Friday At Monaco – A Day Of Rest
I don’t have much to blog about right now, that will be right after Qualifying. When we have the grid set. When we have the answers to a couple of the key questions about this weekend. Can Mercedes continue their fastest one-lap form and take another pole? Has Ferrari moved any closer to the Mercedes or Red Bull in Qualifying? Has Red Bull be hiding their true speed?
Some of these question will for the most part be evident after free practice on Saturday morning, but it is Qualifying that will have the final say on what our race will look like and its possible podiums finishers on sunday. So until then, this blogger has only a couple of thoughts but nothing to really sink his teeth into.
Instead, I am passing along some cool reading from Peter Windsor. Here are a coulpe of excerpts of a post from his website. Just click on the title below and it will direct you to the full post.
Watching from La Rascasse (Part 1)
“What you see here does not come under the heading of “good photography”. It is, though, my attempt to try to illustrate some of the principles about which we talk on The Racer’s Edge and occasionally on these pages. All the pictures were taken at La Rascasse on Thursday afternoon at Monaco (after Romain Grosjean had hit the barrier at Ste Devote!).”
“Fernando Alonso (left) was (with Pastor Maldonado) the driver who turned-in earliest to Rascasse. He refrained from applying any soft of substantial steering lock until he was right at the apex (out of the photograph to the bottom left), and this he did with increasing power. He looked superb, I thought.”
“I was surprised by the massive differences between the Red Bull drivers, Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber. Although the positioning of the two cars looks fairly similar in these two pictures, look closely at the amount of steering lock Seb has applied (relative to Mark). This was absolutely typical of what we saw all afternoon.”
“Kimi was of course just beautiful to watch, even if he was locking up the front brakes more than we usually see. He wasn’t quite as far to the right as Alonso and Maldonado (or Di Resta, as it happens) but his initial steering movements were very slight and very small – a mile away from Vettel’s. Then, in one clean movement, he would tuck in the front for the major rotation and accelerate without fuss towards the exit of the corner.”
Do yourself a favor and give it a read. If your like me, you will find it so interested in regards to way each diver approaches his race-craft that you’ll want to re-read it several times. Pieces like this one that Mr. Windsor put up are so valuable in understanding why some drivers can find that extra 10th and what makes some divers truly great instead of very good. In a way Mr. Windsor is playing the role of teacher to all of us (me included) that do not have a trained eye to pick up these nuances driver to driver. I hope enjoy it. -jp- (wish I was there)
AmerF1can 
There’s definately a great deal to find out about this topic. I really like all of the points you’ve
made.
thank you. F1 is such an interesting and compelling sport and i find immense joy in writing about it. jp. and thanks for the feed back.