nipo wrote:For a change - How many people agree with Ross Brawn's claim that Schumacher has continued to make the progress he has been making in the first three races?
I cannot say for sure but I agree with someone on this forum that maybe Button needs a little creativity in passing? Like going to the outside first then dive into the inside? MS was defending great yeah maybe but I do think Button could have done a bit better than that.
In fact, MS was towing a whole bunch of cars. At some point Adrian Sutil and Robert Kubica were catching up with the Schumacher-Button-Massa pack. Maybe car performance is only part of that and MS still has some more rust to shed.
Schumi resurgence or not, the last thing I want is for this to be "manufactured" by engineering the car Michael's way... look at Rosberg...
It was obvious to anybody who followed P1-P3 and qualifying that Michael did very well and better than in any of the other race weekends. He was faster in all but one qualifying sessions and crossed the line ahead of Rosberg. I believe that he would be still a contender for WDC this season if the car had been designed to his preferences and with his input in 2009.
Button is a pussy for his complaints about Michael passing him on the outside. He should use his time to take a lesson from Hamilton how to pass. I don't think that Hamilton had been behind Schumacher all race.
On the other hand having to defend against Button slowed down Schumacher's pace considerably. He systematically slowed down on the entry into each last corner before both straights to be able to accelerate out of the corner faster and create a gap for the straight where the F-duct gave Button the edge. I reckon that cost him 0.4-0.7 s per lap. It is standard racing practise and should not surprise anybody. Of course Rosberg was faster without constandly fighting a rear guard and with new tyres at the end of the race with a lighter car.
The W01 is faster with the new wheelbase as Schumacher and Rosberg both said. They are going to use that version on all circuits where length is no disadvantage. But the teams as well as the punters are agreed that the W01 isn't a contender for any of the championships. Both the results and the odds show that Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren have pulled away from Merc. The chances to catch up are very small unless luck interferes at Monaco and the team has massively performant upgrades in Turkey. My impression is that this is not going to happen and that Merc will quietly switch to 2011 in June.