Spain – Race: Strategy Summary

Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) won his home Grand Prix by adopting a four-stop strategy. The double World Champion finished the Grand Prix ahead of Kimi Räikkönen’s Lotus, who completed three stops. This Spanish victory marks Alonso’s 32nd win. Felipe Massa claims his first podium of the season with the second Ferrari, despite starting from ninth place on the grid (including a three-place penalty).

Alonso set a new record by becoming the only driver to win the Spanish Grand Prix from as far back as 5th place on the grid, demonstrating how tire strategy can be used to gain positions on the track. Räikkönen, starting with a completely different strategy from Alonso (one less stop), nevertheless finished a solid second, less than 10 seconds behind the winner. The Finn was the only driver to make his first three stops on medium P Zero White tires, before finishing with a stint on hard P Zero Orange tires.

The positions are tightening considerably at the top of the championship, with the top 3 in the standings now within 17 points.

All the drivers started on White Medium P Zero tires, except for the two Marussia and Charles Pic’s Caterham, which opted to start on hard tires. An early pit stop by Ferrari allowed Alonso to overtake Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull and enabled the Spaniard to execute his strategy perfectly without losing position on track.

Paul Hembery, Director of Pirelli Motorsport: « Strategy was once again at the forefront of the Spanish Grand Prix, which is usually very demanding on tires due to the unique characteristics of the circuit. This is why we witnessed a significant level of degradation, which shouldn’t be seen again for the rest of the year. Our goal is to see between two and three pit stops in a race, and it’s clear that four is too many. In fact, this only happened once before, during our first year in the sport, in Turkey. We will aim for changes for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone to ensure we maintain our target and resolve these issues quickly. Congratulations to Fernando Alonso and Ferrari for pushing hard from start to finish and making the four-stop strategy work to achieve a very popular result here. Their strategy was planned from the beginning of the weekend with a calculated use of tires in qualifying, followed by fantastic overtaking maneuvers.

The best times of the day by compound:

– Mediums: Hülkenberg en 1:26.586 devant Webber en 1:27.267 et Alonso en 1:27.440

– Durs: Gutiérrez en 1:26.217 devant Massa en 1:26.394 et Sutil en 1:26.564

Longest stint in the race:

– Mediums: 22 tours par Bottas (Williams)

– Durs: 24 tours par Pic (Caterham)

[From the official statement released by Pirelli]

To have a better understanding of this graph, you can use the FIA lap-by-lap guide by clicking here.