Three-stop strategy king in Valencia as Vettel reaffirms front-runner status

The Grand Prix of Europe in Valencia presented an unusually prosaic Formula One meeting, with each of the top seven drivers opting for very similar tyre strategies, saving the debuting PZero White for only their final stint. Despite a challenging track temperature of 47 degrees, both PZero tyre compounds showed strong durability, with a relatively limited degree of degradation. World Championship leader Sebastian Vettel claimed his sixth win of the year’s eight races, followed home by Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and Red Bull teammate Mark Webber. Vettel also set the fastest lap.

Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery commented: “This certainly wasn’t a vintage race of the sort that we saw in Canada, Monaco and China this year for example. Again we saw an interesting mix of strategies although it was clear that a three-stopper was the way to go, with the faster cars able to exploit the performance advantage of the PZero Yellow tyres to the maximum in these conditions. Next up is Silverstone, when we get back to a permanent high-speed circuit, which should provide us with plenty of action once more at the front of the field.”
 
The top three were separated by just three seconds heading into the last 20 laps of the race, using pit stop strategy to make the difference. After Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso passed Mark Webber for second place on lap 22, the Red Bull Racing driver stopped earlier than his rival for his penultimate set of tyres to regain the runner-up spot in the pits: an exercise that has come to be known as the ‘undercut’ this year. However Alonso was able to leapfrog Webber in the pits with ten laps to go as he went onto the PZero White tyre for the final stint.

In other tyre strategies, Toro Rosso’s Jaime Alguersuari was the top runner to use two stops, running a 23-lap middle stint on his second set of PZero Yellow tyres, before switching to the PZero White on lap 42. Sauber driver Sergio Perez by contrast went for a one-stop strategy, moving from the PZero White medium tyre to the PZero Yellow soft tyre on lap 25, which he then used for 32 laps until the finish on lap 57. The Mexican, returning to the cockpit after a two-race absence following his qualifying crash in Monaco, just missed out on a championship point by six seconds.

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