pokerman wrote:
Well i'm not sure how much the drivers use one another's setup data and obviously in Spa Hamilton got it totally wrong but i guess this can happen from time to time. But this is much different to the problems Button was having, his driving style was preventing him from getting the performance out of the car that Hamilton was, plus he couldn't adapt his driving which Hamilton had done, the team basically had to make the car work for him which took several races to sort out.
Thats because the tyres were not behaving as tyres traditional behaved. The boffins were baffled. In Canada due to the mess up on Friday regarding JBs gear box they put JB out on the Montreal specific rear suspension (More Squat I believe) and Hammys set up because obviously Hammy had meaningful running time. (It was originally planned JB would use the standard rear suspension minus some "Gizmo" they had been using) .
How ever as we seen the tyre wear difference between the two was extreme.
Now if you were a team boss and two of your drivers were showing total different tyre wear patterns on the same set up, what would you do?
a) Ignore it and carry on?
b ) Analyse the data to cure the problem and understand the tyres better?
Remember understanding the tyres better doesn't just help one driver.
Or another way of looking at it. In Brazil between the two cars McLaren ran something like 32 different downforce levels when testing the new tyres. Should all the settings tested on Hammys car and info garnered be binned so that it doesn't help Sergio and JB?
Schui and Rosberg also tested the new tyres. Should Merc keep all they discovered secret from Hammy . Do you think any data that was gained by schui or Rosberg when testing 2013 parts shouldn't be used to help Hammy?
Of course not that would be daft and a waste of time shooting themselves in the foot. They are teams, it's a team sport and the teams own the info. They will analyse whatever they can to improve the car regardless of who the driver was and if the analyses is correct then that helps the team improve the car which helps both drivers. The only reason such a big deal was made of the whole thing was because it was during the pissing contest whilst contract negotiations were going on. I would bet money on it, if Lewis had signed before this then it wouldn't have been mentioned.