McLaren: Another collision, another penalty for Hamilton

2011 Singapore GP team review

September 26, 2011 at 7:48 pm by Keith Collantine

Lewis Hamilton’s troubled season continued in Singapore after another collision with a rival.

	Lewis Hamilton	Jenson Button
Qualifying position	4	3
Qualifying time comparison (Q3)	1’44.809 (+0.005)	1’44.804
Race position	5	2
Laps	61/61	61/61
Pit stops	4	3

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

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/charts/2011drivercolours.csv

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40	41	42	43	44	45	46	47	48	49	50	51	52	53	54	55	56	57	58	59	60	61
Lewis Hamilton	124.841	117.452	116.933	115.442	115.347	115.268	114.993	115.446	116.511	118.763	126.045	139.334	124.824	139.272	125.744	130.988	114.525	113.867	114.328	115.284	115.676	114.928	116.555	115.565	114.994	113.744	114.575	114.442	138.057	160.249	125.624	122.074	127.058	116.596	119.272	116.214	114.291	113.325	113.189	111.623	111.702	111.69	112.795	113.007	113.368	113.503	114.416	124.756	133.334	112.778	112.257	112.805	112.066	110.832	112.765	112.411	111.633	112.262	113.816	113.585	115.484
Jenson Button	119.507	116.428	115.779	115.41	115.43	115.484	115.104	114.991	115.285	115.282	115.604	115.68	116.511	124.378	135.594	114.354	114.155	114.356	114.322	114.322	114.063	114.107	114.917	114.114	114.702	115.713	113.876	113.6	114.059	146.125	159.646	166.74	159.95	116.023	112.181	112.873	112.246	112.201	112.017	111.984	111.712	111.698	111.665	111.908	112.123	111.987	112.647	120.256	132.904	110.4	111.441	111.061	109.293	108.454	108.704	108.712	109.001	109.153	111.929	111.22	113.113

Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, Singapore, 2011

Start tyre	Super soft
Pit stop 1	Super soft 30.142s
Pit stop 2	Soft 33.456s
Pit stop 3	Super soft 30.706s
Pit stop 4	Soft 29.876s

Hamilton described his qualifying session as “eventful”. He damaged part of the car’s floor in Q1 which was repaired for the next session.

He picked up a puncture in Q2 when he ran over debris from Kamui Kobayashi’s crash and didn’t have enough fuel in Q3:

“We had an issue with the refuelling process – we couldn’t get enough fuel into the car quick enough. In the end, we just ran out of time, so I couldn’t fit in my final run.”

McLaren request that Hamilton be allowed to change his damaged tyre before the race but were denied, costing him a set of super soft tyres. In the event, that was the least of his problems.

Hamilton made a good start but cautiously backing out of a lunge down the inside of Mark Webber cost him – he slipped down to seventh and then to cap it all was passed by Michael Schumacher heading into turn seven.

On lap four Schumacher ran slightly wide at turn five, Hamilton pressed his DRS button and he was past the Mercedes much more quickly than he had been in Monza. The next time by he took the sister car of Nico Rosberg.

It took Hamilton four laps to get within range of Felipe Massa. The pair pitted together on lap 11 and Hamilton came out right behind the Ferrari.

He had a look on the outside of Memorial corner and was in the process of pulling back behind the Ferrari when he carelessly clipped Massa’s right-rear tyre with his front wing, damaging both.

Unusually, McLaren kept him out for a lap with the left-hand portion of his front wing completely destroyed. They then switched him to the soft tyres with the intention of keeping him out as long as possible.

The stewards handed Hamilton a drive-through penalty – a straightforward and non-controversial decision given that he had wrecked Massa’s race. He served it on lap 16.

When the safety car came out Hamilton had done 16 laps on his soft tyres and the team decided to switch him to super softs so he could attack in the final stint.

This he did, passing Sergio Perez, Adrian Sutil, Nico Rosberg and Paul di Resta in succession to take fifth.

He had to repeat the process having made a final stop for another set of tyres on lap 48.

Massa claimed Hamilton ignored him in the media area afterwards. The Ferrari driver was seen interrupting a television interview with Hamilton to sarcastically tell him “good job, well done”.

Hamilton does not appear to have made any comment about his latest collision at the moment, making only passing reference to it in his remarks after the race.

Lewis Hamilton 2011 form guide

Jenson Button

Jenson Button, Sebastian Vettel, Singapore, 2011

Start tyre	Super soft
Pit stop 1	Soft 30.169s
Pit stop 2	Soft 29.921s
Pit stop 3	Super soft 30.305s

Button out-qualified Hamilton for the fourth time this year but was concerned about tyre temperatures: “We’re putting a lot of heat into the tyres – so if we push hard in the first sector, we lose rear-end grip by the third sector.

“It’s difficult trying to find that balance, but I think we got reasonably close to it this evening.”

Button, who took medication for dehydration and a stomach complaint before the race, easily out-dragged Webber to take second place at the start – and held the place for every lap of the race.

He dropped back from Sebastian Vettel early on and although he gained some ground during the safety car period, he lost more time passing lapped cars.

Kamui Kobayashi proved particularly troublesome, earning himself a drive-through penalty after badly delaying Button

Button found more time than Vettel in his final stint on super soft tyres and cut Vettel’s lead from 12.7 seconds on lap 52 to 6.5 on lap 57.

From that point the gap between them varied wildly as they passed through large clumps of lapped cars.

Button started the final lap 6.5 seconds behind Vettel and ended it just 1.7 behind – the narrowest the margin had been all race.

He had some complaints about traffic after the race, but stopped short of saying it cost him a potential win: “If you look at the time at the end of the race, I was 1.7s behind Sebastian. I lost more than that behind Kobayashi but I’m sure Seb would have been driving at a different pace if he knew I was four seconds closer.

“The traffic that we had today is disappointing, I would say and it’s something that we need to concentrate on for the next race because I spent over a lap behind Kobayashi.

“There was no reason for him not to let me past, he had a clear circuit in front and I was lapping him, so very, very frustrating and something that we need to resolve for the future.”

Jenson Button 2011 form guide

2011 Singapore Grand Prix

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145 comments on McLaren: Another collision, another penalty for Hamilton

IceBlue (@iceblue) said on 27th September 2011, 23:00

Louis Hamilton missed winning the F1 Championship in his rookie year for one reason: Louis Hamilton. It’s been about the same since 2008. Fewer mistakes means a better chance at the Championship….except for Vettel, that is.

- F1 98 said on 28th September 2011, 1:22
  
  Lewis
  
Rlewis said on 28th September 2011, 0:11

I believe that when this season ends everyone will have the opportunity to truly assess how the rules changes affected the drivers. For those of us who have followed the sport for more than 30 years it is clear that the change to tires, DRS and Kees have played well to some, and not so well to others. Notice that in most cases most drivers are competing more with their own teammates than with anyone else. This is not a big deal for the lower teams but it is for those that offer parity to their drivers. All of the top teams have shown their strengths and weaknesses despite changes over the season. The Ferrari is a great car, it has good mid range performance which seems to drop off at the end. The red bull seems to be great for the first 2 thirds of the race, drops a bit near the end, but can hold it’s own thanks to raw mechanical and aero grip. The mcLaren seems to be a bit sluggish for the first half and tends to pick it up on light fuel loads. This means that they must stay very close to have any chance of a good finish.

What I see in this season, outside of the excessive penalties, is that all of the drivers, with the exception of Vettel, trying to make the best of their hands over the weekend. It seems that Lewis has had to work a bit harder to get himself into position to be competitive at the end. Button, for whatever reason has been a bit lucky, but he has made that luck and taken full advantage of it. Unlike last years car which was built a bit more around Lewis, considering that Jenson was not then a part of the team, this years car seems to work well for both. Alonso has the full ear of Ferrari but there car just does not show any special pace. The red bull has evolved a bit around Seb, but the car works well in all areas. Webber has not been a big challenge, but he does keep the others honest.

This is the first season for the new rules and I am sure that there will be changes. Some drivers will have the chance to evaluate how changing their approach will make life easier for them. Those Like Lewis, kind of caught up in the moment will be able to step away and realize that there are other ways to win races.

- vho (@) said on 28th September 2011, 8:21
  
  Absolutely right about how someone makes their luck. People argue that Lewis was lucky to win the WDC in 2008 – but at the end of the day it’s how you convert them. You have a series of good luck and bad luck and it’s how you recover from the bad and convert from the good. Luck has nothing to do with incidents that you are at fault or the fact that your actions got you into the situation – you took a gamble and you lost.
  
  Jenson and Lewis’ cars are actually slightly different in that each use different brakes and I heard some commentator was saying even the front wings are different. The fact is McLaren is able to accommodate for two different driving styles and it’s taken Jenson (and McLaren) to come up to speed in what combination is the best for them. Lewis on the other hand has pretty much set in stone what he likes and hence has the ability to extract everything out of the car. From this we see a big performance increase from Jenson and not so much from Lewis. Jenson is coming out on top at the moment as he doesn’t take the level of risk that Lewis does and due to his experience, Jenson tends to strategise his races rather than just going all flat out and having to get a call from the team to start conserving the tyres/fuel/brakes etc. Lewis is certainly faster a majority of the time and is reflective of his pace in qualifying, but he just doesn’t know how to maximise the full potential of his car over a full race distance.
  
vho (@) said on 28th September 2011, 7:56

Lewis is a huge admirer of Senna and has cited Senna’s most famous quotes – “…And if you no longer go for a gap that exists, you are no longer a racing driver…”. The problem is that Lewis sometimes refuses to believe in non-existent gaps and his level of skill in pulling off a passing move in those gaps are far from what Senna sees as the norm.

AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner) said on 28th September 2011, 8:16

Oh, I just knew that the tyre locking up would be some peoples saving grace. Give it up, its embarrassing.

Great race from Button. No one can complain about the back end of the season being boring if he keeps up those kind of performances. Well done to him.

Unfortunate for Hamilton, it was a genuine mistake. He could not have been seen to carry on his race unimpeded, so the drive-through was appropriate.

- vho (@) said on 28th September 2011, 8:26
  
  As halifaxf1fan posted,
  
  It is funny how Hamilton fans argued quite loudly that Hamilton was in complete control when he was ‘hooning’ in Australia or doing 180′s in the middle of a busy racetrack in Hungary but now when he has a tiny puff of smoke from one of his front tires he is completely out of control and just a passenger!
  
  … yes that is quite an embarrassing excuse – something that IMO not even Lewis himself would buy into.

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