2014 Hungarian GP tyre strategies and pit stops

2014 Hungarian Grand Prix

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Having been second in the opening stages it all went wrong for Valtteri Bottas during the first Safety Car period.

The Williams driver was one of the unlucky quartet who missed the chance to pit immediately after the Safety Car came out on lap eight. Cementing his misfortune, he then suffered a slow pit stop at the very point in his race where it could do the most damage.

Bottas was stationary for two seconds longer than the other drivers who came in. There were only six slower complete pit stops all race long, most of which for drivers who pitted when the pits were near-full on the previous lap and had to wait for others to go past before they could be released.

Having been second Bottas plunged to eleventh place behind the Force Indias. He then lost another position to the charging Lewis Hamilton after the restart.

Team mate Felipe Massa enjoyed considerably better fortune at this point and ended up finishing fifth. But once Bottas had lost track position he faced the challenge of recovering ground on a circuit where overtaking remains very tough.

Hungarian Grand Prix tyre strategies

The tyre strategies for each driver:

Stint 1Stint 2Stint 3Stint 4
Daniel RicciardoIntermediate (8)Soft (15)Soft (31)Soft (16)
Fernando AlonsoIntermediate (9)Soft (29)Soft (32)
Lewis HamiltonIntermediate (8)Soft (31)Medium (31)
Nico RosbergIntermediate (9)Soft (23)Soft (24)Soft (14)
Felipe MassaIntermediate (8)Soft (15)Medium (22)Medium (25)
Kimi RaikkonenIntermediate (8)Soft (33)Soft (29)
Sebastian VettelIntermediate (9)Soft (24)Medium (37)
Valtteri BottasIntermediate (9)Soft (14)Medium (36)Soft (11)
Jean-Eric VergneIntermediate (8)Soft (26)Medium (36)
Jenson ButtonIntermediate (8)Intermediate (7)Soft (22)Medium (33)
Adrian SutilIntermediate (8)Soft (31)Soft (31)
Kevin MagnussenIntermediate (15)Soft (24)Medium (31)
Pastor MaldonadoIntermediate (8)Soft (9)Soft (26)Soft (27)
Daniil KvyatIntermediate (8)Soft (22)Medium (39)
Jules BianchiIntermediate (9)Soft (8)Soft (25)Soft (27)
Max ChiltonIntermediate (8)Soft (37)Soft (24)
Esteban GutierrezIntermediate (8)Soft (24)
Kamui KobayashiIntermediate (8)Soft (16)
Sergio PerezIntermediate (8)Soft (14)
Nico HulkenbergIntermediate (8)Soft (6)
Romain GrosjeanIntermediate (8)Soft (2)
Marcus EricssonIntermediate (7)

Hungarian Grand Prix pit stop times

How long each driver’s pit stops took:

DriverTeamPit stop timeGapOn lap
1Sebastian VettelRed Bull21.60833
2Fernando AlonsoFerrari21.6340.02638
3Kevin MagnussenMcLaren21.8120.20439
4Pastor MaldonadoLotus21.8180.21043
5Nico RosbergMercedes22.0010.39356
6Felipe MassaWilliams22.1110.50323
7Kimi RaikkonenFerrari22.1540.54641
8Sebastian VettelRed Bull22.1700.5629
9Daniil KvyatToro Rosso22.2020.59430
10Daniel RicciardoRed Bull22.2050.5978
11Jenson ButtonMcLaren22.2110.60337
12Fernando AlonsoFerrari22.2530.6459
13Daniel RicciardoRed Bull22.2730.66554
14Felipe MassaWilliams22.2780.67045
15Pastor MaldonadoLotus22.3760.7688
16Adrian SutilSauber22.5000.89239
17Valtteri BottasWilliams22.5180.91023
18Valtteri BottasWilliams22.5890.98159
19Jenson ButtonMcLaren22.8071.19915
20Nico RosbergMercedes22.8271.2199
21Felipe MassaWilliams22.8511.2438
22Jules BianchiMarussia22.8921.2849
23Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso23.1231.51534
24Kimi RaikkonenFerrari23.2141.6068
25Max ChiltonMarussia23.2321.62445
26Lewis HamiltonMercedes23.3641.75639
27Daniil KvyatToro Rosso23.4231.8158
28Kevin MagnussenMcLaren23.5461.93815
29Daniel RicciardoRed Bull23.7412.13323
30Lewis HamiltonMercedes23.8002.1928
31Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso23.8092.2018
32Nico RosbergMercedes23.8642.25632
33Romain GrosjeanLotus23.9792.3718
34Nico HulkenbergForce India24.0402.4328
35Esteban GutierrezSauber24.0502.4428
36Jules BianchiMarussia24.2262.61842
37Max ChiltonMarussia24.6253.0178
38Valtteri BottasWilliams25.4973.8899
39Jules BianchiMarussia25.5043.89617
40Sergio PerezForce India25.5353.9278
41Jenson ButtonMcLaren26.7375.1298
42Adrian SutilSauber31.95610.3488
43Pastor MaldonadoLotus32.60811.00017
44Kamui KobayashiCaterham34.08612.4788

2014 Hungarian Grand Prix

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Image © Williams/LAT

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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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14 comments on “2014 Hungarian GP tyre strategies and pit stops”

  1. Wonder what Jenson could’ve done after the first safety car had he fitted slick tyres… a podium maybe?

    1. *sigh*… Not only did they screw up the tire strategy they ALSO screwed up the pit stop ITSELF… He was IN FRONT of RIC….
      Truly pathetic for McLaren…. This is the 6th race this season and the 3rd race in a row where they screw it up for Button…. and then Ron even has the audacity to run his mouth that Jens is “not trying hard enough”… smh
      Eff you, Ron. You give him a piss of a car, he wrangles every bit of a performance out of it, just to be let down by him team time and time again…..
      Truly pathetic. Two seasons in a row that McLaren is just a mid-field car(AT BEST)… It was easy to point fingers and fire Whitmarsh… Now what Ron? Your team is only the 6/7th fastest team on the track… Time to stop acting like you are in contention for the win and the podium at every race AND start to do something about it.

      I hope Jens gets out of there at the end of the season. Then Eric and Ron could get their MAG/GRO line-up…. Great stuff to build a team on. Blind leading blind…

    2. When your car is not competitive, sometimes you have to roll the dice and hope to be a hero not a zero. Pity for Jenson, he is usually the best at picking the right tyre at the right time.

      1. That has nothing to do with Jenson though…. They picked the Inters bc the team said that rain was to be expected. That was not his call…. He even repeatedly asked whether that really was the case.

        1. And on the radio it sounded like they were not being straight with him. He said, really it’s going to rain, we’re the only ones on inters? They responded by saying something like, that’s what the radar shows, we’ll keep an eye out. Then and there it was clear they messed up and should have just come clean with Button, even if there was nothing to do about it besides pit under the SC and so straight to the back. Now they are blaming the radar software. A workman never blames his tools, right? I’ve never heard Button so harsh on the team. I’m sure there is a lot of pressure on him now.

          1. This is the 6th time this season and the 3rd time in a row that his team messes up his race…. mix that with an absolute dog of a car and Mr. Di*khead -Dennis, who publicly BSes him and you’ve got yourself a man who is freakishly fed up with his team….. I hope he gets out of there…

  2. Still have no idea why Williams went for Soft-Medium-S/M, while for instance Alonso and Raikkonen could do Soft-Soft. Then again, making the soft tyres last for that long seemed like the best strategy, as it really helped both the Ferraris and Ricciardo. The only one who couldn’t make it work was Sutil.

    1. At the time it looked like Williams wanted to do one stop less, no one saw the Ferraris (and especifically Alonso) going that long.

      1. Very True! It didn’t dawn on me until late in the race that Ferrari and Alonso were trying to go to the end with the softs. They would have aided by the clean air but they did make most of the situation.

  3. Fernando Alonso Soft (29) Soft (32)
    Felipe Massa Medium (22) Medium (25)

  4. I can understand MAG staying on inters to roll dice, however the decision to bring BUT in to pit and change from inters to inters on a reasonably dry track, regardless of what the weather radar said, unless there is rain at circuit I would never go for this tactic. Leaving MAG on track to gain track position is a smart risk to go for.

  5. Guys be honest. Button has always been medioca. He was lucky with double diffuser and that’s all.
    Magnason and Perez were starting to prove that.
    Williams strategy is wierd but then Massa had been suffering all the bad luck of the Williams side this season, Botas, a good driver, should be grateful.
    Alonso is just simply a wizard. The best on the grid followed by Hamilton

  6. Abba and don’t forget that Hammy was luckier still to win his WC

  7. Why did Mercedes put Hamilton on Mediums , am I right to think if they had put him on softs he could have pitted once more and easily won , bar accidents. I only watched the highlights so I may have missed something but he was ahead of Rosberg on the set of mediums ,surely he would have been faster still on the softs .

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