I do I have Lotus first in Qualy and race. Either Lotus driver is capable and either Sauber driver is capable as well.
Rumors. Nothing confirmed. I highly doubt they have a completely new front wing though. The nose would be a surprise too
new front wing for Lotus E20. Interesting cascade design they have there. Image Unavailable, Please Login
They're only different if it's a driver you like / dislike stating things. I'll bet if Lewis Hamilton had said the exact same thing Michael said, he would have been skewered by a lot of people here.
You already know that. And I actually disagree...I would honestly imagine that LH, with his driving style (balls out, loves to overtake) would agree with Michael's stance since he has to hold back too much and conserve. MS has never been known as a whiner, so when he speaks his mind I think his comments have much more merit than a Barrichello, for example. Besides for that, he's a 7 time WDC and has driven in many different eras of F1 so he has experienced all sorts of different tires and tire regs, so he is a good barometer on the subject, IMO. Expressing his distaste with the tires versus coming out and saying I hate these tires and that's why I am struggling are two completely different things.
Yes I agree, I would imagine Ham would like a race distance durable tyre. You never know the planets may line up again for MS, if he hangs around long enough, he just has the young hot shot gutter snipes to deal with...
The thing is, F1 is adapting to make it interesting for TV viewers. Not real racing. At the end of the day, real racing should be about pushing the car and the drivers to the limit. Not managing some bloody tyres. As someone posted earlier. The drivers these days after finishing races looks like as if they just went for a cruise. Remember Alonso Malaysia a few year ago, Trulli in Germany in 2003 i think, and Mika in Malaysia 2000. Thats the limit.
MS has commented on how physically easy these cars are to drive compared to the grooved tire machines...
I see that as very possible, but the Mclaren is very very fast on race pace. Strangely though, the Mercedes is maintaining its tires better than any on the field as of second practice today. Michael first lap of a full load sting was 1.31.338, 1:31.069, and after 18 laps on those soft tires Michael ended with a 1:31.109. They have W03 treading very very light on those tires. Everyone else is suffering at least half a second by 9-10 laps on the softs.
W03 had a ton of antennas on it today and I heard they were testing the tires to their maximum meaning they were running as-heavy a fuel load as possible. We'll have to wait and see but I hear Bob Bell is confident with things while Nico is apprehensive about things due to tire wear. Nico was much slower than Michael on race pace and Nico really killed his tires.