to take a lot from last weekend, and yes, we had to try a different strategy, we had to try and do a two-stop. We felt that it was the quickest way for us to the end of the race, but it was very tricky to make it work, because of the stint lengths that you needed. If you didn’t make the stint length, you dropped into a three-stop race.

“By that point, you’re pretty much out of the points, so we had to make it work. A lot went into the strategy and trying to understand what we have to do with tyres and the lap time we have to do. It was a tricky weekend but in the end a good result I think we should be very happy with. And here, yeah, I think we have to wait and see.

“It’s tough on tyres round here, it’s hot, it’s tough on the cars in terms of cooling so we have to see first of all what downforce people are running and how the degradation is, to see what we do with the car. Here, I think it’s probably more likely that everyone’s going to be running the same sort of strategy but we have to wait and see.”

Fernando Alonso says it’s too early to suggest that Ferrari has the strongest race pace among the top teams.

The Spaniard insisted that not only was one win soon not enough evidence but also that Sebastian Vettel actually had the fastest package in China.

“We still don’t have the advantage with the car that people try to see now after one victory,” he said. “I think in Australia we were clearly not the quickest, in Malaysia we were struggling a little bit, especially in qualifying that was the only dry running, so we were not so good. In fact Felipe was fifth so it was not that he was dominant in the race.

“And then in China looking at the race pace I think Sebastian was the quickest all through the race, if you look at the stints, but they chose a very strange strategy on Saturday and maybe that compromised a little bit the race. I think we need to keep improving and we need to be a little bit faster. There are some new pieces coming for this race, there are also components coming for Barcelona, and Monaco. So hopefully in the next month and a half we can be at the level of the best cars.”

Alonso said he was delighted to end his victory drought in China.

“I was very happy, obviously not winning in a while is a very difficult matter, because it has been 11 or 12 races that we didn’t win a race, but we were constantly in the podium. There are many other drivers with super cars who never won a race in the last 50 or 60 races. So in a way it’s a good that after 10 races people are missing our wins, but on the other hand we know that we need to be consistent, not only winning the races, we need to be consistently on the podium if we want to fight.”

Asked about the bonus of having Vettel out of the top three he said: “It’s good not to have Sebastian on the podium, it’s good news at this moment because he’s leading the championship. But if Hamilton was leading the championship or Webber was leading the championship it’s the same case, it’s not because Sebastian is Sebastian, it’s just who it’s first in the championship. Now it’s Sebastian, so if we finish in front of him in the next couple of races it will be good.”

Lewis Hamilton expects Mercedes to be fast over one lap in Bahrain this weekend – but cautions that tyre issues are likely to mean that the team again suffers on race pace compared to its key rivals.

“The car is still the same as it was last week,” said Hamilton in Bahrain today. “So it should be quite competitive. But the tyres make a big difference, so that could play a role.”

Regarding his struggles to match his competitors on Sundays he said: “I think that will be relevant here definitely, more so here, it’s always magnified, the race pace [drop-off] and the degradation here is always worse than it is in China.

“It’s different, instead of being the front tyres, it’s the rear tyres here. I anticipate it’s going to be a very tough weekend for us. The team struggled a lot last year. We’ve made a huge step forward in terms of how we look after our tyres, so hopefully it will be a lot better this weekend than what we would imagine is going to happen.”

While there has been a lot of criticism of F1’s current tyre situation, Hamilton is adamant that he’s enjoyed the focus on getting the most out of the 2013 Pirellis.

“It’s not that easy, it’s a lot of different techniques you can have, and as I’ve always been saying there’s so much to learn, I’m always learning, and just in the last couple of months I’ve learned a couple of new techniques which happen to help quite a lot. But there’s still more I need to learn, more I need to improve. But it’s a real good challenge, even if perhaps people are not quite enjoying it.

“I do find it really difficult. I do come out of the pit stop and want to push hard and try and gain, but in actual fact it’s better to go a bit slower on those first few laps, which people are starting to notice. That’s what Kimi and Fernando and Sebastian have been doing, and their long race pace has been really good.”

Heikki Kovalainen says he’s not angling for a return to a race drive at Caterham, and insists that he’s driving in FP1 in Bahrain and Barcelona purely to assist the team with development.

“I’m here to help the race drivers right now,” he said. “My role is different to what it was before. I’m working 100% now for the team, and I’ll give all I can to help the race drivers and help the team. Naturally if I’m pushing them, hopefully that makes them even quicker, that’s what you always what in a team.

“But I think the guys have done a good job already this year. The car is not easy to drive. The car is fundamentally the same as last year, and other teams have made new cars, and it’s fallen a little bit behind. It’s going to be a tough task the race drivers are facing this year. They haven’t made any big mistakes. Charles had a pretty good race in China, so that’s really good.”

Although Kovalainen’s job is to help the team it’s also clear that his FP1 mileage on the 2013 tyres will put him high in the list of potential replacements for any team that might require a driver.

Asked by this writer if that was a consideration, he said: “Right now of course I work with Caterham, and I don’t really look at the moment anywhere else. Before that yes I was at least hoping to be in that position. But no one’s called me yet!”

In the mean time he’s just happy to be back.

“I’ve kept myself fit and well, I’ve kept in touch with the people here. If something comes up, I’m ready to jump in. Part of that preparation has paid off. I don’t need a lot of practice now to get in, but I don’t need a lot of practice, I’m fully ready to go. That’s how it is life.

“I had different offers to do some other things, but my heart wasn’t really there yet. F1 is really just what interests me, and I felt like I could still do a lot of good things here. So I kept the door open here and working at the same time to make sure if something happens I’m ready. That’s sort of what happened now.”

Heikki Kovalainen has been given an F1 development testing role by Caterham after being on the sidelines since the end of last year.

Meanwhile Alexander Rossi has landed a race seat with the sister GP2 team.
Kovalainen, who spent the Malaysian GP weekend with his former colleagues, will drive in FP1 in the next two races in Bahrain and Barcelona, in order to help the team with development.

While it might not seem much of an opportunity for the Finnish veteran, it will at least keep him sharp and give him some knowledge of the 2013 tyres.

Meanwhile erstwhile Caterham GP2 driver Ma Qing Hua has made way for Rossi, who now has a chance to use the drive as a springboard to an F1 seat.

Team principal Cyril Abiteboul said: “After Ma’s successful run in FP1 in China a number of new opportunities have arisen for him and we have decided to restructure our current line-up. Alexander moves to Caterham Racing to compete in GP2 and I am sure he will be an immediate success in that championship whilst he will continue to enjoy the link with the F1 team throughout the season.

“Heikki returns to track work with us and we are delighted to welcome him back into the team. He has six years of F1 experience behind him so he is perfectly placed to provide us objective feedback on the various types of configurations we will run and to give us an objective view of the 2013 tyres against his experience with the 2012 compounds.

“Having invested in Heikki for our first three years of competition it would be a waste not to leverage the valuable expertise he brings. As F1 is a team sport, he will also provide support to Charles Pic and Giedo van der Garde, who are both doing a good job in their first months with the team.”

Kovalainen said: “It’s obviously great news that I’ll be on track in Bahrain and Spain and I’m really looking forward to getting back to work and helping the team as much as I can. I’ll be taking part in the two FP1 sessions in Bahrain and Barcelona to give the team my input on the new parts we’re bringing to those races, and I’ll be working closely with the race drivers and the engineers on track and back at Leafield to help everyone get the most out of the new package.”

Christian Horner says he doesn’t know why Red Bull lost performance in China after being so strong in the first two races, but expects form to ebb and flow each weekend.

It was lack of one-lap pace relative to the opposition that ultimate tipped RBR towards starting on the medium tyre and using the soft at the end.

“I’m not sure, to be honest with you,” said Horner when asked about the car’s Shanghai form. “The last couple of years this track hasn’t been out strongest. It has a heavy emphasis on front wear and degradation, you tend to be front limited here rather than rear. So we’ll see next weekend whether things move around in Bahrain.

“I think we’re seeing that qualifying is paying less of a premium than trying to preserve the tyres. Our car performs very, very well, it’s a quick car, but a quick car abuses the tyre more, and the tyres can’t cope with that.

“Obviously then we have to adapt our approach and set-up and the way that we operate the car to ensure that we get more out of the tyres. It’s the same for everybody, it’s just a different way of going about things.”

Meanwhile Horner insisted that Vettel would have been at least third in China had he not got caught behind Nico Hulkenberg in the opening stint.

“Seb managed to pass Jenson, who he knew he had to clear quickly, but then Hulkenberg cruised past both of them, and that cost him quite a bit of time in that first stint.

“If Sebastian had found one more second in that first stint and not been locked up behind him his race would have been quite different. He would certainly have been on the podium, and maybe even second. I think it was the right thing to do, it was worth giving it a go.”

Stefano Domenicali says that while Fernando Alonso’s Chinese GP was welcome Ferrari has to keep scoring consistently and find more pace in order to maintain the Spaniard’s title momentum.

Alonso’s early retirement in Malaysia could prove expensive, and he’s already nine points behind Sebastian Vettel.

“I think for sure the car seems better this year, better in terms of pure performance, even if it’s not enough, because we need to make sure it’s better and better,” said Domenicali.

“For me there is one thing that we don’t have to forget if you compare with last year. Last year even if the car was not the best, let me put it this way, we were able to score a lot of points in the first half of the season. And then we lost that trace and it was more difficult. We need to score I would say relatively to the others the same kind of points, and I would say in the second half of it we can increase.

“For sure it’s a good base to work from, and what we have seen in the first three races it’s quite a difficult picture to understand. Some cars are very strong in qualifying, a bit less during the race. We also saw the other way around. For sure for us it’s important to improve the qualifying because it’s essential to try to start as [close to the] front as possible.”

Domenicali admitted that it’s hard to judge what the current pecking order is: “We have another situation in Bahrain, with different conditions. We will see where the performance of our car relative to the others will be. Personally I don’t really have a clear picture of what is really the pure performance classification, because we have to divide qualifying/race, so it’s not easy this year.”

Domenicali said that good strategy, consistent pace and getting past traffic were the keys to Alonso’s win China.

“I think what we saw already on Friday was that it seemed we had a good pace for the race, and so what I believe is the most important thing today is that really we were spot-on on the strategy.

“The difference today was the consistency in all the different situations with the race pace, that was very strong. We had a good start, and this is another thing that was very important. And I have to say that the key factor was to try to be in front of the traffic as quickly as possible, because that could present a real problem later on during the race.

“And then we also had when there was a yellow flag the fact that Fernando was behind Jenson, and we couldn’t use the DRS to get rid – in the sporting way of course! – as soon as possible, because we couldn’t really use it.

“It was a bit unfortunate but at the end of the day then he was clear and he was able to control the pace of Kimi and Lewis behind that was really the key of the success of Fernando. I’m very pleased also for him because after Malaysia it was really what he wanted and what he deserved.”

An awful weekend for Mark Webber in China was topped off by a three-place grid penalty for Bahrain following his collision with Jean-Eric Vergne

After his qualifying penalty Webber opted to start from the pits, and he did one lap on the soft tyres before abandoning them, leaving him with mediums for the duration.

He was making good progress when he made contact with Vergne. After a stop for a new nose his right rear wheel came adrift, which led to retirement and a fine for the team for an unsafe release.

“Obviously from the pitlane you’re always up against it, but in the end the first part of the race wasn’t going too bad,” he said. “We managed to pick some people off, and work the first part of the strategy not too bad, and that was going to plan.

“Unfortunately the contact with Jean-Eric wasn’t part of the plan, it wasn’t race ending, and I could still get the car back to the pits, and it was not too far off the strategy.

“There was a bit of damage to the front wing, so we had to change that. We had a pit stop which we thought went smoothly, and we have to look at why the rear tyre came off the car.”

Webber believed that the Toro Rosso driver was giving him room, even though they were battling for position.

“I thought Jean-Eric was being very, very co-operative initially, on the braking I thought that’s fair enough, we’ll roll round there together, he’s going to give me some room. But then he came down and I couldn’t get out of it at that point. It probably looks quite clumsy, I haven’t seen it obviously, but it was disappointing that we made contact.”

Regarding his recent run of problems, he said: “When you get a little bit in the shit, then the shit can keep on coming. If we had a smooth qualifying, it makes the race a little bit more straightforward. But in the end you start from the pitlane, you can still get something from there, which clearly was the target, and everything was going completely on target until we had contact with Jean-Eric.”