The Japanese Grand Prix was all about race strategy. With tyre wear much more tricky to manage than expected, throughout the field the drivers who succeeded were the ones whose teams got the strategy right, not just on race day but on qualifying day too.
(Sorry, habe die Übersetzung nicht geschafft, wegen Arbeit. Die Übersetzung kostet mich rund 1.5 Stunden und der Text kam gestern Abend sehr spät an. Da ich heute den ganzen Tag auf Achse bin, geht es leider nicht anders. Ist aber sehr lesenswert, weil James haarscharf analysiert, warum Alonso trotz eines deutlich langsameren Wagens in der Lage war, Vettel zu schlagen!)
There were some pretty contrasting races at the front. Of the top three, Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull had the worst tyre performance and Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari had the best. Alonso was nowhere near as quick as Vettel at the start of each of the stints, but he was always the quickest of the three cars at the end of the stints, with much less tyre drop off. This gave him the opportunity to take second place, despite only having the car pace to qualify 5th. Meanwhile the race winner Jenson Button had the pace to stay with Vettel early on and was able to manage his tyres better in the opening stint so that he could pit a lap later than the world champion and emerge in front of him. But it wasn’t easy for him; as the McLaren has got quicker this year, its tyre performance has edged closer to that of Red Bull, as you would expect given that it’s putting more load through the tyres.
