Tyre wear tougher than expected – Alonso

2014 German Grand Prix

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Fernando Alonso says Ferrari needs to improve their tyre management after having to make an extra pit stop during the German Grand Prix.

“It was tough,” said Alonso to reporters after the race. “At the end we switch to a three-stop strategy because we really felt that the tyres were degrading a little bit more than expected so it was tough on the tyre.”

“The circuit was still quite hot, even if it was not so sunny today. So next time in Hungary will be also tough because it’s a circuit that is quite demanding on tyres, so we need to make progress on that as well.”

He finished the race fifth behind Sebastian Vettel, who slipped ahead of him during a battle with the other Ferrari.

“We did a little sandwich with Kimi [Raikkonen] at that moment but everything was fine,” said Alonso.

He moved up into fifth after passing Daniel Ricciardo in the final laps.

“To be honest I had a big advantage from the tyres,” Alonso admitted. “I had a fresh tyre from the pit lane and Daniel was struggling a little bit with the grip.”

“So I just wait my opportunity, three or four laps, and then I attack, I pass. I think next time when we battle will be more equal.”

2014 German Grand Prix

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Image © Ferrari/Ercole Colombo

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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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16 comments on “Tyre wear tougher than expected – Alonso”

  1. Great racing from both ALO and RIC! Wish this guy had a better car. He deserves to be able to fight for one more WDC before hanging it up. And that fight would be one for the highlight reels and history books, I’m sure.

  2. That battle between those two was brilliant! This season has been pretty good – ALO vs VET in Britain, and ALO vs RIC in Germany! Let’s keep it going.

  3. James Allison summarized the weaknesses of the F14T before the start of GP weekend : “We don’t have the downforce nor the power of those who are infront of us, the car is also difficult to drive and tends to lose the back-end, and this with even two drivers sensible and gentle on tyres causes a premature and excessive tyre wear ”
    Absolutely depressing for a Ferrari fan, when this nightmare will ends, i just hope that the project 666 supervised by Allison (and not Fry) can result in a decent drivable car (something like this year’s Williams or last year Lotus) and the rest will be done by the drivers !!!!

    1. I guess the nose is at fault after all.

    2. @tifoso1989 Amen to that. It’s time to stop asking the PC to make a car and actually use basic engineering and aero work. Allison was know for his sensible approach to car designing always focusing on the right aspects, and hopefully aided by Ferrari’s engineering and composite techniques Ferrari can deliver and they’ll have no more excuses, they’ve upgraded the aero tunnel and they’ve parted ways with their turbo supplier, now it’s up to Allison and Mattiacci.

    3. @tifoso1989

      “We don’t have the downforce nor the power of those who are infront of us, the car is also difficult to drive and tends to lose the back-end, and this with even two drivers sensible and gentle on tyres causes a premature and excessive tyre wear ”

      And I say, what a load of Bull(censor).

      No, it’s not a Mercedes but if you watched Alonso take every other Mercedes powered car with 2 hands behind his back you can clearly see that the current Ferrari is not the brick stone they are trying to make it out to be. It certainly isn’t lacking in power.
      Even when Alonso was chasing the Red Bull’s out of turn two you could clearly see no drama on Alonso’s car whereas Vettel and Ricciardo constantly had to fight to keep the rear end in check while trying to get as much momentum onto the straight as possible. No problem with mechanical grip on the Ferrari there.
      Most of Alonso’s passes happened long before the braking zone came into play. He even managed to tuck it up right behind some cars coming out of turn 1 and into turn 2 despite his so called massive disadvantage in downforce. I haven’t even seen Hamilton do that.
      As for tyre degredation, Alonso’s first stint was 12 laps. His second stint was 21 laps. He didn’t show any signs of tyre degredation on his first stint. In fact, the last 6 laps (not counting his inlap, which was also very quick for an inlap) were almost identical.
      It was pretty clear he wanted to try and jump Vettel with an early pitstop. That almost worked had it not been for Vettel squeezing past Raikkonen down to turn 6.
      That early first pitstop took away his chances of doing a two stop. Nothing else. Besides, even Hamilton couldn’t do a two stop. And his Mercedes is the benchmark.
      The only cars that did manage to do a two stop were cars that didn’t have to do extensive figting/defending or were slow anyway.

      The Ferrari, right now, is at least as good as the Red Bull.

      1. @baron-2
        Maybe you are more involved in the F14T project and you have a better view than Ferrari’s technical director, BTW James Allison is a very respected man on the F1 paddock and his technical assessment is very reliable.
        Ferrari isn’t down on power ??? Let’s get serious, this is for you, just watch the speed trap section the Ferrari’s powered cars are down on power to every Mercedes powered car
        https://www.racefans.net/2014/07/19/hamilton-needs-help-weather-bottas/
        “He didn’t show any signs of tyre degredation ”
        Except he did an extra pit stop
        “The Ferrari, right now, is at least as good as the Red Bull.”
        Let’s get serious another time, Helmut Marko and Christian Horner are constantly repeating at every GP that the RB10 has the best chassis(unless you’re also involved in this project), a chassis that is even better than one mounted on the Mercedes the benchmark like you have described

        1. “he did an extra pit stop”

          “Extra” compared to what? Which of his pit stops was the “extra” one?

          “the Ferrari’s powered cars are down on power to every Mercedes powered car”

          Which doesn’t mean they’re not at least as good as the Red Bulls.

        2. @tifoso1989

          “just watch the speed trap section the Ferrari’s powered cars are down on power to every Mercedes powered car”

          So that’s why Alonso was struggling so hard trying to get passed those Mercedes powered cars,… Oh wait, he wasn’t. In fact, he passed most of them at the beginning of the DRS zone.
          Yeah, he was clearly down on power…

          “Except he did an extra pit stop”

          Except he didn’t. He did 3 stops, just like the majority of the field.
          The only ones to do a 2 stop were those who were incapable or didn’t need to fight.

          “Let’s get serious another time, Helmut Marko and Christian Horner are constantly repeating at every GP that the RB10 has the best chassis”

          I don’t care about those PR statements. I can look at car behaviour and clearly see that that’s not the case. The Mercedes has got Red Bull beat in every department.
          Horner and Marko are trying to place the cars shortcomings on the Renault engine only. Just like Ferrari is trying to place their shortcomings on the things they don’t like. Tyre and fuel management.
          It’s just politics, nothing more.
          Hot air to try and blow things in the direction they want.

  4. I honestly don’t know why they were trying a 2 stopper. Alonso managed 12 laps on the Supersofts, then 21 laps on his first set of Softs. So how the hell did Ferrari expect to do 33 laps on his next set of Softs?

  5. Great drive again from Alonso. Ricciardo was excellent too, recalled me about Webber.
    And now I am really curious when Alonso will not finish in the race or finish it outside of the top 10? Same question is about Hulkenberg.

  6. I don’t understand those remarks, since it appears he was on a three stop strategy from the beginning. As were Vettel, Ricciardo, Perez, Kimi, and many other drivers.

    “At the end we switch to a three-stop strategy”

    His second stop was on lap 34 I believe. The drivers who made a two stop work went at least a dozen laps deeper. Perhaps prior to the race Ferrari were talking amongst themselves about attempting to two-stop, but both Kimi and Alonso were clearly on a three stop strategy by the first pit stops. They didn’t make a mid race or late race strategy change.

  7. Alonso’s front left was horrendous Ferrari in China masterfully controlled front wear as in all of last season, they were good with front wear but this weekend their fronts were in tandem with the rears. At some point Raikkonen was 5 secs off on the reds.

  8. I really wish that Alonso would ditch Ferrari in favor of someone like Red Bull, or maybe even Williams, given how they’ve improved. He is unquestionably the best driver on the grid (okay, maybe not the best qualifier), and I think that if he were in a true frontrunning car, and as Massa and Raikkonen have proved, the Ferraris that Alonso has driven have been more top of the midfield cars, he would have 4, maybe even 5 championships to his name.

  9. It’s high time Ferrari did something right to help Alonso on top of podium. You can’t have the best driver on the grid with a bad car!

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