venkyhere wrote: ↑19 Oct 2024, 09:01
Read the *bold* text in the quote once again :
(a) Driving 'with margin' fearing track limit violation, is to brake earlier, and assuring no slide mid-corner, allowing optimal application of throttle at exit, but having already lost a little bit of time in the entry by braking early.
Max braked later into T19 than both Russell and Leclerc. He gained laptime through the whole T19 and the following exit on both. Here we assume the corner starts when a driver starts to brakes (which is why it's completely irrelevant how bad or good was the previous exit and top speed coming into T19), and ends when a driver starts to brake into T20. This whole section of lap I was talking about, because this is the only way to analyse who was better/faster there properly. I never look just a minimal speed on the apex for example.
venkyhere wrote: ↑19 Oct 2024, 09:01
(b) Those pushing to the limit would brake as late as possible, and be on the edge of track limit mid corner, but if the car is sliding outwards too much, they risk either breaching track limits, or wasting a moment counter-steering to make it stay within track limits - both of which delays the re-application of throttle at exit.
Max did (a), Norris did (b). I didn't want to write an essay and hoped that the phrase 'conservative approach' would convey the message. But now I have.
The only two in the top five, who braked later than Max into T19 were Sainz and Norris, correspondingly both lost the most amount of laptime to Max there. (again, T19 starts the moment a driver applies brakes coming into T19 and ends when he starts braking into T20)
Simple logic (if you know what this is) tells us Max' choice of the braking point into T19 couldn't be described as conservative, it was as perfect as it could be, given the circumstances, one and only lap on this tire compound through all session. That allowed him to take the best line having most "flat" platform through the corner, not unsettling the car, carrying more speed all the way through . Surely his braking point was more optimal than anyone's in the top 5. No Idea, who's done better.
Added: and of course, talking about just braking earlier/later into such corner is an awful simplification! It's not your typical braking in the straight line Baku type of 90 degree slow corner. It's far more important how exactly someone brakes, rather than how much earlier or later he starts to apply brakes. It's a matter of fact Max brakes differently and we can't see any of that on the onboards or the telemetry we can get. He often starts to brake a tad earlier than some of his rivals but gains a lot of time in the final phase of braking, and that was the case again in T19 at Cota. a corner in many ways similar to another extremely complicated corner - T10(final corner) in Austria. He was a making a difference in both of them repeatedly over the years.
and as I said, leaving extra margin on the exit tells us only that theoretically he could've stepped back on the throttle a touch early, gaining something like 0.01s-0.025s extra. Barely any more in such 200+ kph corner.
Ive read a lot of your essays, and most times you just throw random stuff out of nowhere. What you wrote above is just another example of that.
