2011 German Grand Prix

Hate? Strong word there. No, the difference here is that we are comparing Chandhok with Trulli, not Senna. And before we were all a little unsure of how competitive the HRT drivers were because of different equipment and obviously being far slower and harder to drive cars.
But at Lotus, we have a very good baseline with the current drivers, we know the car is faster than something else so we all know where the cars should be. We now have a clearer picture for how good Chandhok is.

He no longer has the excuse of driving a car that looked a handful, he was behind the wheel of a much easier machine and still managed to spin it in every session.

I'm not denying that Chandhok can do better with more practice and more experience of the car. But the potential he has shown and the huge amount of mistakes don't indicate a super-talent. Contrasting it with Ricciardo's showings and its pretty bad really.

 

Time for a theory... Could that be down to the difficult power steering? Perhaps we wasn't able to be confident in the car because of it.

 

He was interviewed by the BBC during qualifying and he said that the power steering wasn't bad, though it wasn't perfect. He didn't have a problem with it. The excuse he kept coming out with all weekend was that he wasn't used to the brakes as they were different to last year with HRT. But personally I find that hard to believe that explains every spin because some of them were on the exit or in the middle of corners - where he isn't on the brakes.

Its clear he was struggling with the car though, I haven't seen Kovy or Trulli spinning that much though (I think the only spin was Jarno's at Valencia?) so the car can't be the issue...the driver on the other hand.

Its possible that he might not be complaining about the power steering in an attempt to make Jarno look worse and perhaps get the seat, but if he is, he's only making his own driving look a lot worse.

 

And then there's this. No one has taken into account that he may be struggling to keep it under control because of the very power steering which put Trulli out of the car for this race. Nothing else matters if you can't turn the steering wheel properly.

 

In which case Trulli and Kovalinen are amazing drivers! If they have been keeping such a car on the track all this time, its pretty amazing. And therefore highly unlikely that its such a major issue that the Lotus is difficult to control.

Both Trulli and Kovalainen have stated the T128 is a vast improvement on last year and is even easier to drive. Trulli's issue with the power steering refers to his very sensitive feel for the car that helps him drive those super-quick laps. Its nothing to do with the car being difficult to keep on the track. Its more to do with it giving him odd sensations that he isn't used to and it makes it difficult to really feel the car on the edge. Think of it like Button's super-sensitive speed too. He turns the car into a corner and expects to feel certain sensations through the steering wheel to let him know when the tyres are losing grip, when the back-end is starting to step out, etc. But currently he is finding it gives false sensations or makes it difficult to really get a read on the car's behaviour.
Kovalainen seems happy to ignore and/or deal with the power steering's deficencies so has no problem finding the limit, like Hamilton.

Peter, what do you not understand about the words "power steering feedback". They don't necessarily refer to being able to steer properly, as I have explained to you before.

 

Ardius, I guess it takes a few laps at Mugello in FC, trying to hold a G25 wit FFB set to max to understand that question !

 

I see now that you are correct. It was Hollidog who said that.

 

Good race, was good to see them pit Petrov near the end when they did, I think they could've done it up to 4 laps earlier but perhaps it wouldn't have made much difference since it seems he hard a hard time trying to pass Perez after that (was .5 behind him for the closing laps), as long as he keeps outperforming Heidfeld my boat will be afloat, he just needs to bag some more points to move back ahead of him, perhaps if the Renault improves over the mid season break he can replicate his his (main) GP2 standings by coming 7th this year. (he matched with 13th last year vs 1st year Campos GP2).
It would just be a cool coincidence, and maybe if Renault have a top car next year...
(the car will be more lotus-influenced thanks to the engineers they got, hopefully that will count for something)

Interesting. I hope Renault noticed.

And I'm going to quote my last post without quoting it, after all if I had been wrong somebody would've mocked me proper.

 

No I didnt;

 

Petrov was first on the harder (Medium) tyres and so they were obviously fresher than everyone else's soft tyres at the time.
It turned out the medium tyres were closer than the teams thought in the end, as after everyone stuck them on, they were all faster. (not to mention obviously fuel loads are lower near the end of the race).

 

OK, we'll leave it at that.

 

When is the Hungary GP thread gonna be up? I didn't see it so I wasn't sure if I missed it or if it isn't up yet.

 

Thanks Niky