wesley123 wrote:
A huge braking point for the chicane, curbstones to conquer and accelerating out of it. Probably more to gain in this corner then being quicker on the straights
+2
From what I'm reading on the comparative times, of RB, Mac and Merc lead me to believe that some posters did not really watch both practices. Merc ran massively heavy at the beginning of Pr.1 It was quite obvious as NR and Mike both had offs in heavy breaking areas, and I also noticed that Senna ran his first stint or two very heavy in practice one, and I think Renault did that for a very specific reason.
(See start of Belgian GP)
But back to the point about s1 times I noticed both Fred and Massa were late on the power coming out of that chicane and the onboard shots of Massa's steering input looked like he was really wrestling with the wheel in parabolica, and the lesmos. They had problems but I won't be all that surprised if they find a decent solution. I think the most telling times were the ones set at the end of pr.2 On heavy fuel. RB was lapping in the mid 1:27's McL. in the low 129's and Ferrari were in the low to mid 1:29's all on worn options. (as I was also wathing sector times on live timing)It's still very hard to draw conclusions as we still don't know the fuel loads, plus certain drivers tend to let up (like Alonso) just to always have a good space when starting a lap. Just speculation, but I think he was doing that in an attempt to come to terms with the chicane in s1, because as I said he was very slow in that sector for him. Suposedly (according to some) their are still 3 to 4 second to be found for quali. My feeling is that they will only be found with the type of DF that will not play well in the race, and predict pole will be 1n the low 1:22s
Practice 3 will separate the live from the mother_______jive.
I mean bring the picture into a little better focus.
