I've personally found that really - I'm just entering corners too quick. I'm too used to the heavier downforce levels of 2011, and I'm not getting a good balance in the cornering in 2012 because my mind is used to entering the corners with the speeds I did in F1 2011. After several hours of setup work and practice pounding out laps, I'm happy to say I've found a good balance I'm happy with again - though I'm still not 100% confident in entering medium to high speed corners with the lesser downforce, but it's something that I can build up in time, as I'm happy with the overall balance already - so it really was, in my case, anyways - more of an "old habits die hard" issue rather than any specific handling issue.
Mind you while I have stonking qualifying pace my race pace is pretty rubbish - I did a 1:26.386 in Senna's Williams to take pole in Melbourne (Legend AI) which was some 6 tenths up on Alonso's P2 time, but not only was I slower than Alonso by the order of something like 1-1.5s in the race, but my tyres were also wearing out quicker. But I think that's more setup work than anything.
However, given that I used to really make use of the FP sessions in order to actually do setup work and gather data on how long I could run stints for (in order to work out the best stop strategy for me
) I'll miss FP1 and FP2.
I did find something which was really idiotic though. Codies announced with 2011 that they wouldn't allow tyre changes with red flags because they felt that a Monaco 2011 type situation where the guy in front hasn't pitted (Vettel) getting a free tyre change was not right. So I was racing in Monaco in the wet. It was raining VERY heavily, and a pileup happened at Loews which caused a blockage (which I saw on my mini track map). The race was red flagged. Everyone was on wets but I was on inters (it was the others' outlap, I was planning to take on wets on that lap). The race restarted and the track was dry, but my tyres were still inters... and the others were still on wets. Needless to say it was carnage. I braked for T1, and my tyre temps (which I saw in the mini menu) went through the roof. I locked my rears, but managed to catch it enough so that I only brushed the wall slightly at St. Devote, with no obvious damage. I looked in my rearview, and Hamilton in P2 had spun, as had Alonso in P3, blocking the road. Nobody could keep the wets/inters in check. Heck I exited and I had wheelspin like nobody's business. I hit a bump on the way up to Casino and I just spun and smacked the wall. Horrible horrible implementation of the red flag.