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Formula 1 news, results and statistics when you need it |
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Yes, must agree with you on just about everything you said
here. Michael must be one of the most competent drivers today. He has proven
it 4 times already. I do not count this year as I think that he has had an
"unfair" advantage with an excellent car. A couple of others could
have been dominating in his car. Although I doubt if they would have scored as
many points by now due to Michael's ability to judge a race and to do just
enough to score optimum points and in doing so he nursed his car onto podium
in every race so far. I truly wonder if his Ferrari was ever at 10/10's for
more than half of any race. I pity the guy that is going to take over from
him. I believe that the foursome (Michael, Todt, Byrne and Brawn) are going to
retire simultaneously and then Ferrari will be caught by others and his successor
will not have the same backing as I am of the opinion that nobody comes close
to these four as a unit. But then F1 will be exciting again. The Heretic replies: Johan, Thanks for your mail and apologies for my tardiness in replying. Now that you have mentioned it I guess it is possible that the four of them will retire at the same time. If so expect to see Ferrari go backwards fast. I also agree with your comments on Kimi. He is already fast and will only improve. As to the tyre wear issue; Williams do put out more power than McLaren, which is the only obvious or simple reason that jumps to mind. I think it is unlikely that the drivers could both be hard on tyres. Ralf may be pedestrian but he is generally better than most at bringing his car home. I do not think that he would be particularly heavy on tyres. Montoya will be hard on tyres – just as hard as he is on everything else – but he seems to be getting more out of a set. I suspect, but cannot prove it, that it may be a combination of aerodynamic grip (or lack thereof) and traction control. Montoya was looking very loose in the rear end (slapgat?) on new rubber, which would not have been good for tyre wear and seemed unnecessary. Why set the car up to over steer that much on new tyres? Traction control should save tyres and it is possible that Williams are getting too much wheel spin before the traction control system curbs it. We may want to keep an eye on McLaren. Two/three seasons ago they were getting a lot of rear tyre failures which I believed was due to the extreme aerodynamic downforce of their rear wings. I know that one swallow does not make a summer but Raikkonen’s rear tyre blow looked suspiciously like it could be the same old problem but this time they are on Michelin – who are yet to learn about this feature of McLarens. If they are still carrying huge rear downforce it may explain why they get more wear out of their tyres, as they would slide less (until it deflates with a bang). On the other hand they may have different weight distribution or suspension setup or it could be due to a better traction control system. They certainly are not going to tell us. What we do know is that they are often out on softer compounds than Williams and do not seem to have either the initial problem of getting grip off new tyres or the extreme tyre wear problems that Williams frequently suffer from. To make it even more confusing, Williams do not seem to be getting predictable performance from their tyres. Every once in a while they do two stints on the same set of tyres when there is no time penalty in fitting new tyres as fuelling always takes the longest. It is not only the tyre wear that is confusing. Back to Top Loading
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