Toro Rosso: Only Buemi makes three-stopper work

2011 Turkish GP team review

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Buemi scored points with a three-stopper but Alguersuari had to make an extra stop.

Sebastien BuemiJaime Alguersuari
Qualifying position1617
Qualifying time comparison (Q2)1’27.255 (-0.317)1’27.572
Race position916
Laps58/5857/58
Pit stops34

Toro Rosso drivers’ lap times throughout the race (in seconds):

https://www.racefans.net/charts/2011drivercolours.csv

12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243444546474849505152535455565758
Sebastien Buemi104.23396.26395.93695.37795.74694.99195.92495.59995.866110.59393.9195.89295.1794.09793.80693.90693.90793.48393.7294.14294.26396.03896.649110.64792.39292.54292.65492.892.5392.51392.62392.76892.94193.55593.57693.24693.1793.41394.19395.818109.99891.51291.5691.3692.17992.36992.28992.38492.22191.47291.82591.77791.95992.88192.29992.12292.43793.416
Jaime Alguersuari106.0996.90396.34796.09796.0195.60495.82297.17796.39897.03497.24297.4499.363113.79293.93393.83293.54793.15793.45893.36594.3293.81893.62493.2993.68594.99293.97894.394.648109.7392.5292.06591.76192.1592.93693.03193.4793.74493.371109.06890.91791.46992.39492.3691.55591.3291.40691.81192.17192.43192.65493.1794.14496.23196.953107.61889.894
Sebastien Buemi, Toro Rosso, Istanbul, 2011

Sebastien Buemi

Out-qualified his team mate by three tenths of a second. But the gap was rather bigger at the end of the race.

Buemi was one of few drivers to successfully pull off a three-stop strategy, thanks to his long second and third stints on soft tyres, during which time he ran as high as fifth.

He was in seventh place with five laps to go but couldn’t keep Nick Heidfeld and Vitaly Petrov behind – the latter passing him on the final lap.

Sebastien Buemi 2011 form guide

Jaime Alguersuari

Alguersuari made the unusual move of starting the race on hard tyres. But he abandoned his attempt to run a three-stop strategy and had to make an extra pit stop at the end of the race which dropped him to 16th.

He managed a single lap on his new set of tyres at the end of the race and set the second-fastest lap with a time of 1’29.894.

Jaime Alguersuari 2011 form guide

2011 Turkish Grand Prix

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    Author information

    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    27 comments on “Toro Rosso: Only Buemi makes three-stopper work”

    1. colours on the graph are extremely similar, more so than normal!

      would it not be a whole lot easier to just use for example, black and orange for the two data lines on each team-by-team analysis, because otherwise they’re slightly more difficult than they should be to look at.

      1. more so than normal

        The colours haven’t changed since the last race. They are themed to each team to make the graphs with all 24 drivers on easier to follow.

        To make distinguishing between them easier you can hover over each line and it identifies which driver is which. Plus, of course, you can toggle lines on and off.

        1. The colours look fine to me.

        2. Yes, fair enough for when tracking all 24 drivers on one graph, but I think it would still be so much clearer for on (as I originally said) the team by team analyses for completely different colours to be used. But that’s just me I guess. I’ll use the mouse hover trick

          1. Then I’d have people complaining that drivers have different colours in different graphs.

            1. Ahh fair enough! I see you picked the lesser of two evils. Ill quit complaining now!

            2. Yes, in fact comparing Hamilton and Alonso in the race-analysis article was somewhat difficult in the light I had :)

    2. I suspect Alguersuari’s days are numbered.

      1. He looked timid didn’t he

        1. I don’t know – I hardly saw him.

          But I think I’d prefer Alguersuari staying in the sport to Buemi. Buemi just seems to be the latest victim of Button Syndrome, getting caught up in the lifestyle of a Formula 1 driver rather than being interested in Formula 1 as a driver. He openly coveted Mark Webber’s Red Bull seat lst year, and it hurt him. Alguersuari, on the other hand, knuckled down and did some good stuff; he proved he has the work ethic.

          1. Jonesinator17
            9th May 2011, 13:53

            As a fan of Buemi i will have to disagree. ;)

            But i will try and explain my reasoning slightly at least as it’s part of the reason i find myself supporting him more and more. At the end of last year there was a lot of pressure on Buemi, the team bosses had basically come out and supported Jaime(fair enough he ended the year stronger) and Ricciardo was pointed at as the saviour ready to come in so Seb was on the way out. What did Buemi do? He got some new management, went on a strength and conditioning programme as he thought that was one of his failings and then has come back under huge pressure this year and out performed his team mate and managed to get the same number of points in a Toro Rosso as Schuey in a Mercedes. I see that as knuckling down.
            I also see myself as a very one eyed so i understand if anyone who follows Jaime has a completely different view. But if you look at who has performed since the heat has really been on, it has to be Seb.

            1. I agree with you, and I have no real preference of the two. Last year I thought Alguersuari was greatly improving, but Buemi is always ahead.

            2. He’s definitely a driver who’s had some bad luck as well. If you look at the number of first lap first corner incidents he was involved in last year, his results certainly don’t always reflect his pace. This year he’s done a much better job so far of keeping his nose clean in the opening stages of a race, and I think that more than anything is the reason for the perceived improvement. I do however think Jaime’s got a bit more of something special than Buemi. He’s been staggeringly fast in sessions that were in changing conditions (either going from wet to dry or vice versa), and never seems afraid to test the conditions. Wasn’t he the only driv to post a time in FP3 at Suzuka last year?

      2. Hmmm yeah, the thing is he’s a good driver. Unfortunately though yesterday was more about strategy than driver skill.

        1. The last two races just did not go to plan for him, but not through fault of his own. But Buemi gets the better of him in qualifying.

        2. You can’t make a strategy work without skill.

      3. Seriously, Toro Rosso should stick two fingers up to Marko and poach an experienced driver from another team to accompany Ricciardo next year.

        I know Sauber aren’t doing too badly with Perez and Kobayashi but they had de la Rosa and Heidfield to work on the car last year.

    3. Ricciardo in. For any of them. Don’t really care.. Both of them does a poor job a bit too often =/ I liked jamie but he seems to fall behind Buemi lately..

    4. Recently Buemi is doing quite better than Jaime.

    5. Jaime was slower in qualifying but you have to consider that he did one attempt less in Q2 in order to have a new set of tyres for the race. During the race however he had problems with the car.

    6. Buemi seems to be very good at saving his tyres.

      I remember that he also put in a very good drive at Canada 2010 in similar circumstances.

      1. Both STR’s looked after their tyres well in Melbourne I think.

    7. Adrian Morse
      9th May 2011, 14:47

      Keith, Alguersuari did a 1m29.8s

      1. Typo. Fixed. Ta.

    8. Buemi finished the race in the points absolutely under the rader.He was shown in the top 5 briefly but come at the end of the race I was surprised to see his name P9.

    9. From the lap chart it looks like Alguersuari’s third stint was cut short. I wonder what that was about. If he’d been able to stay out a couple laps longer in that stint, he likely wouldn’t have needed the extra pit stop at the end,

    10. A good result from Buemi. There’s just next to no consistency with STR though, next race I bet Buemi is back down the field considerably.

    Comments are closed.