| The Brazilian Grand Prix was one of the most exciting of the year for Renault driver Fernando Alonso. It began with a big risk – and finished with him taking fourth place in the drivers’ championship after one of the stoutest pieces of defensive driving we have seen all season. But in between, we saw one of the most complex races of the season.
Pat Symonds commented after the race that the decision to begin the race on slick tyres was a particularly difficult one to take on Sunday, owing to the slippery conditions. In Italy several weeks ago, it had been clear that the circuit was drying quickly and would soon be usable for dry tyres – but that was not the case at Interlagos.
The surface was very slippery and most of the field chose intermediates. However, Renault took the risk of slick tyres – and in the opening laps, it didn’t look like it would pay off, as Fernando was 26 seconds behind the leader after just three laps, having run off track on both the first lap and… the formation lap!
By lap 4, though, the number 8 Renault began to start setting faster sector times in the second part of the lap – where you need tyre grip above all else. Suddenly, Fernando’s laps were four seconds quicker than the leaders and he could start making up ground as they all dove for the pits. Indeed, by staying out on lap 6 – and losing nearly ten seconds to Fernando – Barrichello maybe lost the race…
BAR MOY RSC RAI ALO
1 88.172 91.891 92.235 88.172
2 83.037 82.27 84.099 82.752 92.784
3 82.378 81.833 83.493 83.144 83.871
4 82.105 83.209 88.743 83.452 79.488
5 83.088 87.327 PIT 87.658 77.692
6 87.716 PIT 78.196 PIT 77.674
7 PIT 75.969 77.55 76.733 75.653
8 78.117 73.727 75.892 74.123 73.854
9 75.338 73.3 74.221 73.36 73.317
This early-race risk paid off so well that by lap 7, the Renault led the race and could begin running its planned two stop strategy. However, the character of the race changed immediately after Fernando’s first pit-stop on lap 19. When the Renault emerged into the race, the softer tyres it was running began graining severely and Fernando ended up lapping in the 1:13s bracket while competitors ran in the 1:11s window. Not until lap 38, over halfway through the stint, did his lap-times come back into a competitive 1:12s window.
By this stage, Fernando was running behind Montoya and Raikkonen and looking at driving a defensive race to protect position as well as possible. With his other immediate rivals – Ralf Schumacher and Takuma Sato – running out-of-synch on their strategies, the team was presented with a decisive ten lap window which would decide Fernando’s race position (between his final pit-stop and that of his rivals) and a dilemma: to use new tyres, which would likely bring a further graining phase early in the stint before cleaning up and allowing Fernando to run competitively; or keeping the front tyres, maintaining performance in that window in the knowledge he would sacrifice it later in the stint, but rely on his skill and the R24’s excellent straight-line speed (on average, the second-highest of the race at the start-finish line) to keep the competitors behind?
The team chose option 2. Fernando pitted on lap 48, followed a lap later by Ralf Schumacher – who he kept behind him. Sato stopped seven laps later, on lap 55, and emerged ahead of Fernando down the back straight. The Spaniard, intent on the fourth-place finish that would allow him to win fourth in the drivers’ championship, overtook him on that lap – and then began a masterful defence of his position that saw him battle fading front tyre grip to control the cars behind him.
With no passing opportunities through the second sector, these cars could not make their grip advantage over the Renault count, and Fernando’s car had been set up to give him the speed he needed on the straights to keep these cars behind him. The number 8 Renault was ninth in the list of fastest laps but this, more than any other, was a race in which the bare numbers did not tell the story: it was all about getting, and then maintaining, track position – something Fernando and the team achieved with some well-calculated risks.
As for Jacques Villeneuve, his race was decided in the early laps when, running for the first time on Michelin dry tyres in damp conditions, he lost a significant amount of time relative to team-mate Fernando. Potentially, this was decisive as by the end of the race he was running very strongly behind the two Saubers in tenth position. His fastest lap was only a tenth behind Fernando, and the same was true for his “ideal lap”. All in all, it was a competitive run whose true speed was masked by the time lost during unfamiliar conditions in the early laps.
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