Gary's view – Australian Grand Prix
Former Jordan engineering director Gary Anderson said the appearance of the safety car three times at the Australian Grand Prix forced the pit-lane strategists to think on their feet – but not everyone did.
Former Jordan engineering director Gary Anderson said the appearance of the safety car three times at the Australian Grand Prix forced the pit-lane strategists to think on their feet – but not everyone did.
"Right now McLaren are looking very strong – Kovalainen was a bit unlucky not to get second – and BMW have really recovered from a bad testing programme. After just one race it's hard to make any firmer judgements than that.
"The Williams strategy was good. Rosberg ran the same strategy as the race winner and made up four places, so nothing wrong there at all. Rosberg's a man for the future. The Williams team have moved forward dramatically this year.
"Ferrari's poor performance wasn't just bad luck. In a race like this one, where the safety cars are coming thick and fast, you have to make decisions and I didn't see them being made. Massa went into the barrier at the first corner; he went into the pits and they replaced his nosecone, but they didn't put any fuel in. The next lap he went in and they put him onto a one-stop strategy, so they weren't thinking on their feet.
Raikkonen was on the right strategy for his grid position – a one stop. The cars around him were all slower, so all he could do was make his car heavy enough that when he did get held up, he wasn't going to get held up by much. He then had the fuel to go a bit further and leapfrog them all during the pit stops.
"But he didn't pit when he had the opportunity under the safety car. At the time, he was in third and he was the leading car out of all of those that still had to pit. So, if he had gone in, he would have ended up ahead of Alonso.
"Having said that, this race was a difficult one with just seven cars running at the end of it. I don't think anyone's strategy paid off in the right way."
