true, I actually like that a lot, specially when they compare the drivers, and as you say MS and Massa have very similar styles, unlike MS and the stupid renault driver.

True indeed but Massa has definately changed his driving style maybe because of the ca or maybe he just thought it was quicker but last year in the sauber he used to stab the throttle and gun it.

The whole discussion of driving style is pretty much useless in this day in age to be honest.

It will go as far as left or right foot braking.


There is only one fastest line, and there is only one way to drive that line in order to get everything out of it. Period. So if you watch the top 4 qual spots they all drive identicaly. The only difference is how well each drive exploints his brakes and his grip. And that is simply how late they brake, and how early and how hard they get on the throttle. And we are talking thousands of a second difference here.

This only applies to qual however.


Driving style today can only be discussed in terms of racing. That is how each drive goes about passing, protecting the line etc.
So in that respect Kimi is fairly clean and safe.

u sure make left-foot braking sounds easy :roll:
TC in F1 is not perfect, throttle and brake modulation is important too (not that I drive a F1 car or anything close but tractions do varies in time and place.)

I disagree.

First of all there is no such thing as only one line on every track and every circumstance. There is a fastest line but that changes based on circumstance - is it raining, is there dust on track, is the car loose, is the car understeering, etc. What is the driver behind trying to do. All these factors make you adopt a different line.

After qualifying, Rosberg made a comment that the difference between Sepang and Bahrain was that Sepang offered a lot more lines to experiment with.

If you read couple of Peter Windsor's articles in F1 racing, he's spends quite some time talking about driver styles. There was an awesome article a couple years back where Peter compared all the drivers on the grid during testing in Barcelona for a couple corners. There was a huge difference between how the drivers approached the corner. Some turned in early while on the brakes (like Schumacher and Coulthard) and others braked in a straight line and then turned in hard (like Villeneuve and Hakkinen). I think Peter rated the drivers on visual speed, accuracy (did he hit the corner the same way every time) and so on.

Left or right foot braking is normally a matter of driver preference but left foot braking certainly helps in that it allows simultaneous application of both pedals to subtly rotate the car in the corner. This is of great help in fast corners. I remember a good example of this in the comparison between Michael and Rubens at Turn 1 in Suzuka and the Maggots/Becketts complex in Silverstone. Michael made up about 0.2-0.3 seconds over Rubens thru left foot braking - he carried more speed into the corner.

I think DC and Jenson are perhaps the smoothest drivers on the grid today. Compared to them drivers like Kimi and Montoya are more on the edge - their cars are always dancing about on the corners.

If there was no such difference in driving style why would a car be good to one driver and not his teammate but after a couple fundamental changes it would suit the other guy more. A case in point was Toyota in 2005 - Ralf kept complaining that the car was not giving him enough confidence in braking so he kept a margin and was slower than Trulli. But then when the revised car came out, it suited Ralf's driving style better and he did a better job.

So very true different driving styles are what give drivers those milliseconds that they need to gain advantages over their opponents, martin brundle pointed out a couple of times last year about alonso's car and how alonso prefers to have more understeer unlike others where they tend to have a more neutral to rearward biased car. Also i can remember i think in hungary last year montoya was talking about a different line through one of the corners which he found quicker. Also jensen button has a great driving style he somehoe manages to use as little traction control as possible and still manages to keep up with the rest, whereas in malaysia this past week where they show the revs and speed fisichella's car on accelaration the traction control cut in a heck of alot.

Mate there is only one line around the track that is the fastest. Tracks dont change their geometric shape now do they? Drivers take different lines depnding on the equipment they are given and how it works with that particular corner. But it doesnt change the fact that only one line provides the shortest possible distance from point A to point B. And of course it changes depending on the circumstance and the level of grip each part of the track offers. Thats common sense.

However take track "x" freeze the moment and there is one single line that offers the fastest time. There is only one true line.


And I think you misunderstood my point.

Yes there are different driving styles but F1 of today doesnt offer the variety of back then.

Cars are much stiffer so you dont see drives swing weight around under power(slide around when fighting understeer). Nor do you see the different approaches of low speed throttle modulation.

What I mean to say is that modern F1s are very specific and stiff cars which do not allow for much improvisation.

With the endles setup possibilities of a modern F1 car its safe to say that each Sunday each car on the grid is pretty much custom tailord (sp?) for that particular track.


Back in the day with H sticks and soft suspensions bad tires drives showed a lot of their own individual style in how they drove.


Today the times changed and F1 doesnt allow for all the different ways that you can shift a gear, slide around a bend, and fight the lack of grip on corner exits.


Nowadays you move peddals to shift gear, to are not allowed to slide around cause your tires will melt, and TC takes out half the work normaly a driver would put into modulating the throttle. The hardest part of controlling the throttle is in the low end at slow speeds getting the right exit...........Today TC takes over the low end and cuts off at the top.....


So sure there still is plenty of style in modern F1, however its nothing like back in the day, and us the fans cant see any of it from outside.

Ok i see your point but just to point out i've only been watching formula 1 for about 5 years so i never really got to see the sliding of the past days but with traction control and electronic aids about to exit F1 in 08 along with slick tyres and some freaky looking wing hopefully we should see the sliding under power etc etc.

Its not just that mate......its just that the game changed completly. And the old game involvded more driver improv then the new game :wink:

Kinda like the stock market. Its not the mad place of the 80s anymore. Its all done over computers these days hehe.

Guess you're right but thats technology for you, can remember buying a really expensive phone and had the best camera around 1.3m but then less than a month later a 2megapixel camera phone cameout but what can you do, there was even a topic on jw about that merc that could park itself i mean come on what next a fully automatic car steering accelaration braking etc, it seems that car manufacturers are finding ways to make us more lazy behind the wheel.

I agree to the fact that there's only 1 fastest line (entry, coner, exit speed) for a particular car.

When tires are fresh, track grip level is good, it is relatively easy for a driver to steer the car along that line. However, as the race goes on, wind direction, tire / track grip varies, following that ideal like becomes much harder and this is where drivers' style in brake, steering and throttle modulation comes into play. Also, don't forget the brake balance and many other adjustments the driver plays wtih during the race.

I don't agree that drivers back in the days are more skillful, I just think that their skill sets shifts into different areas as technology progresses over time.

Not buy any means. As I said this is just a different game now.

There is no denying however that drives back in the day were much more involved with the driving aspect, and that all that involvment resulted in very differnt styles.