July 13, 2007

Cat and Mouse





It's usually extremely hard to visually pick out whatever performance advantage top Formula 1 teams may have on their peers. It is after all a game of 10ths if not 100ths of a second and without telemetry data it can be a challenge .

In this clip from the British Grand Prix however, it is fairly obvious that the Ferrari had quite a large performance differential from Lewis Hamilton's McLaren (...of course we all knew from Ron Dennis that it's not the Ferrari that is faster, it's the McLaren that's slower! Read Here and Here).

Kimi seems to be able to reel in Hamilton at will but what is most impressive is how well the Ferrari works in the dirty air of the McLaren. Look at how the red car tracks with very little push though the Maggotts Becketts complex and conversely how twitchy the McLaren looks especially at Stowe.
Kimi even tries some blatant super late apex, slow in, early on the throttle moves on Lewis and almost pulls it off at Brooklands before Hamilton shuts the door hard. Raikkonen was smart enough to wait until the McLaren's fuel stop to pull off a stunning series of fast laps and gain the lead.

(note, some audio drop outs in the middle of the clip are there in the original...it's not your computer...)

6 comments:

  1. I wouldn't say that Kimi was drowning in dirty air in Maggots Becketts. I would say he had softer tires, went off line(out of the dirty air) going into some corners, and that Lewis had some traction issues of his own. Either way, Kimi won, and that's sort of the important thing.

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  2. Maybe, but I wonder if there really is a "different line" through there. It looks like it's threading a needle at that pace!

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  3. Seems the Ferrari has V710s and the McLaren something else!

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  4. Ferrari must be cheating by getting Bridgestones that are "more Equal" than McLaren, right? :o)

    Or Maybe this whole Nigel Stepney-gate affair was a fiendishly clever way to get McLaren bad data.....(insert Stavro Blofeld laughter...)

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  5. Kimi making lots of adjustments with that right hand during straight sections.

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