gaffa costs hamilton pole position?
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I wonder how much affect that gaffa tape had on Lewis’s best lap?
Not much, it wasn’t flapping around. I think more of the psychological effect of thinking you have a damaged car would have made more of a difference to his time. Regardless, it was a stonker of a lap, and he should be more than happy with that when his team-mate is in 13th!
That is so hard to predict what the time loss is on damage like that. Sometimes cars even get faster when they are damaged, not that i think this is such a case, but i doubt the time difference would be nearly half a second because of some gaffa tape, as Jonny said it wasn’t flapping around, so the drag cant have been very bad.
It must have an affect to a degree otherwise they would run all the time with tape on. I think you are right about pyschological aspect… Lewis is the sort of driver that performs better under pressure in my opinion
It probably affected him, but I seriously doubt it was enough to cost him pole. As we saw, the circuit was constantly drying out all session long. Vettel’s pole lap was mostly down to track position.
Yeah, i wouldnt be suprised if Lewis still had it on his mind as it was only 5mins before. How many of us drivers have had someone cut us up on the road and still be angry about it some time after? I know I have.
But I think that if Lewis was putting in laps like that, he clearly pushed the whole thing to the back of his mind. The fact is, Seb in the RB7 has a great 1 lap pace and used it.
If might have affected the aerodynamics, but surely it can’t have been my more than a few thousandths of a second. Obviously if he’s 2nd on the grid it didn’t do him that much harm!
The only possible delay I can think it may have caused him would have been maybe an extra kmh or two on the straight with the added drag. Certainly not enough to change his position on the grid.
He surely lost pole because of all the uncertainty surrounding the state of his car, rather than some gaffa tafe.
I first read the title and thought you meant Martin Whitmarsh…he may have cost JB a shot at pole though, but no doubt they’ll say it was a team decision and we’ll never know who made the wrong call for Button. Because his team-mate wasn’t there, we’ll also never know just how good Lewis’s lap was, but it looked pretty special to me.
No idea if it was damage-related, but seemed odd that the front wing was hitting the track and striking sparks on the way into the chicane. Good to see some sparks though, it was like the 80s again!
No idea if it was damage-related, but seemed odd that the front wing was hitting the track and striking sparks on the way into the chicane.
I think that’s a combination of the track and McLaren’s front ride height and suspension stiffness. Although it’s relatively new, there’s a couple of bumps going into the Bus Stop, and Hamilton’s tendency to run a low ride height at the front meant that he was boucing through them a little. If you watch the replays, both McLarens are very stiff going into the Bust Stop.
That was initially my thoughts PM, but we’d not seen it previously to that extent with either driver, there were a hell of a lot of sparks. I remember at the Hungaroring, they were bouncing up and down in horrible-looking fashion, but I didn’t remember any sparks. Perhaps there was some minor damage to the front suspension which caused this? I suspect that the exacerbated “flapping” is probably because Spa is faster than the Hungaroring, so the effects of low ride height and stiff suspension may be exacerbated.
Well, it certainly wasn’t a result of the clash with Maldonado, because McLaren repalced the front wing.
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