Thursday, 13 September 2012

Stint lengths at Interlagos

Was just checking the stint lengths achieved by Audi and Toyota in the Free Practice sessions at Interlagos - interested to note that both Audis managed 38 laps between pit stops - the longest stint that Toyota did was only 27.

So it looks like we might get a similar race to Silverstone - with a quicker Toyota having to stop more often than the more frugal Audi. Question is, will Toyota manage to keep their pace for the whole of the 6 hours?

My money is on Audi, again.

An update to this, following qualifying:
Given that the stint lengths are roughly as above (possibly 30 laps per tank for Toyota), there are two elements to the race: one is how much faster the Toyota is going to be able to lap than the Audi is; the second is how much quicker in the pits the Audi is going to be.

I reckon that if Toyota can lap a second per lap faster than Audi, and only lose 4 seconds per pit stop, then they (all other things being equal) could win the race.

However, if Audi loses only half a second per lap, and can gain five seconds per pit stop, then the race should go their way.

We'll know more after the first round of pit stops - and of course, if the safety car puts in an appearance, then Toyota's speed advantage is of no use at all.

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