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The European Grand Prix 2011 was the 8th round of the 2011 F1 season, and took place at the Valencia Street Circuit in Valencia, Spain, on June 26th.
Sebastian Vettel won the race from the pole, followed by Fernando Alonso, and Mark Webber completing the podium.
Final results
Race evolution
Pit Stops
There were a total of 65 pit stops during the race.
The most popular pit stop windows were:
- Laps 10-15: 20 stops
- Laps 17-19: 4 stops
- Laps 24-31: 19 stops
- Laps 42-45: 13 stops
The fastest pit stop was Fernando Alonso's, stopping the clock at 20.136 seconds during his pit stop on lap 45, while the slowest one was was Michael Schumacher's, who stopped the clock at 30.665 seconds, 10.529 seconds slower than Alonso, during his pit stop on lap 15.
These times include the time the driver spent going through the pit lane, as well as the actual time he stopped for the mechanics to work on his car.
Strategy
We saw a variety of options in terms of pit stop strategies during this race, however most drivers chose a 3 stops. Only 1 driver tried a 1 stop, and 5 drivers tried a 2 stops.
The race winner, Sebastian Vettel, was on a 3 stops strategy.
1 stop
-
5Sergio Pérez
2 stops
-
2Kamui Kobayashi
-
-Timo Glock
-
-Jarno Trulli
-
1Jérôme d'Ambrosio
-
10Jaime Alguersuari
3 stops
-
3Pastor Maldonado
-
1Nick Heidfeld
-
1Rubens Barrichello
-
1Lewis Hamilton
-
-Nico Rosberg
-
1Adrian Sutil
-
1Mark Webber
-
-Sebastian Vettel
-
2Fernando Alonso
-
-Jenson Button
-
9Michael Schumacher
-
2Paul di Resta
-
4Sébastien Buemi
-
-Heikki Kovalainen
-
-Narain Karthikeyan
-
-Felipe Massa
-
4Vitaly Petrov
-
1Vitantonio Liuzzi
Excluding those drivers who could not finish the race, those on a 1 stop strategy gained 5 positions on average, the ones on a 2 stops strategy gained 1.8 positions on average, while those on a 3 stops strategy lost an average of 0.78 positions.
This difference in possitions gained, together with a deeper nalaysis of each strategy, reinforces the conclusion that a 1 stop strategy was the best option, even if Sebastian Vettel managed to win the race making 3 stops.
It is important to note that this might not always be the case for other races held at the Valencia Street Circuit, as the conditions might change from year to year, in terms of wheel degradation, accidents, safety cars, etc.
Incidents
This was a clean race. There might have been some minor incidents, but in the end all drivers managed to cross the finish line, and none were disqualified after the race ended..
Qualifying
Sebastian Vettel managed to get the pole position by 0.188 seconds and a final lipe time of 1:36.975. Mark Webber was right behind him, helping Red Bull score a one-two and monopolize the first line of the grid.
Track evolution
As the qualifying session went on, with the track rubbering in, and the drivers testing the limits of the grip of their cars, the times per lap dropped, and 14 out of the 17 drivers that took place in Q2 were able to improve their times.
The Q3 is the time were all the remaining drivers put all their cards on the table, even those with a superior car who might have been managing their times in Q1 and Q2 push their cars to the limit in Q3. It therefore comes as no surprise that all of the drivers that took place in Q3 managed to improve their times in this last session.