raymondu999 wrote:Here's what Paddy Lowe said in specific (referenced in my post and n_smikle's)
He's tremendously good at controlling a car in oversteer. We saw that from the first moment he got in our car. We saw the data, and on every entry we could see there was a massive correction on the steering, and our normal drivers would have been bitching like hell that the car was undriveable, yet he didn't even pass comment. So with a driver like that, you're better equipped to push the boundaries to new levels. Speaking generically of that characteristic, a lot of the performance limit of a car is set by stability; if you can't hang on to it, you will have to introduce understeer in that zone. But if you have a driver better able to deal with oversteer in those zones that induce it, then you will have a less-understeery car elsewhere and therefore more total grip over the lap. The great drivers over the years - Senna, Schumacher, Mansell - have all had that ability. Like for like compared to other drivers, they want more front end.
Neno wrote:he already prove him self he can drive all kind of cars, even crap cars like 2009.
The point is there is no single "crap" car. Some are crap because of inconsistencies in balance, some due to massive understeer, massive oversteer, because they can't the tyres working, whatever.
i never see from Hamilton to saying my car oversteering like Button usually do, i dont have grip and this kind of things.
That's the point. If you can't drive around it, inevitably you have to let others know, sso they can help you find a solution. But if you have chronic imbalance and you're still happy anyways, it's just normal to you and you won't care either way, and thus not need to complain.
Hi everyone, hope everyone had a nice xmas and new year. This is my first post - I'm not very computer savvy so here goes.
I think the above post by raymond is very good. If I may elaborate on the above quote by Paddy Lowe. I've competed at a reasonable level in karts so can relate to this, though far from an expert.
Whilst each corner around a given race track has its own characteristics i.e naturally induces understeer, oversteer or reasonably neutral. However most tracks have majority of corners that induce understeer with a typical neutral setup car (let's call this the reference baseline setup). Hence drivers will try and setup the car such that they minimise this understeer as much as possible. Unfortunately, having a pointy car that doesn't understeer in the majority of the corners means that where the previous baseline setup was neutral in some corners, it would now have oversteer in those corners, and where that previous baseline setup was oversteering in some corners, it would now be very rear snappy and difficult to hold onto in those corners.
So a driver will have to judge whether he sacrifices some laptime due to understeer in majority of corners by sticking with the baseline setup, but with the ability to have some stability i.e safety, in the corners that typically induce oversteer.
Or whether he goes for a pointy car that can maximise corner speed in the majority of corners with minimal understeer knowing that he either has to take it easy in oversteer corners i.e leave some laptime on the table, or if he's able to hang onto the car, have a setup that is optimal for laptime.
A driver who can't hang onto an unstable car will try and work out which loses him more laptime - going for an understeery but safe car, or going for a pointy car but then taking it slow around the oversteer inducing corners.
Let's also look at a scenario where there is a hypothetical track that has very few understeer inducing corners i.e they are mostly either neutral or oversteer inducing. What would be the quickest setup? In that case you will generally find both drivers - the one who can't hang onto an unstable car, and the one who can, both converge into a similar setup since understeer is no longer the limiting factor.
What about the other way around - a hypothetical track that has all understeer inducing corners except for say one corner which induces oversteer. Well again, both drivers will converge on similar setups i.e even the driver who can't hang onto an unstable car will go for a pointy setup because it's more important to have a car that turns in for the majority of the understeer inducing corners and he will simply go slower i.e lose a tenth or two in that one oversteer inducing corner compared to the driver who can hang onto it.
Getting back to how this all relates to Hamilton, his driving style and what he prefers. Like most drivers he prefers a neutral handling car - one that doesn't understeer or oversteer. However there really is no such thing at most tracks. A car will always understeer in some corners whilst oversteering in others. So if there are a sufficient number of understeer inducing corners, Hamilton will go for a setup that gets the car turned in nicely into those corners whilst his car control enables him to lose minimal time in the other oversteer inducing corners by correcting and controlling the slide whilst keeping the power on.
I also agree that the Pirellis so far seem to be such that they don't tolerate slides that well so it's better to setup with understeer to minimise the rear sliding, especially for the race.
