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The Turkish Grand Prix 2011 was the 4th round of the 2011 F1 season, and took place at the Istanbul Park in Istanbul, Turkey, on May 8th.
Sebastian Vettel won the race from the pole, followed by Mark Webber, and Fernando Alonso completing the podium.
Final results
Race evolution
Pit Stops
There were a total of 82 pit stops during the race.
The most popular pit stop windows were:
- Laps 8-11: 13 stops
- Laps 13-16: 11 stops
- Laps 19-27: 17 stops
- Laps 29-42: 25 stops
- Laps 44-47: 12 stops
The fastest pit stop was Pastor Maldonado's, stopping the clock at 13.925 seconds during his pit stop on lap 45, while the slowest one was was Vitantonio Liuzzi's, who stopped the clock at 56.611 seconds, 42.686 seconds slower than Maldonado, during his pit stop on lap 16.
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 4 stops. Only 1 driver tried a 2 stops, and 8 drivers tried a 3 stops.
The race winner, Sebastian Vettel, was on a 4 stops strategy.
2 stops
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3Jérôme d'Ambrosio
3 stops
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7Sébastien Buemi
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4Rubens Barrichello
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1Adrian Sutil
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-Jenson Button
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14Kamui Kobayashi
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1Jarno Trulli
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1Narain Karthikeyan
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1Heikki Kovalainen
4 stops
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1Sergio Pérez
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4Michael Schumacher
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1Vitaly Petrov
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1Felipe Massa
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-Lewis Hamilton
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-Mark Webber
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2Fernando Alonso
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2Nico Rosberg
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2Nick Heidfeld
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-Sebastian Vettel
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10Paul di Resta
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3Pastor Maldonado
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1Jaime Alguersuari
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2Vitantonio Liuzzi
Excluding those drivers who could not finish the race, those on a 2 stops strategy gained 3 positions on average, the ones on a 3 stops strategy gained 2.13 positions on average, while those on a 4 stops strategy lost an average of 0.54 positions.
Despite of the average possitons gained or lost, and considering a deeper analysis of the performance of each strategy, we consider the 3 stops strategy as the optimal for this race, even if Sebastian Vettel managed to win the race making 4 stops.
It is important to note that this might not always be the case for other races held at the Istanbul Park, as the conditions might change from year to year, in terms of wheel degradation, accidents, safety cars, etc.
Incidents
There race went on mostly with no incidents. Only 3 divers were involved in circumstances that were severe enough to prevented them from finishing the race.
These included, Paul di Resta, who had to retire on lap 44, and Timo Glock, who experienced issues with the gearbox on lap 0.
Retired
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Paul di RestaLap 44
Gearbox
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Timo GlockLap 0
Qualifying
Sebastian Vettel managed to get the pole position by 0.405 seconds and a final lipe time of 1:25.049. 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 all of the drivers that took place in Q2 improved their times in this second session.
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 8 out of the 9 drivers that took place in Q3 were able to improve their times.