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[LewEngBridewell]

Yeah the yellow helmets will be hard to tell apart from a distance. Lewis' new design is pretty cool though.

[What's Burning?]

Yeah the yellow helmets will be hard to tell apart from a distance. Lewis' new design is pretty cool though.

I wonder if the name of the back of the helmet is to make it easier for the engineers and crew at Mercedes to remember it?

[CookinFlat6]

I thought this might be a good time to revisit what Paddy Lowe really thinks of Lewis' driving and why a smart engineer might be desperate to leave Buttons Mclaren for Lewis' Mercedes

http://mccabism.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/lewis-hamilton-and-instability.html

Very very interesting read before Lewis gets into the car for the final day of his first test for Merc.

heres a snippet;

"He's tremendously good at controlling a car in oversteer. We saw that from the first moment he got in our car. We saw the data, and on every entry we could see there was a massive correction on the steering, and our normal drivers would have been bitching like hell that the car was undriveable, yet he didn't even pass comment. So with a driver like that, you're better equipped to push the boundaries to new levels. Speaking generically of that characteristic, a lot of the performance limit of a car is set by stability; if you can't hang on to it, you will have to introduce understeer in that zone. But if you have a driver better able to deal with oversteer in those zones that induce it, then you will have a less-understeery car elsewhere and therefore more total grip over the lap. The great drivers over the years - Senna, Schumacher, Mansell - have all had that ability. Like for like compared to other drivers, they want more front end."

So we have the 2013 Mclaren car that is obviously designed to veer way into understeer if not perfectly balanced. According to Paddy this is allow its drivers to drive within their comfort zone and not max the ability of the car to get around a track with various corners.

'Bitching' drivers complaining about no grip when instead they could find the available grip by using talent and balls to tame the car round anyway.
Now I wonder if he feels that no matter how good he makes the car, it will be compromised by having to cater for the timidness of its 'lead' driver. Why try build a car 2 seconds faster than the others to have any chance of challenging for WCs cos your driver can get 80% out of it when you could go over to Merc and have your driver get 110% (driving beyond the stability limit)

Madness

[theTruth]

Excellent. I'd read that before, but this is certainly a good time to be reminded that those of us who see something special in Lewis, aren't imagining it. He is bringing something special to the table, and that's why, he's known as, "the fastest man in formulaone."

And if this Mercedes is within 0.5 or so of the best cars, we know that the Hammer can do the rest; all the proof is right there in black and white (as you just quoted). I'm feeling good about this, people.
__

[Hammer278]

Good to see Lowe doesn't like "bit*hes"...and gets his a*se to Mercedes ASAP, Merc could really use his input.

[bud]

Normal McLaren drivers in 2009 were?

[CookinFlat6]

Normal McLaren drivers in 2009 were?

yes, so if Paddy Lowe was expressing this even in 2009 the team, he must have been ecstatic last year when his fast and WC capable car had development halted to make it easier for 'fussy' and 'needy' drivers

[LRW]

[Hammer278]

"Asked if he was impressed by Vettel's lap time of 1:18.565 on hard tyres, which was the fastest of the day at the time, Hamilton said: "I don't know how the hards behave but people seem to be able to get a decent time out of the hards. The Red Bull is always quick so it's not a surprise and it doesn't impress me at all."

______________________________________

Ask me again why I'm a fan.

[What's Burning?]

Lewis is not impressed.

[Hammer278]

She could be cute if her face was straight.

[What's Burning?]

She could be cute if her face was straight.

COULD BE? She's adorable... and probably raked in 20 million dollars in endorsements last year.

[Hammer278]

I've never seen her with her face straight! But yeah, great features. Piercing eyes, semi-gothic make up....I'd look at her twice on the street.

[Hammer278]

"I think we've made it very clear to Lewis that he's part of the solution," Brawn said. "You have a choice in the team, you are either part of the problem or you're part of the solution. He's part of the solution to get us where we want to be and he knows that and he understands it and I think he's relishing it. It's correct that he gives us reference points and helps us understand what we need to focus on. Some of it we knew already and that's why we restructured the aero group. I welcome that approach. It needs to be constructive and it needs to be positive criticism of the right sort and that's always helpful for the team to drive it forward.

"He's clearly a very talented driver but Formula One is about so much more. There are a lot of talented drivers who don't have the rest of it but I think he's got the rest of it as well."

Brawn said he had been impressed by Hamilton's attention to detail at the first test.

"He's in many ways very simple and very straightforward, but he tells us what he thinks and he's never short of detail and then you learn what level you need to go to," he added. "He's interested about everything about the car, he's interested about the fact the stickers might not be put properly on the bodywork. He's got a very good eye for detail and he's going to be a very involved member of the team, which is what we wanted."

Mercedes first two days of the test were curtailed by reliability issues that required redesigns, but Brawn said the team had made progress since then.

"We had some problems the first two days, which was disappointing, but since then it's being going well. We've been learning a lot about the car and in Lewis's case learning a lot about working with Lewis, so it's been very productive.

"It's still very early in terms of learning what he wants from a car perspective, and of course we are on one circuit for one day so we need a greater spread to get to understand that better. He's clearly a person who enjoys being involved at all levels and it's a great motivation for the team. He's been working hard with the engineers at this test and he's been here on the days when Nico's been driving and on the headset listening to what is going on. He's everything I'd hoped that he would be."

[theTruth]

Thanks.