2014 Abu Dhabi GP - Yas Marina

[Kingshark]

Nico Rosberg joins a pretty illusive group of drivers this season with his 11 pole positions.



What makes this achievement even more impressive in my eyes, is that he's done it with one of the fastest drivers of all time alongside him as his teammate.

None of the others on the list above had a similarly strong teammate like Hamilton (Prost was not as good as Lewis over one lap, IMO).

[basti313]

Surely that's an extra two laps, one harvesting and one flying.

Either way, taking an extra qualifying laps worth of performance out of the SS tire is not a good thing, as others have said the first stint is going to be a short one.

Yes and no...taking a lap out of a tire that lasts only some laps is never good. But on the other hand...the Softs last much longer and he will be fast when others are already struggling on old SS.
I think the gamechanger will not be the lap more or less on the starting tire. The gamechanger will be where they end up in traffic. Ending up behind cars that struggle on the old SS...no problem. But ending up behind a Merc engined car that started on Softs will be a problem.

As always, I think Nico has his car to biased towards qualifying

Why do you think that? The last races quite clearly showed something else: Nico and Lewis were similar on the Soft tire, slight advantage for Nico. But on the Medium tire Lewis had the edge. This has nothing to do with setup, but with how they use the tire.
I am curious about what will happen in this race with Supersoft/Soft. Should favor Nico...

[PhillipM]

Hamilton and mercedes have been saying Lewis favors a race-pace setup over qualifying speed for about half the season - the car is fast enough that they don't need to worry about qualifying. The inference there of course, being that Nico does, because he knows if he gives Hamilton clean air he will usually drive away, as he's been easier on tyres all year.

[JimClarkFan]

I think Lewis sets up for the race more these days than he used to, something he started doing upon Button's arrival at Mclaren. I read that somewhere a year or more ago, could be absolute rubbish - so bare that in mind but it makes some sense.

Secondly, regarding the difference in Rosberg and Lewis qualifying, the drivers have very different philosophies to the corner entry and exit. Hamilton prefers to throw the car in at high speed by coming of the power late and using that speed to throw him out the other end of the corner. Rosberg by contrast doesn't brake as late and on entry is slower but he drives out of the corner aiming to be smoother in the middle of the corner but threw his early application of power gains speed on corner exit. I think this also explains the difference in fuel usage during the race.

[Juzh]

As always, I think Nico has his car to biased towards qualifying

Why do you think that?

The supposedly fastest guy on the grid got smashed in quali head to head by the guy who prior to this season didn't even seem at all that quick.

He also again got bettered by rosberg in S3 in abu dhabi, which people still throw around as a sector hamilton is the best at, despite only having best sector like once since the race took place in 2009.

[dans79]

Yes and no...taking a lap out of a tire that lasts only some laps is never good. But on the other hand...the Softs last much longer and he will be fast when others are already struggling on old SS.
I think the gamechanger will not be the lap more or less on the starting tire. The gamechanger will be where they end up in traffic. Ending up behind cars that struggle on the old SS...no problem. But ending up behind a Merc engined car that started on Softs will be a problem.

Thats what I was indirectly referring to. Because he took an extra lap out of the tires, that has a direct effect on when he has to pit, and where he will come out.

Why do you think that? The last races quite clearly showed something else: Nico and Lewis were similar on the Soft tire, slight advantage for Nico. But on the Medium tire Lewis had the edge. This has nothing to do with setup, but with how they use the tire.
I am curious about what will happen in this race with Supersoft/Soft. Should favor Nico...

All season Nico has been better, or on par with Lewis on the options, but has always seemed slower on the primes. That's way to coincidental for me to not be a slight bias towards qualifying.

[MercedesAMGSpy]

Rosberg is an underrated driver, maybe because of the bad cars he had before this one. I think it's the same story with Hulkenberg. Put him in a better car like Ricciardo and he will shine. I think Alonso/Vettel wouldn't beat Rosberg easily as team mate.

[BanMeToo]

Personally I don't think Hulkenberg is underrated, he just hasn't landed a top drive yet.

[ringo]

Yes as some have said Rosberg clearly has more poles and did a better job this year. That should not be some basis to deflate Hamilton as average in qualifying or worse that Rosberg. With this year's cars it's obvious that Hamilton's car is more setup for the race, and for some reason he has these lockups with that desired setup.
Rosberg is precise and can read through traces and study for 1 very specific kind of lap, almost like Jarno Truli, however he is quite average in the races. Shumacher has exposed that in Rosberg in the past as well.
This is why i say Hamilton is still the faster driver despite this year's qualy results. Bar qualy erros Hamilton still has more raw pace had he put those laps together.
You don't turn from being some super fast driver overnight to average on raceday and lose your speed. Rosberg just takes more risks with setup and studies data more meticulous to ensure he is ahead on the grid. It's his only hope of beating Hamilton.
I'm sure if the other cars were much closer to mercedes we would have seen more in qualifying from Hamilton. However he knows, after Austria at least, that going all out doesn't make much difference on race day when you are both on the front row.
I believe next year will see Hamilton back on top in qualifying when things start a new. At this stage he just has to manage his races.

[i70q7m7ghw]

I have a bad feeling about tomorrow. I just hope it's a clean fair race.

[SiLo]

Agree with what everyone is saying. Rosberg has done a fantastic job this year, and is very rapid over one lap. Faster than Hamilton? On the face of it, yes, but we don't know how much the car setup plays into it.

I guess at the end of the day though, Hamilton has generally been faster on Sunday, where it really matters (most of the time) and that's why he is leading the championship. I think he has also had one more retirement, which does count for a lot when the cars generally finish 1st and 2nd.

It's a shame Rosberg couldn't use his brain on for Sundays, rather than Saturdays, we might have had even more fights this year.

[djos]

Regardless of flap-gate, how about Dan extracting 6/10ths more out of his rb10 than Seb, that was mega and he did it twice in q3 just when it looked like Seb was getting to grips with the car.

[djos]

Ps. once again Dan K showed us JEV is too slow to deserve a top race seat.

[Raleigh]

Ps. once again Dan K showed us JEV is too slow to deserve a top race seat.

Now watch JEV show him how to race again...

[djos]

Ps. once again Dan K showed us JEV is too slow to deserve a top race seat.

Now watch JEV show him how to race again...

He'd want to be better at something with 3 seasons of racing under his belt!