Sebastien Vettel?s desperate defence of second position in the Australian Grand Prix with just two laps to go explained
It all came down to tyres. In the 2009 season there are two basic tyre compounds, soft and hard. Each team must use each compound at least once during the race. The problem was that the soft tyre wasn?t warming up enough and giving drivers the grip they needed. This issue was magnified during the race when the sun started going down and the track began to cool. Track temperatures at some races can reach almost 70 degrees Celcius, but in Melbourne it was struggling to hit 40 at times. Drivers stuck using the soft compound (including Vettel) towards the end of the race were lapping seconds slower than those on the harder compound tyres.
Robert Kubica had managed to get his soft tyre stint out of the way early on in the race. In fact, the Pole started on the soft tyres. This is why he ended up catching Vettel so quickly towards the end of the race. Why was the soft tyre going off so quickly though?
Bridgestone, the official tyre supplier to Formula 1, creates different compounds for each race, depending on the track and environment. The soft compound used in Australia won?t be exactly the same as the soft compound used in next weekend?s race in Malaysia. That said, Bridgestone obviously got something a bit wrong and the soft tyre just didn?t work for many of the teams. It?s a problem that has happened in the past as well, when one tyre is hopeless in certain conditions. At the very least, it spices up the racing!
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