Webber: “We did worst thing at second pit stop”

2011 Korean Grand Prix

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Mark Webber, Red Bull, Korea, 2011

Mark Webber said coming in for his second pit stop on the same lap as Lewis Hamilton was a strategic error.

After the race he said he was: “Disappointing not to get second today.”

“We did a good job in the first stop and then got ourselves into a good position. Obviously the safety car was not a big deal for everyone, it just brought everyone back together.

“But I think at the second stop we did the worst thing. We didn’t stop before or stop after, we stopped on the same lap. So that was disappointing because clearly we had some good pace to pull away from Lewis.

“But it was a good battle all the way through, we had a good battle on the first lap as well, and that’s the way it was today so I look forward to the next one.”

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    Keith Collantine
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    68 comments on “Webber: “We did worst thing at second pit stop””

    1. Hard not to agree with Webber. Wonder if they will bother to talk that one through inside the team.

      1. I still liked the duel between him and Hamilton @bascb.

        1. @Fixy Who didn’t liked that? I think that was the highlights of 2011 F1 season.

      2. agree @BasCB. Had he stayed longer for couple of laps longer, he would have gained a good margin over Lewis and would have gotten infront of him. It is funny this year though…. in some races, the undercut works and in some it doesn’t. The layout of the track plays an important role.

      3. @fixy @icemangrins seems the both of you ran into the same thing i had yesterday. doing a full stop or something right behind the user name does not work :-o

        1. Strange, with commas it works @bascb!

          1. Funny how exclamation marks work as well. What else @fixy?

    2. Jelle van der Meer (@)
      16th October 2011, 12:22

      It was Webber himself that followed Hamilton into the pits – why oh why did Webber not make his own call and abandon his pit entry.

      His tyres were still good – he was faster so an undercut he could easily recover. He was in clean air so could post some fast laps or pit a few laps later and put under the super softs or much newer softs.

      1. If we all heard the hamo call and knew he was coming in why the hell didnt RB let Mark know to not come in…? Funny that just shows once again that they really don’t want him mixing with Seb.

        1. They did the same thing with Seb & Fernando at Singaopre last year.

      2. Yes, it’s mystifying that he was called in and equally mystifying that he followed HAM into the pit entry, WEB had plenty of opportunity to make his own decision and by the looks of him in the post race interview he knows it.

    3. Webber’s right of course, but we should give the McLaren guys some credit here for upping their pace at the stops and not cracking under pressure – Red Bull have had the upper hand pretty much all season at the stops. Ferrari guys also looked pretty quick today too.

      1. They did well for Lewis this time, though Jenson’s stop was slower than Nico’s.

    4. In all comments after the race in all the articles nobody remember to mention that.My view is that they done that on purpose to deny Webber chance to fight for win against their “wonder boy”.It was clear that he had tyres and pace to jump LH in pit stop and for sure after that he would be on finger boy trail.I already hear…why he didn’t pass LH?? Because he is not some guy that gives up easy and because Mcl hase good strait line speed and this another stupid “tilkedromme” of a track don’t provide some passing opportunity. I was watching race with two of my friends and we were furious that they called Webber just behind LH.They NEW that he will be stuck behind him for at list some time for Vettel to bring some gap between them.red bull should be ashamed because what they are doing to M.Webber.They just won’t let their second driver to get any win if that means endangering finger boy’s xxx win.

      1. Sadly, until the race data is published, I’m tempted to agree with the above statement. Even if Webber didn’t have the pace to challenge Wonder Boy, it could have clinched the WCC in a stylish 1-2…

      2. .I already hear…why he didn’t pass LH?? Because he is not some guy that gives up easy and because Mcl hase good strait line speed and this another stupid “tilkedromme” of a track don’t provide some passing opportunity.

        Funny that “wonder boy” did pass LH on “another stupid tilkedrome”.

        1. At start even Massa an some other people can pull a pass…

          1. And “Massa and other people” didn’t take the lead.

            Mclaren got their pit strategy right for Lewis by responding to Red Bull and covering Webber. Vettel proved that he had pace to spare (as usual) setting fastest lap at the end, so even if he did pass LH on track, 2nd would have been the ceiling for MW’s race again.

            So instead of whining about MW being denied a win that never belonged to him in quali or the race, let’s celebrate Vettel’s 10th win, Hamilton’s best weekend in ages, the great LH/MW battle, or all of the above.

            1. You can celebrate his 10th win of the season.I and lot of people can see that this could be easily 1-2(never mind who is first) for red bull but of course we will never know what was reason for not letting Webber put a few strong laps and jump LH,He himself said that tyres were ok and that he didn’t have to stop at that point.Lot’s of us can really guess why was that played like it was and we are discussing it here.But we are realistic observers not blinded fans.

            2. I’m afraid that constantly jumping to find a conspiracy theory is the action of a blinded fan. At the end of the day, Mclaren got their strategy right, and Lewis outdrove Mark.

            3. Agreed, Red Bull would prefer a 1-2 over a 1-3 any weekend and I’m sure that they would have been delighted if Webber could have challenged Vettel (which seems fairly unlikely on recent form). Although I’d prefer other race winners I am also quite happy to enjoying see Vettel trying to catch and break records of some of the greatest drivers in history.

          2. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, especially for RB bashers who would love to project themselves as intelligent human beings after the race gets over.

        2. what was hamo thinking though? didnt cover the inside line at all…

      3. This conspiracy stuff is ridiculous.
        What possible motive could Red Bull have for denying Webber the chance to fight Vettel? He’s won the driver’s title and it didn’t matter which way round they finished to secure the constructor’s title.

        1. dont burst bubble… Kick a dog whilst his down ;)

          1. And why would they want to kick Webber while he’s down?

            They may not want him to win the championship, but they still want a good second driver. A demoralised, downtrodden man does not make a driver good enough to secure a constructor’s championship for the team.

            I could understand this conspiracy if they had held Webber up to give Vettel a better position, but if it was true that they deliberately caused Webber to stay behind Hamilton then the only result is to damage the team.

            1. (I fully admit this is Webber Fanboy conspiracy theorizing, but you presented a question and, thus, I present a hypothesis)

              The team principals could have analyzed the differing aspects of the race up to lap 20 or so and decided to go for a strategy that placed Mark in a pit race with LH because of 1 thing:

              Season domination.

              While everyone seems to rag on Mark for his “poor performance” this season, he has shown (Korea especially) that he is a hard racing driver that will take the fight to the other drivers. With that in mind, the team wants a dominant amount of records. Vettel is providing that. 10 wins. 10. Wins. If it were up to the team higher ups, it would be Vettel 100% on the top because the more records he clinches, the better the team looks. Hampering Mark’s run against LH doesn’t “hurt” the team because they already trust Mark to stay high in the points (as he’s been doing all season), while at the same time occupy the other drivers (Vettel was 12s to LH, I don’t think that could’ve happened if LH had clean air and no pressure behind). All they had to do today was outscore Mclaren by 1 point. With vettel on top, Mark would have to be 5th or lower to give any danger. They knew that wasn’t going to happen, so they kept vettel in front, give him another notch towards more records, and prevented any complications by shuffling Webber around.

              There are a lot of strategic decisions made before going into the race season that the average fan is not allowed to know, but can discern through the season. RBR’s strategy was a fast qualifying car to get clean-air pole positions by 1 driver to consolidate as much of the WDC as possible in as few races as possible.

              So goes my theory. Hope MW gets a win soon!

      4. RedBull had to pit webber for fear of Lewis being faster on the new set of tyres.

        You can take off the tin foil hat now.

        1. Good point…

          I think sometimes Mark attitude isn´t the tight one. In the end is up to driver to decide weather pit or don´t…

          If he didn´t agree with the strategy, why did he follow?

        2. I don´t think there was anything wrong with calling Mark at the same time that Hamilton, they obviously wanted to beat Hamilton… If they were worried about Vettel he would have to up his rythen (after all he was saving tyres).

          It looks to me that W

      5. So you mean that RB would rather let a 1-2 slip away instead of get Webber ahead of Hamilton. In case Webber catches Vettel they could just call it quit and force him to hold position.
        Webber could just have abandoned pitting and kept his foot in for another lap. It is not like when the team calls him in, he HAS to do it.
        I don’t see why you need to make up conspiracy theories every time things don’t go Webber’s way.
        It was a honest mistake, get over it.
        Webber had just as much of a chance to avoid it as RB had, so I don’t see how it can be a deliberate sabotage of Webber’s race.

        1. I understand the ludicrousness of fanboys, being one myself.

          To that end, I’d be curious to see footage of the pit lane and hear the radio chatter to see if it was a Red Bull response, or a Mclaren response to undercutting.

    5. Even RBR pit strategy isn’t retarded as the atrocious display we saw today. I feel this was a deliberate attempt to prevent Webber challenging Vettel.

      1. Exactly my point. In reality it is not that important if he could win or not but is clearly obvious that they played Webber’s pitstop to protect Vettel and not to help Mark pass LH.They wanted him STUCK behind LH so he could have his hands full with Webber and even if he had pace he could not attack Vettel.Like we all know…red bull strategist are not retards so conclusion is very clear what happened today.I mean,championship is over…why they need all this Vettel nursing?? Webber knows what happened and that is why he said it that pitstop was wrong.He knows why but he will not say it…he will wait next year to try again.But if RB setup his car like first 4-5 races at the start where MW constant had kers and other issues with his car just until SV pulled some gap and clearly put himseft top at the team.He was never treated equally and i hate their hypocrittical statements that he has same car as SV.
        By the way…i am not Webber fan just seeing things looking from observer perspective.

        1. If you’re going to point out that Webber had KERS issues earlier this season, then let’s remember at least the first two races and Korea of last year. Vettel still overcame his issues to take 5 wins and the title. Webber is still 100 points down with no mechanical retirements.

          @mads @bearforce1 and @Mark Hitchcock already have answers for your bs theories anyway.

      2. When deciding whether anything was a cunning conspiracy or a cock-up one should always opt for the latter. I am WEBs biggest fan and even I couldn’t imagine that he would have challenged VET. And HAM probably would have chased him down but that was a maybe that RBR should have taken a chance on an left Mark out there for another lap.

        1. Red Bull made a judgement error, simple as that.
          To be honest, I can’t understand how they could be so stupid, when we can all plainly see how difficult it was to pass with Hamilton using all his KERS to combat the DRS. Smartest thing would have been to leave Webber out and see how he went in clear air, his tyres were fine at the time. Even if Lewis gained an advantage by using the undercut, Webber could pit a few laps later, and on fresher tyres have more traction to try and pass towards the last few laps. You could clearly see on same wear of tyres that Hamilton could get good traction out of turn 2, and with using all his KERS Webber could not even get close enough to have a go.

          1. I was wondering if Webber could finish the race without having to pit another time. In that case, he could have won. So maybe Red Bull made one good decision (to change to soft tyres) and one bad decision (to pit a second time.) At least Webber had little to lose by delaying his second pitstop, but maybe the simultaneous pitstops were just a stroke of bad luck, if both Hamilton en Webber independently decided to pit that lap.

    6. sid_prasher (@)
      16th October 2011, 13:43

      I think had Webber stayed out he would have gotten ahead of Lewis but I doubt he would have challenged Vettel who set the fastest lap of the race on the last lap.

      1. I think Mark had the pace today to challenge, particularly in the 3rd sector and on the Soft tyres. He wasn’t quick enough on the Super softs though…. Sebs fastest lap wasnt that much quicker than Marks and considering Mark pushed his tyres alot harder in the final stint and was stuck behind hamo image what he could have done in clear air and nursed tyres…

        1. Vettel built up quite a healthy gap before and after the safety car, and as usual had pace to spare. @sid_prasher has it right.

        2. Race Fastest Laps
          2011 FORMULA 1 KOREAN GRAND PRIX – Yeongam
          POS NO DRIVER NAT ENTRANT TIME ON GAP KPH TIME OF DAY
          1 1 S. VETTEL GER Red Bull Racing 1:39.605 55 202.941 16:41:39
          2 2 M. WEBBER AUS Red Bull Racing 1:40.294 55 0.689 201.547 16:41:51
          3 3 L. HAMILTON GBR Vodafone McLaren Mercedes 1:40.459 0.854 0.165 54 201.216 16:40:10

          Webber’s FL was 0.689 slower than Vettel’s, both on the last lap. Hamilton’s FL was 0.165 slower than Webber’s on lap 54.

      2. I’m in agreement. He would have passed Hamilton easily but Vettel was a challenge.
        The question of whether he would have passed him is for conspiracy theorists.

    7. 2nd was definitely on, maybe 1st, we can’t know but for people to still not believe that RBR don’t want Webber battling with Vettel is hard to understand when the team admitted that at Silverstone;
      “we don’t want them to end up in the wall” or words to that effect.
      They need to have faith in Vettel to not drive into Webber…again.

      1. They did effectively the same at Istanbul 2009, when the hold station order benefitted Mark Webber.

        1. Exactly so, they really need to trust their drivers to battle!

          1. I agree with that! :)

    8. I thought Mclaren responded to the Red Bull pitstop rather than the other way round. Hamilton`s engineer sounded like it was a late call to bring him to pits. Once Mclaren responded RedBull had no other choice but to bring Webber as planned. They thought the undercut would be faster, so it would not have made sense to them to leave Webber out.

      1. Webber was the fastest driver on the track when he pitted… going a lap longer would have probably worked. I guess it proves even 2xWCC can get things wrong.

        1. No, Alonso was:
          Lap 32 VET 1:42.894 WEB 1:43.349 HAM 1:43.373
          BUT 1:43.215 ALO 1:42.274 MAS 1:42.526
          Webber was only 0.024 quicker than Hamilton on that lap and then they pitted on Lap 33 while Vettel did a 1:42.044 and pitted on Lap 34.

          1. Sorry, Vettel’s Lap 32 was 1:42.281

          2. Ultimate Laps (fastest 3 sectors):
            VET 35.635 + 43.276 + 20.675 = 1:39.586
            WEB 35.534 + 43.957 + 20.641 = 1:40.132

            1. Ultimate fastest laps and sectors aren’t relevant, we’re talking Webber’s speed compared to Hamilton’s in the laps before the final pit stop. From memory, as a trend Webber was faster.
              No tin foil here, just passing comment.

            2. None of that matters, Webber could not go faster without driving through Hamilton which is why Vettel and Alonso were much faster.

    9. I don’t know why the team cancel the order. He was on prime, Hamilton lost his option so he has upper hand.

    10. I was hoping for a battle like we got with Rosberg and Hamilton but unfortunately it was not to be. It’s a strategy that could have worked, it worked for Vettel in Germany. It just wasn’t to be today.

      1. Rosberg and Button*

    11. unfortunately I didn’t see the race but I saw the exclamations in the comments when Webber followed Hamilton in, I think that this is once again not sabotaging Webber so much as playing safe with Webber after all it worked for them, they got the constructors title with Webber behind Hamilton, why risk something going wrong just to satisfy Webber, If he and Hamilton crashed out no problem, but if he went off chasing Vettel or worse, they risked not getting the constructors championship. This year Webbers job has been to do just enough to get the constructors title and no more, thats the way RB like it.

    12. Doesn’t really matter. If Hamilton came out after Webber he would have had DRS and would have breezed past in the next straight. He needed to stay out. The detection zone should have been before the pit exit so people can’t use it out of the pits.

      1. Well, I think the main concern is Webber pitting in the first place. Frankly, you’re right if Webber made it out of the pits before LH, Mclaren’s power would’ve won in the DRS zone.

        But, the theory goes, if Webber had stayed out, in clean air, he could’ve laid down some solid laps on good tires to build the gap to LH, possibly defending from him during a his 2nd pit stop. Moreover, the notion is that Webber could’ve closed the gap on Vettel and overcome him since vettel still had the ssofts on, and win.

        Theories, hindsight, and without the footage and radio to back it up. So it goes for F1 fans, yes?

      2. Sorry, didn’t read your statement about “staying out”

        Preaching to the choir, I was.

        I do agree about the poor placement of the DRS zone.

    13. I’m glad everyone is now seeing the big picture of red bull story 2011, after Webber clearly had the right tyre and pace after safety car to win the race.

      Red Bull have the best car by a country mile all year and have been sandbagging with KERS issues, being reason for Webber’s performance, and pretending Vettel had the occasional issue, when he was miles in front and then suddenly KERS back on when other cars were catching him.

      They have allowed Vettel to have the best of the car all season, whilst handcapping Webber in quali or race starts when he has actually qualified well. Just look at this pattern.

      This has allowed vettel to dominate saturday sessions and take off on sunday race whilst Webber the rear gunner is fighting with Alonso, Button & Ham on the circuit and also pitstops distracting their attention on attacking vettel.

      korea highlights this as Ham and Webber were both behind vettel after safety car and dropped back after Ham spending time defending Webber.

      The only time Vettel has panicked this year and locked up tyres is when Webber ignored the call to maintain the gap in Britain, which shows vettel’s confidence due to red bull not allowing Webber to race against Vettel this race. Yes Webber you are an inconvenience to the team if you start challenging wonderboy, however who else would Red bull adopt for a better 2nd driver as button, alonso & ham would not do it as they would beat vettel in the same car.

      enough said.

      1. At the moment, I don’t believe there is anyone on the grid that would beat Vettel in the same car.

        Webber has not been handicapped, he’s been beaten. Like 2009, like 2010. Simple as that.

    14. “At the moment, I don’t believe there is anyone on the grid that would beat Vettel in the same car.”

      Strange, i’d say theres a few who would.

      1. You casn say it, I can claim otherweise, but it doesn’t amount to more than speculation. The only fact is Vettel is back to back world champion.

    15. I don´t think there was anything wrong with calling Mark at the same time that Hamilton, they obviously wanted to beat Hamilton… If they were worried about Vettel he would have to up his rythem (after all he was saving tyres).

      It looks to me that Webber always has a good excuse to blame his team for his failure. (this comming from a person that actually likes the guy, but is tired of the way he always complaint)

      Beside it could have been that they wanted a pit stop battle (after all Vettel did jump up Massa like that in Germany, and Nico almost does it with Button in Korea).

      There is no conspiracy here, if Mark is not happy with the way his team is doing for him, he can go to whatever team he wants…

      1. He’s not complaining against his team. He’s just stating the sentiment that anyone obviously would have as well. He keeps on referring to the mistake as a “we” mistake, citing himself just as much to blame.

        And, as a person who continues to like the guy, he has pointed out his faults and failures far more often than other drivers on the grid who blame their mechanics and teams. He knows he has a problem with starts. He stated that he’s had issues with the Pirelli’s all season. He called himself out for several instance of poor pit-stop choices that were all HIS call. For a person that likes him, you give him far too little benefit to him in a year where he would – by all accounts – have every right to hiss and moan at his team about unequal treatment, and have everyone believe him.

        Case in point: Silverstone 2011. He said he ignored the team orders and tried to fight to the end. Can you imagine how easily he could’ve shadowed any success for RBR if he just said, “Yeah, I held back because I was told to.” While, race-wise, it would’ve been the right decision, that’s not what the fans want to see: driver’s being held back. He took one for the team by not only getting 3rd, but also taking the flak by saying he ignored all calls.

        Lastly, apparently he was approached by many teams when talks with RBR were nebulous. But, you know what? He didn’t sign with any other team because no one compares to RBR as a team. Best Car, Best Mechanics, Best Engineering, Best Principals, Best Drivers. They are the best team and it is shown by their intent to put all of their effort to put Mark on the top step and get a Red Bull 1-2 in the WDC.

        I give credit to RBR and to Webber, but by all accounts, from a spectator’s perspective, Webber should’ve stayed out. Why he didn’t stay out, will be a matter of conjecture until someone steps up to say otherwise.

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