https://www.planetf1...025-conclusions
Look at the speed trace comparison near the end of that link. Lewis is treating the brake and throttle as an on/off switch, his speed trace is peaky. He carries more speed before turning in, then initial rotation comparison with Charles seems around the same, but then mid-corner minimum speed is terrible. Charles’ is settling his car, while Lewis hasn’t so the floor isn’t generating the grip. Because Charles is carrying a higher minimum speed, he can be gentler on the throttle on exit while Lewis has to be aggressive on it to try and make up the time.
The entire trace shows Charles is flowing the car through. He is coming off the brakes earlier and letting the car roll into the corner more gently with a nice blended and softer transition from braking to steering input to throttle pick up. Charles is carrying the perfect amount of speed to turn in at the correct point for the corner getting just the right compromise between braking, turn in point/speed, maximising his rotation mid-corner and maximising minimum speed. The exit takes care of itself then.
In contrast Lewis is coming in hard, aggressive on the brakes which unsettles the car. So his problems are starting with the hard braking, pretty clear to see. Because every input thereafter is trying to deal with the consequences of the hard braking which unsettles the car, so he turns in early to get the car settled more, but then his corner angle is too acute leaving him requiring a higher amount of rotation mid-corner where he loses too much speed, so he uses the throttle aggressively to pick up acceleration on exit compounding his tyre use.
But having gone down a different setup to try and maximise his flawed style for these cars at these fast flowing tracks, his car is not correctly balanced to even try and do what Charles is doing. Especially at fast flowing tracks like this, it’s clear Charles’s approach is the correct one. If lewis is even trying different setups in these kinds of tracks, he’s just preventing himself from adapting to how the car needs to be driven. He simply needs to copy Charles’ setup for these kinds of faster flowing tracks, and then work on driving it the same way. Lewis had plenty of opportunity for the previous 3 years at Mercedes to experiment with what George was doing in both setup and driving to get on top of what these cars need but by his own admission he was stubborn. At this point in time and at least seeing out this last year of regulation, he needs to limit his own direction only for the low speed tracks and just copy Charles fully for the faster tracks.
He only lost time and disrupted his own rhythm when he must now focus on mastering the tyres, not wasting time to protect his image of a racer.
