Tyres and restrictive rules mean another one-stop race

2015 Austrian Grand Prix tyre strategies and pit stops

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The appearance of the Safety Car moments after the start of the Austrian Grand Prix extinguished what little chance there was that any of the teams might try something other than a one-stop strategy.

For the third race in a row, anything other than a single-stop was mainly confined to those drivers whose race was compromised in some way.

As F1 rules effectively force drivers to make at least one pit stop, there is no possibility for anyone to try to eke a single set of tyres out for the entire race distance. Daniel Ricciardo’s 50-lap stint on softs indicated that might have been possible, although that did include half-a-dozen laps behind the Safety Car.

That stint by Ricciardo helped him salvage a result despite failing to reach the top ten, being sent to the tail of the grid by an engine penalty, and being given a five-second time penalty in advance of the race. On super-soft tyres at the end of the race he was able to pass Felipe Nasr for the last points place, although he ran out of time to catch Sergio Perez in ninth.

One driver who liked the idea of doing as much of the race as possible on one set of tyres was Jenson Button, who talked his team into trying it during the Safety Car period. Unfortunately has McLaren expired soon after the race restarted.

2015 Austrian Grand Prix tyre strategies

The tyre strategies for each driver:

Stint 1Stint 2Stint 3Stint 4
Nico RosbergSuper soft (33)Soft (38)
Lewis HamiltonSuper soft (35)Soft (36)
Felipe MassaSuper soft (34)Soft (37)
Sebastian VettelSuper soft (36)Soft (35)
Valtteri BottasSuper soft (26)Soft (45)
Nico HulkenbergSuper soft (25)Soft (46)
Pastor MaldonadoSoft (37)Super soft (33)
Max VerstappenSuper soft (26)Soft (44)
Sergio PerezSoft (38)Super soft (32)
Daniel RicciardoSoft (50)Super soft (20)
Felipe NasrSuper soft (24)Soft (46)
Daniil KvyatSuper soft (1)Soft (44)Super soft (25)
Marcus EricssonSuper soft (2)Soft (43)Soft (24)
Roberto MerhiSuper soft (34)Soft (34)
Romain GrosjeanSuper soft (23)Soft (12)
Carlos Sainz JnrSuper soft (25)Soft (10)
Jenson ButtonSuper soft (3)Soft (3)Soft (2)
Will StevensSuper soft (1)

2015 Austrian Grand Prix pit stop times

How long each driver’s pit stops took:

DriverTeamPit stop timeGapOn lap
1Nico HulkenbergForce India21.68525
2Nico RosbergMercedes21.7680.08333
3Pastor MaldonadoLotus21.8470.16237
4Lewis HamiltonMercedes21.8690.18435
5Max VerstappenToro Rosso21.9840.29926
6Romain GrosjeanLotus22.0160.33123
7Daniil KvyatRed Bull22.1110.42645
8Felipe MassaWilliams22.4470.76234
9Marcus EricssonSauber22.4490.76445
10Valtteri BottasWilliams22.7771.09226
11Felipe NasrSauber22.8031.11824
12Roberto MerhiManor23.9262.24134
13Jenson ButtonMcLaren24.1042.4193
14Sergio PerezForce India26.6895.00438
15Carlos Sainz JnrToro Rosso27.6385.95325
16Daniel RicciardoRed Bull27.7106.02550
17Daniil KvyatRed Bull28.6326.9471
18Marcus EricssonSauber30.2328.5472
19Sebastian VettelFerrari31.88210.19736

2015 Austrian Grand Prix

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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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10 comments on “Tyres and restrictive rules mean another one-stop race”

  1. Here come the comments about one stop being boring from the majority of people who complained about the tyres being too aggressive in 2011,2012 & 2013

    1. +1 was about to say the same… In my opinion the tyres r just fine! What is watering down performance is everyone’s updates being sub-par; hope the test session gives Ferrari,Force India,McLaren and Sauber enough data to improve and make things interesting!Mercedes is just too good,hands down a bulletproof package

      1. Well Force India have a new car for Silverstone, would be good idea to test that on one of the two days, Ferrari its really strange that even with PU upgrades and spending tokens its nothing on Mercedes Reliability upgrade meaning they can run more power for longer

    2. +2! I agree. What gives a boring race (in my opinion, this GP was ok) is huge performance differential between teams and that is difficult to overcome and a little bit of DRS as well. The rest is all fine. Just open up rules and some in-season testing. In 2012, when we had one in-season testing, Ferrari came out as winners from that test and so did Williams. You restrict the number of days but allow in-season testing for other teams to catch up and open up aerodynamic rules to an extent to spice things up.

    3. One stoppers aren’t boring in my opinion. Bridgestone had in right in 2010, and if we have tyres like those, that you can choose to push or conserve on from Pirelli, then that’s fine by me. My only complaint back then was the mandatory pitstop rule, as that closes the strategic possibility of doing the entire race on one set of tyres.

    4. My thoughts were; What would have been different if there had been no pitstops, the big one I guess would have been Vettel probably holding of Massa for 3rd. otherwise I imagine the cars would have been closer together with only the Manor running in clean air.

  2. I’m not going to comment on the race but what are Pirelli actually up to? Their whole mandate and every time Paul Hembrey’s on the TV he talks about trying to make every race a marginal 2/3 stopper, they’re clearly failing in that regard (and have done for the second half of the season every year) so why aren’t they getting any stick?
    It’s not as if the tyres are too good, as we all know their performance is lacking, more of a case that now all the teams have infrared cameras looking at their tyres and a better understanding of the operating window the comedy element to the tyres has been nullified leaving us with drivers nursing 70 laps of a one stop race with no strategy element.

    1. Didn’t they change the tyre allocations for later races after seeing to few stops in the first races @alec-glen? They changed the compound for this year a bit, and can’t really change that quickly, and even tyre allocations have to be done several weeks in advance due to production, QA, and transport, so we just haven’t seen it be effected yet.

  3. While I have nothing against one-stoppers, the problem with the current tyres are that they deteriorate in dirty air too quickly to make these races more fun to watch. Now most of the field maintained a solid gap to the car in front, and then pushed for a few laps before and after their pitstop.

    I suppose Pirelli could also change the tyres midseason ala 2013, but that would just cause some more negative feedback and change in the pecking order “artificially”.

  4. Maybe they should drop pit stop all together….

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