Bahrain 2009: Pitstop & Fuel Strategies

So Kazuki had another stop to do despite having got to lap 50 with only two stops.

I’m not sure if he changed his tyres during the first unscheduled stop when he had his nose replaced. I think Kazuki was looking to run the preferred super-soft for most of the race and dive into the pits just before the end for hards. Or, and this is a very big or I could have made a mistake. It’s easy to do when the cameras rarely focus on the back markers. I’ll check out the post-race comments to see if Nakajima or the team shed any light on it.

Update: Autosport (and therefore Bridgestone who supply them with the data) seem to agree with me over the choice of tyres, and Kazuki definitely retired on either lap 49 or 50.

I was about to suggest that maybe Nakajima swapped to the harder compound at his first unscheduled pitstop, as 29 laps on the soft doesn’t sound too right. But Heidfeld did 34 laps on the soft compound, so I think it is possible. Massa also did 27 on the same tyre as well. Perhaps not the best of strategies, but possible nonetheless.

No problem Ollie. I always hated the terms ‘prime’ and ‘option’. They are totally meaningless, and I believe they even change which is the softer of the two? Best to stick to ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ in my view.

Is it just me, or is Force India copying the McLaren pitcrew helmet design as well? {Gman – previous comment}

Looks like it! Hopefully nobody is going to call in the FIA over this apparent sharing of supplier…