Interesting and unusual race tactics at Force India?
Discussion
A decent car at the Melbourne GP. Quick and competitive.
Sutil raced completely out of sync with the leaders. It gave him exposure, it gave Force India important TV coverage and profile, but let us be clear - it was NEVER going to work in terms of the race result. Sutil was always going to have to pit again before the end and so end up up down the pack where he would fall into the clutches of his team mate. And that is what happened.
So IMO, Sutil flattered to deceive. He looked good, but it was a bit of a false picture.
Di Resta took a more conventional strategy. And at the end of the race he was much faster than Sutil and would have overtaken him. But his team told to hold station and sit back.
If I was Di Resta I would be pretty cheesed off with this. He raced a great race. But he did'nt prance around at the front like a show pony with a strategy that ultimately was never going to deliver more than 6th or 7th anyway.
It was very interesting. But a bit confusing.
So what is happening inside Force India?
And maybe it is also an interesting tactic. Rather than race your best, why not deliberately run a race strategy to place you near the front, mixing it with the leaders and getting TV exposure, even if you have to pit on the last lap and end up down the order, where you probably would have been anyway on a more conventional strategy? Maybe other teams may do this? A Torro Rosso could share track time and TV time with a Red Bull if they deliberately set their tyre strategy toward maximising TV exposure rather than optimised for the race....
Sutil raced completely out of sync with the leaders. It gave him exposure, it gave Force India important TV coverage and profile, but let us be clear - it was NEVER going to work in terms of the race result. Sutil was always going to have to pit again before the end and so end up up down the pack where he would fall into the clutches of his team mate. And that is what happened.
So IMO, Sutil flattered to deceive. He looked good, but it was a bit of a false picture.
Di Resta took a more conventional strategy. And at the end of the race he was much faster than Sutil and would have overtaken him. But his team told to hold station and sit back.
If I was Di Resta I would be pretty cheesed off with this. He raced a great race. But he did'nt prance around at the front like a show pony with a strategy that ultimately was never going to deliver more than 6th or 7th anyway.
It was very interesting. But a bit confusing.
So what is happening inside Force India?
And maybe it is also an interesting tactic. Rather than race your best, why not deliberately run a race strategy to place you near the front, mixing it with the leaders and getting TV exposure, even if you have to pit on the last lap and end up down the order, where you probably would have been anyway on a more conventional strategy? Maybe other teams may do this? A Torro Rosso could share track time and TV time with a Red Bull if they deliberately set their tyre strategy toward maximising TV exposure rather than optimised for the race....
For a midfield runner I would have thought time spent at the front is probably more valuable for what has to be their primary objective - keeping the team in existance by keeping the money coming in - than racign earnestly to 7th.
Whilst we would love it to be a sport and all about earnest endeavour and derring do, but you run out of money, you have to sell (and that team is one of the more pedalled about recently). Sad truth of their existance.
Whilst we would love it to be a sport and all about earnest endeavour and derring do, but you run out of money, you have to sell (and that team is one of the more pedalled about recently). Sad truth of their existance.
Pwig said:
But if it had rained then he would not have had to use the soft tyres.
Also if a safety car was brought out it could have 'bought' him a pit spot.
Force India were just splitting their strategies. Safe and Risky.
I agree with this. It doesn't make sense for a midfield team to run both cars on the same strategy, especially when you have two capable drivers. Di Resta was unlucky in the end but you can understand Force India not wanting their drivers fighting it out on the last few laps from point positions. Also if a safety car was brought out it could have 'bought' him a pit spot.
Force India were just splitting their strategies. Safe and Risky.
He started on the medium tyres which was the sensible thing to do from outside the top 10.
He got to the front because the big guys had to pit before lap 10. This usually doesn't happen. Usually they build enough of a gap in their first stint to come out infront of most of the midfield.
It wasn't a dodgy strategy by Force India but the dodgy soft tyres were spent after 5 or 6 laps that put Sutil at the front - and his good driving obviously.
He got to the front because the big guys had to pit before lap 10. This usually doesn't happen. Usually they build enough of a gap in their first stint to come out infront of most of the midfield.
It wasn't a dodgy strategy by Force India but the dodgy soft tyres were spent after 5 or 6 laps that put Sutil at the front - and his good driving obviously.
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