justbeingmiko wrote:
Stoffel is an odd one. All the ingredients are there, but they just aren't translating into on track performance. AI do find myself wondering at the lack of testing for new drivers. There will be a few a generation that can jump into a car and be quick, but others need time to find their zone.
In the Schumacher early years it was not unusual to see Schumi throwing the car off the circuit every Friday as he found the limits of the car and the track. These days, such a luxury would be frowned upon by the pundits and fans, make headlines and probably be disallowed by the team as their cars are abused So the new drivers get no experience in the real car, and have to perform immediately.
The cars of the last few years are not easy to drive or manage and experience seems to account for a lot of ultimate pace. There is the simulator, but all drivers say it doesn't prep you for track, it just gives you system awareness.
Maybe Stoffel is a good case for testing time to be given to drivers with less than 2 years experience...
Good points but I think he hit the ground running under the last regs in Bahrain last year. That was a weak version of a weak PU at that stage and he scored a point on a power track. I think people forget that a lot.
This years cars are a lot less forgiving, are causing big gaps between even experienced team mates, look at some of the gaps Lewis has to Bottas, far bigger than Stoff's to Alonso.
Then there's the Honda pu earlier which was just a vibrating mess that needed some creativity from the cockpit to drive around which just happens to be an Alonso strength and I think it was just a baptism of fire this year in the worst possible circumstances with the worst possible driver to be compared too. I think he'd have gotten up to speed much quicker in any other car.
But I'm all for giving the rookies more testing though, it would be cool if we saw more young drivers tests and got to see some of the young driver academy drivers like Norris get a go in the Macca for example. Even better if it's part of the race weekend and we can compare them to the seat holders.
Yes, his performance last year was what we expected of him. It is a bit observational at the moment but the inexperienced drivers do seem to be struggling to get on top of these cars. One race, they can be on it, and the very next race, be no where.