Kubica has not improved that much, he was always really good.
I would have to agree, it's quite insane how much they have improved.
I would also agree, but only slightly. They are doing better, but over all, MF1 to Force India have improved much more over all. Force India have pretty much leap frogged Honda in terms of performance.
I wouldn't call Sato a n00b. He had a very good racing CV before F1 (British F3 champion, Macau GP winner, Masters of F3 winner). Perhaps the best Japanese F1 driver in history.
Compared to Heidfeld in 2007, Kubica has improved heaps. Perhaps it's influenced by BMW's improvement as a team.
possibly its due to heidfeld being in f1 for so long with traction control etc and kubica having less time using the driver aids.
theres been quite a lot about how some drivers cant adapt and its been made out that they're not as skillfull but no one seems to mention the idea of something changing in a familiar working enviroment, its one thing knowing you havent got traction control when your driving in testing but when your have drivers sitting in a race in a cockpit that feels similar to everyother f1 cockpit theyve sat in surrounded by cars that look similar to the ones that have run in every other season theyve raced f1 in and on the same ciruits you can't be surprised that subconciously they expect traction control and engine braking control to help them. put them in a different type of car and chances are they can managed aswell as any other driver without traction control.
a classic example of this familiarity of suroundings having an even more dangerous effect when one thing is changed came with the f104 starfighter. early models had an ejection seat that fired downwards through the cockpit floor ( the idea was to avoid the tail). now as you can imagine this wasn't a great solution if you had a problem when your close to the ground and pilots had to develope the discipline to roll the plane inverted before ejecting rather than just pulling the handle.
now as you'd imagine this wasnt easy to do when your about to hit the ground and so on later versions they fitted a conventional ejector seat that went up rather than down. however whilst this was good news generally and pilots new to the starfighter had no problems (apart from the planes other issues) experienced pilots were known in an emergency close to the ground to forget they had the new seat as the rest of the cockpit was almost identical and roll the plane inverted before ejecting head first into the ground !
I think Button has come on quite well with the TC removal, unlike David "Dodgem Car" Coulthard who has cost me many points in the F1 Manager game. Hamilton is also not the same driver he was last year.
Big to Fisi and his consistency in the FI, he's done brilliantly, but top marks to Kubica, he's been a revelation.
Actually, Vettel finished every single race -- just earlier than most everybody else.
Seriously, though, Vettel is the only driver, I think, who didn't finish one single race this eason. He had an accident in Australia, his hydraulics gave up in Malaysia, had an accident in Bahrain and one in Spain. Can't get much worse than that.
Not true. He has lost weight. When you lose weight, you weigh less. When you lose weight and weigh less, your car becomes lighter. Which technically makes you faster.
If this was true then all racing drivers would be midgets, or jockeys at least.
All cars must weigh no less then a fixed weight at any moment. All the teams have managed to be just under that weight limit and use the rest to balance the car as far as I know...
625kg if I recall, most F1's clock in around the 500-550kg mark I think, so add a driver and unless your putting clinically unfit sim racers into the cockpit you need ballast to get to the minimum weight.
It is true. Long story short, Kusbitca is a bigger man than Hieldfed. Now that Kurpitsa has lost weight the engineers can fiddle a little more with the ballast weights.
Nakajima? Two points finishes in four races, and he's brought the car home in all four. That's a massive improvement compared to last year when he only contested one race and ran over his own pit mechanics.