Paul Hayes wrote:That's an impressive qualifying result from the Brawns with that fuel on board, and Kovalainen looks good too.
Button is better on a heavy fuel load. He actually goes faster than when he's a featherweight like Hamilton.
The reason is that Button has a really fluid driving style. He only ever turns in as much as he needs, and he never corrects if he can help it. It might look boring, but it certainly looks
fast. The downside to this is that he's really gentle on his tryes. As he proved in Monaco, he can make the softer compound tyres last longer than anyone else. This might sound like an advantage, but the catch is that Button's driving style doesn't generate as much heat as everyone else. As the wheels are the only part of the car in contact with the road, and more fuel equals more weight, a heavier car pushes down more. This weight is what Button uses to generate the heat; the increase in weight places greater stress on the tyres, which means they heat up faster. And that's why Button utterly dominated the early season: because he could qualify faster in a heavier car, and by the time he started burning off fuel, the tyres were well and truly up to temperature. He was basically the perfect driver: he could go just as quickly when he was heavy as when he as light, and he could conserve his tyres longer than anyone else, hence why his conversion to a two-stopped in Spain worked so well. And it's also why he's going to be a force to be reckoned with in the race. He might not have KERS, but Sutil's front-row position proves that non-KERS cars can be as competitive.
