kooleracer wrote:gray41 wrote:Will the characteristics of the W04 be suited to Sepang?
I dont think there is something like a track suiting a car. If your car is quick it will be quick everywhere. There a drivers that go faster in particular tracks. Like Micheal and Lewis both like street-circuits. The red bull in 2011 was fast everywhere even on a track like Monza, what shouldn't have suited them. I call that suggestion a racing myth.
Certain cars do perform better at one track vs another, absolutely. For instance we know with W04s 'fric' system that it has excellent mechanical traction and it will work well at more complicated short circuits such as Monaco and areas similar to Barcelona's sector 2 where it was massively quick. I believe Sepang will be an excellent circuit for W04 and its 'fric' system due to the multiple number of tight turns.
It seems every team needs to do a bit of tuning to their suspension to get their tire useage just right. It has been conjectured that W04 ran their super softs at optimal temperatures thus had excellent useage of them in Oz yet the medium tire temp was perhaps a tiny bit higher than the compound would have liked at first but obviously the final stint on mediums had them at an optimal temp as W04 was very very quick on them.
So far I'm thinking W04 is a bit of a pig on high fuel loads which was not dissimilar to W03 or W02 which was a more extreme case. That said, 04 is without a doubt better on tires. Whether or not they were on the brink of underheating their supersofts yet overheating their mediums at first has yet to be known, not enough information to conjecture not to mention the ambient and track temps were wildly off what anyone was prepared for.
