rF2 Marussia F1 @ Fuji - Sunday April 7th 2013

[Ian Franssen]

what tyres did everyone start on out of curiosity

I adapted my tyre strategy after I heard that Stefan was going to try to do no stops on the mediums. Initial I was going to do soft and 1 stop with supersoft. That was in the practice I did, a lot quicker, I managed to do 29 laps, now I believe we did 28. I took the middle way so I could adapt if I wanted too between a 1 or 2 stopper. And thanks to Stefan his setup I was able to drive those times, so thanks again Stefan
I started on mediums and ended on them and could do a lot more laps. Spind in the third lap, only halfway the race my left rear tyre was worn to yellow after a 3 lap battle with kevin who was trying to overtake me with drs, locked my rightfront tyre with it, after that I was looking after my tyres and maintaind the gap for at least 10 seconds to the second position Craig, who also managed to do the whole race on 1 tyre. At the end my right rear tyre was still green! All of the other tyres had still a lot of life in it. So if you learn to adapt to drive around tyre management you really have more strategic options.
You can really manage the tyres and for me it feels like ISI really managed to simulate the reality

 

[Andrew Ford]

I adapted my tyre strategy after I heard that Stefan was going to try to do no stops on the mediums. Initial I was going to do soft and 1 stop with supersoft. That was in the practice I did, a lot quicker, I managed to do 29 laps, now I believe we did 28. I took the middle way so I could adapt if I wanted too between a 1 or 2 stopper. And thanks to Stefan his setup I was able to drive those times, so thanks again Stefan
I started on mediums and ended on them and could do a lot more laps. Spind in the third lap, only halfway the race my left rear tyre was worn to yellow after a 3 lap battle with kevin who was trying to overtake me with drs, locked my rightfront tyre with it, after that I was looking after my tyres and maintaind the gap for at least 10 seconds to the second position Craig, who also managed to do the whole race on 1 tyre. At the end my right rear tyre was still green! All of the other tyres had still a lot of life in it. So if you learn to adapt to drive around tyre management you really have more strategic options.
You can really manage the tyres and for me it feels like ISI really managed to simulate the reality

nice one. that is interesting. i must do some testing at some stage to see how long i could make tyres last. i was on hard tyres like i said. perhaps in mediums i could have kept pace a bit better early on. however, i didn't want to waste rear tyres battling. by not spinning i managed to stay in touch but didn't have the pace of you or kevin especially (in the race)

 

[Ian Franssen]

Before this weekend I had done only 50 laps on this circuit, but I did around 200 laps before race, so i really learned which tyres were best and how I could take turns still fast, without burning up my tyres. So practice is the magic word I won't be able to do that everytime, if you are in the middle of other cars you often have to do more overtaking and defending, in that case the chance of locking up is offcourse a lot bigger. I only had three laps of defending and was in the lead, that made life a bit easier for me.

 

[Andrew Ford]

Before this weekend I had done only 50 laps on this circuit, but I did around 200 laps before race, so i really learned which tyres were best and how I could take turns still fast, without burning up my tyres. So practice is the magic word I won't be able to do that everytime, if you are in the middle of other cars you often have to do more overtaking and defending, in that case the chance of locking up is offcourse a lot bigger. I only had three laps of defending and was in the lead, that made life a bit easier for me.

if only i had the time lol well done the mate ;-)