DanielPT wrote:mario wrote:To be more precise, where did Hamilton find that pace - Button was struggling, and although his lap times did improve during the race when he had clearer air and his fuel load had dropped, he was still several tenths off Lewis's pace (though beginning to eat into the lead that Massa and Vettel had over him). I have to say that part of the advantage might have been the lower track and ambient temperatures, as Lewis's more aggressive driving style and the tendency of the MP4-26 to work its tyres fairly hard meant that he was able to heat up his tyres more quickly, but part of it does seem to be down to Lewis simply maxing out the performance of the car, particularly in the mechanical grip dominated first and final sectors, whereas Button struggled due to balance issues.
Or maybe the car has improved and Button is just slower. Button only seems to finish ahead of Hamilton if the latter incurs in a strategy mistake or a blunder of any kind. Maybe this was a great race for Hamilton, while Button just had a normal race. That might explain the difference between the two. Add to that Button's traditional weakness in qualifying (which looks to be more acute in could conditions) and you have Hamilton ahead of Button somewhat easily and why both of them look like best pals. In the seven races this year that both finished, Hamilton is in front 5-2, having won last year 10-3...
True, there is the aspect that Button is generally a touch slower over a lap, although to be honest Button seemed a lot more out of sorts over the course of the race weekend. Overall, it is kind of hard to pin down exactly where the MP4-26 stands, though, judging by the fact that Hamilton and Button were generally much quicker in the first and last parts of the lap, and slower in the more aero biased middle sector, I would expect McLaren could potentially slip behind Ferrari for Hungary. The car has improved, but the conditions and track nature did also partially play into the hands of McLaren, so they might fall back a touch in Hungary if the weather conditions are quite hot.
Onto another topic - Williams have revealed that they decided to run a back to back test on their KERS during the German GP race weekend, with KERS removed from Barrichello's car but left on Maldonado's car.
It seems that, since Cosworth are not developing retarded ignition maps, Williams have been struggling with rear instability under braking, as well as higher rear tyre wear - so, they decided to remove the KERS from Rubens's car to see what effect it would have on his tyre wear and braking system in the race.
"We have had doubts over KERS in the past with controlling the brake balance under braking, where you end up with quite a difficult situation.
"We always felt in the past that the few times in races where we have turned it off, it has actually been better on rear tyre degradation. There is no doubt in qualifying that it is better because it gives you three and a half tenths because you can go out and we don't have to charge KERS for qualifying."
"We could use a lot of the ignition firing to control the braking and it was much better, but we cannot do both, the engine is not capable of doing that.
"So we cannot have 100 per cent blowing and ignition firing, as we can't do the ignition retarding that other teams do. So we can stop the blowing under braking and control the brake balance, or we can do the opposite. It is a bit tricky for us."
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/93381However, the indication is that Williams will be fitting KERS onto Rubens's car for Hungary, suggesting that the outcome of their testing in Germany wasn't entirely favourable.
