Snowy wrote:We don't know! Which is typical of F1. I tried to convince Ed to pay for me to go and suss all this out but he was strangely quite on the subject. I asked him if he knew any members of the test teams or anyone at the track he confessed he didn't. I think we should suggest he scout out some marshals for next seasons testing. So that we are never left in this kind of limbo again.Julian Mayo wrote:just a coupla questions guys? Who was carrying what fuel, were the cars in same engine spec., did they have the same aero , were they running the same tyres, and tyre pressures????????
Pedro and Lewis are almost definately involved in competition for a race seat along with DTM's Gary Paffett, and were testing tyres for China and Brazil, it would be a bit uneconomical to have them running different fuel and tyres so that no real decision could be made. Often the fastest guy doesn't get the drive because the other has a better grasp of feedback and shows more potential for development. The decisions would always be mysterious to us mere mortals. However one thing is particularly evident from the lap times Nelson and Lewis have set. They are both very quick and quick at adapting to the pinnacle of motorsport. Which prompted someone at ITV to ask the question 'are modern F1 cars too easy to drive?' Which is a dumb question imho, 'are modern F1 cars too easy to drive quickly?' would be more appropriate yet that is still a pretty daft question. An F1 car will lap a circuit twice in the time it takes a BMW M3 to complete a lap and irrispective of improvements in technology the physical forces and mental agility involved in travelling that fast are still considerable. Breaking distances are substantially shorter than ever and driving on the edge is by it's very definition the edge and if that is easy or easier now than ever then I'm an F1 race car driver.
I agree on PK n Lewis. Paffett deserves to be in the mix too. The actual speed these guys travel at is irrelevent imho. I did a trip a while back where I was rarely below 200kmh for several hours at a time. That is double the normal permissable top speed. The brain adjusted very quickly, for my passenger also. So much so that I had to stop her from alighting at 25kmh !! The brain has the ability to alter its perception of time and speed to suit the circumstances. I have had a couple of situations go horribly wrong, suddenly everything is happening in slo-mo, and I seemed to have all the time in the world. The hands were shaking at a trillion mph afterwards tho !!
F1 cars are again imho easier to drive than they were a decade ago, but to put any car on the limit and keep it there lap after lap requires a rare skill. Thats why I still reserve judgement on Nico,Kubrica et al and will do with these guys, Ralf I abandoned long ago, Trulli I have doubts about Nick is a worry, Fisi ????? that guy is a conundrum to me, PDLR and Massa seem to have the ability, Kimi, Scummi and Alonso have, Webber wrings the neck of most of the crap he drives, on a regular basis. DC rarely gets out of his comfort zone these day, Button should have had his bank account frozen a couple of years ago to keep his mind on the job.
? Are you happy to be our roving reporter in Europe ? Let me know and we can talk 
and then he would show us how overrated FA actually is! 
Ignorance is such bliss. 
