dans79 wrote:Phil wrote:
Back to Hamilton and Rosberg - why exactly is it unreasonable to think that they might be fueling both cars identical? Identical fual loads at the start of the race equals level playing field by default. Cars have the same weight, so in theory should be pretty identical to drive. The difference in fuel usage (and therefore weight of the car) only becomes apparent as the race goes on when one driver uses more than the other.
Two points. First, forced equality goes against the Merc "free to race" style. Secondly, every technical F1 corespondent regularly notes that a 1kg of fuel is worth some number of 10ths on a given track. Why on gods green earth, would a team intentionally make one car slower?
For the same reason they obviously don't want one driver using a different engine map than the other. There's heaps of evidence for this - the spat in Bahrain (where Rosberg apparently used a different engine map) and in a later race, when Hamilton repayed the favour (China?). Since then I think it has been clear that both drivers will be on the same maps, irregardless who is using less and more fuel. This is a direct contradiction to the "free to race" point you are bringing up. In my opinion, the "free to race" ethos at Mercedes only goes to the point that both cars are driven under identical settings. Free to race as long as they're on the same maps so to speak. Level playing field in other words. If they underfuel one driver by 3kg (significantly) - accoarding to your post, that would be quite a few 10ths, I would think Hamilton would be quite a bit quicker at especially the beginning of the race. I don't really see much evidence of that, so I'm assuming that both cars are fueled more or less equally. If we assume this to be true, it might also explain why Rosberg generally seems quicker towards the end of the race...?