#DankeSeb - Abu Dhabi 2022

Source: Aston Martin F1

Formula 1 arrived in Abu Dhabi for the final race of the 2022 season but also the final race for Sebastian Vettel. It was a fitting setting considering it was here under the floodlights that Vettel won his first championship. While the accomplishment was a result of the hard work over the course of the year, the anointment as a champion kickstarted a lustrous career filled with records and decorations. Although the nostalgia of success was strong, Vettel’s 2022 Abu Dhabi experience was unfortunately a far cry from the jubilation of 2010. Vettel had the pace, but he didn’t have the strategy. Where did it go wrong? Let’s jump straight into it.

Greed is Not Good

Chart 1 – Tyre Strategy Summary

In order to assess strategy, it’s only logical to first observe the tyre choices and stint lengths employed by the field as showcased in Chart 1 above. Outside of the top 2, it was only Daniel Ricciardo, Sebastian Vettel and Valtteri Bottas that opted for the one stop strategy. By all counts, the approach was not the popular one. That being said, the one-stop was still the favoured approach for the top two teams as Perez and Sainz landed on two-stop strategies as a matter of circumstance. As such Ricciardo, Vettel and Bottas were in good company. While it may be easy to look at the results in Chart 1 and be led to concur the two-stop strategy was best it misses the nuances involved in making the one-stop strategy work.

Chart 2: Race Story – Cumulative Delta Plot

Chart 2 above captures the relative pace and position of the drivers in the top 10. Charles Leclerc finished in P2 but only just clear of his main rival Sergio Perez. From this it is clearer to see that the difference in the one and two stop strategies was at the margin. This also shows how nuanced details can be the factor that determines failure or success. This same theme is relevant for understanding Vettel’s race.

Vettel started the race in P9 and was in contest with the Alpine of Esteban Ocon. This conquest lasted the entirety of the first stint until Ocon came into the pits at the end of lap 14. Vettel carried on maintaining decent pace, especially compared to his teammate Lance Stroll who had come into the pits one lap sooner than Ocon. But soon enough, both Ocon and Stroll were lapping at a much better pace compared to Vettel. While not ideal, this wasn’t an automatic sign for caution since Vettel would receive the benefit of a tyre offset. That is, Vettel would be able to push on his newer tyres more due to the fewer laps required in the remaining stint. Ricciardo was the next to come into the pits at the end of lap 19, just shy of when the front runners came in for their pitstops. And still Vettel carried on, all the way until the end of lap 25 which was the longest of anyone in the field as shown in Chart 1 earlier. Aston Martin and Vettel had acquired a large tyre offset but it came at a large cost as shown by the large expansion in delta compared to the other drivers.

Chart 3 – Pit Stop Gain/Loss

But nothing shows the cost of Aston Martin’s strategy as much as Chart 3 above. Despite starting well ahead of Ricciardo, Vettel had come out of the pits at the end of lap 25 well behind the Australian. McLaren’s faster pitstop was helpful, but the difference in pace made up for the lion share of the swing in race time. Nevertheless, Vettel still had the advantage of the tyre offset should yield dividends in the later part of the race.

Chart 4 – Race Pace Compared

But Chart 4 tells a different story. Despite being on different strategies, the trend race pace between all the drivers was very similar in the middle part of the race. The story is consistent in comparing Vettel and Ricciardo with there being a lack of material benefit from the tyre offset. This is what made Aston Martin’s call to go for a super long first stint all the more painful. Vettel’s pace was significantly slower than that of the others from laps 20 to 25. The sum of these differences more than offset the benefit in the second stint relative to Ricciardo. The strategy was so painful in fact that Stroll was able to overcome the impost of an additional pitstop and successfully clear both Vettel and Ricciardo as shown in Chart 3 thanks to the pace differential shown in the final stint of Chart 4. Vettel contested P9 against Ricciardo for several laps but finished a long way away from his earlier sparing partner, Ocon, who was challenging for P6 by the end of the race. What could have been for Vettel: at the least it was P9 and at the very best it was P6. In any case, it would have been enough for Aston Martin to claim P6 in the constructor’s championship over Alfa Romeo.

And so, the 2022 season comes to a close. It was a year that started with so much promise with a resurgent Ferrari and an uncharacteristically challenged Mercedes. But Red Bull showed why they have the DNA of champions as they pulled themselves back into the lead of the championship thanks to the happy union of all their departments. Alpine overcame McLaren in their battle for P4 while Haas catapulted up to P8 after a survival focussed 2021. It’s now time for a break and the opportunity to recharge. Will 2023 be another year for Red Bull, or will Mercedes and Ferrari find their own unity to throw down the gauntlet? There’s only one way to find out.

Thank you for all that you were, all that you are and all that you will be. Sebastian Vettel, you are the man.

#DankeSeb

I’ll see you on the other side.