I'm sure Bernie would claim it was him. First person I heard use it was Brundle - doesn't mean he coined it though
I remember that from his Jordan days - he was second in the 2000 Monaco GP for 36 laps before pitting, giving Schumi a huge lead. It all went tits up for Mikey anyway though.
The slick-shod Ferraris took 1st and 2nd in qualifying, but Sir Jackie Stewart won the race on good old treaded Goodyears.
I think just about, yes. Mark led 59 laps, I believe the Safety Car was out for 55 laps in total. This is only a rough estimate based on my notes from the overtaking data collected last year, as the Safety Car isn't necessarily deployed at the moment the leader crosses the start/finish line.
There are two cars who lap at the same speed, they both have the same tyres, both tyes are new, they have the same fuel loads and engine settings and they both set exactly the same quali lap times. 1 driver does a racing stint in 1 and then the same driver does the exact same racing stint in the other. What makes 1 car use its tyres up more than the other and what makes the other one preserve them so well?
One drifts his car in the corners, brakes later and harder producing lock-ups, puts the throttle down quicker producing twitching and all in all looks a tremendous amount faster than the other driver who quietly gets on with a smooth style which keeps the tyre wear lower.
If anyone has the latest edition of Autosport, there is an interesting article on driving style, which looks partially at this particular point, and goes some way to look at the reasons for Mark Webber and Felipe Massa dropping off performance relative to their team mates.
The one which was out on Thursday, there is a write up on testing and an article about driving styles, its really jolly good.
I would second that. Mark Hughes is the only reason I still subscribe (though Dieter Rencken and Tony Dodgins write some good stuff for the website).
I read that but it sempt to be mostly about the drivers nervous systems rather than their styles. Wasn't really what my question was about though I mean why would ferrari and Mercedes use their tyres faster than cars that are faster and slower tahn them?
Being fast involves several different things, braking, top Speed, traction, corner in, corner out. Mercedes for example had trouble gaining traction, often chewing up the tyres exiting corners. There may be several reasons for this such as general stiffness of Roll Bars and suspension at the rear of the car. However that may give them an advantage in another aspect of lap speed. All cars are designed independently (except '07 McLaren), and some are naturally hard on tyres, and others require a hard on tyres setup as the best compromise. It is very expensive to completely redesign a car mid season, so often teams have no choice but to put up with one bad area of performance. Setup is all about compromise, improve performance here, decrease there. For example increased rear wing angle would improve traction, but lower top speed and create under-steer if front wing angle wasn't adjusted accordingly (reducing top speed further). Teams must decide what is best for the circuit, for example top speed will be sacrificed for braking ability. So back to the question, teams could easily quash poor tyre wear, but it would have an overall negative effect on performance, so they compromise as there is little they can do to change the original philosophy of the car. Does this make sense, it did to me...
