Also, for some drivers, I monitor their every lap during races, using the F1Official Timing app. There have been many occasions this year Bruno lapped as fast as the front runners. Yesterday his laptimes after his first pitstop were consistently faster than the front runners. His fastest laptime was made on lap 27, on the harder compound, and that time ended up 9th fastest, after the front runners had lighter fuelload and softer compound on.
This is something he has been doing on more race occasions than 1.
So there is probably no doubt the guy is a very good race driver, but a bad qualifier.
The question is, and I cannot understand that :
Why would a driver be slow during qualifying but be fast during races?? Any ideas? I don't really think him losing FP1 on many occasions is a real factor, because when he didn't had to give up FP1 , it didn't make much of a difference...
The answer to the second part of your post is that many times while the race has already settled in, many of the leading drivers are driving to a race pace. For fuel, tire and calculated race lenght, so they drive to a pace. Whether that pace is slow or fast it doesn't matter as they're the ones in front often by 30 or 40 seconds or higher by that point and can afford to drive at a pace that's half a second or more slower than the cars in back that are trying harder to catch up to the front runners. That's the explanation for what you see.
I know what you mean but that's not what I wanted to say. Surely that happens too, but I was talking about moments when the top drivers weren't already "cruising" near the end of the race. For instance, I've compared his laptimes on the harder compound, which he got after his first pitstop, to similar top drivers who pitted for the same compound around that time. It's not that I see him getting fresh rubber and say "oh, look how fast he is compared to the top 3". He would obviously be faster if they were on old rubber.
To give you an example :
Button pitted on lap 14, Bruno pitted on lap 10 and Alonso on lap 11.
They all had started on the supersoft compound, and switched to the soft compound during that pitstop.
I will start from lap 16 up to lap 24 (Senna pitted again after that), because that would mean Button had an exit lap under his belt to get up to speed with the tyres.
Button Alonso Senna
16 1:55.277 16 1:57.128 16 1:55.047
17 1:55.920 17 1:56.229 17 1:55.606
18 1:55.965 18 1:55.465 18 1:55.880
19 1:55.913 19 1:55.032 19 1:56.276
20 1:55.829 20 1:55.012 20 1:56.768
21 1:56.347 21 1:55.155 21 1:56.407
22 1:56.504 22 1:55.239 22 1:56.907
23 1:55.924 23 1:56.109 23 1:57.764
24 1:56.424 24 1:55.492 24 1:56.625
To be fair :
Alonso had to pass Perez on lap 16 and Hulkenberg on lap 17, and chased Maldonado from then on (+4s)
Button had no traffic during those laps and was chasing Vettel (+3.7s on lap 16)
Senna had no traffic during those laps and was chasing Raikkonen and Schumacher during those laps (+2.7s on lap 16)
Senna had lost his first gear on lap 10.
Senna caught Raikkonen and Schumacher on lap 19 (+1.4s) and passed Raikonnen on lap 23.
Button and Maldonado were overall the fastest during that time.
I can't use other laps because of the SC interventions and Senna's KERS dropout and retirement after the last SC.
So as you can see, when everyone is racing and chasing each other, with no traffic or real dirty air, he pretty much matches them, even with a loss of 1st gear.
That's something I had seen on previous occasions too.
So that's why I don't get why he has such troubles during qualif but be fast during races.
