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Adrian from Australia writes "Re Minardi and the titanic battle between Webber and Yoong, I just hope that Alex is not the jealous type, or rather, I hope his daddy is not jealous - who exactly is supplying the money for Alex to drive anyway. If Alex is, he may decide to a) pull his money out of the Minardi team, or b) demand preferential treatment ala the Ferrari team, thus giving him a chance to beat someone, even if it is only his crippled team mate. Being an Aussie, I am completely unbiased when I say that I hope some of the better performing teams give Mark a chance - he has performed really well considering the equipment he has to work with. Better still, it would be fantastic for the Minardi team to show some improvement and keep Mark on...I can dream can't I. Love the stats you are providing. They give a different view of the season. Have you thought about providing past year's qualifying stats? Cheers, Adrian" - (Ref - Quali-flyer's Austria Predictions) The Quali-flyer replies: Adrian, I knew before the season started (like as soon as Mark was given the seat) that Alex would have real problems measuring up. Lets face it, history not-withstanding, Alex is putting the Minardi precisely where the pundits expect it to be - last! Still, Paul Stoddard needs the funds and one car doing so much better than he could reasonably expect is better than none. Even drivers of Mark's talent have to bring sponsorship dollars with them if they want an entry drive these days, the 'sport' is just that expensive. And sponsorship dollars are much easier to find in the nepotistic SE Asian economies than in Australia. If you can't drive, thats OK, you just need more of them. Mark should feel pretty comfortable with his chances of a drive next year, with or without personal funding. Paul Stoddart has to watch Mark like a hawk to ensure he isn't 'chatting' to other team owner managers. There are for instance a couple of pretty green cars and a red and white one that could use some of Mark's talent about now. Having seen so much of them in his rear view mirrors Mark might want to take one for a drive. Minardi improving? It's not as unlikely as it seems. With the attention Mark is attracting and the coverage Minardi is getting (much more than they ever had in the past) as a result, it should be a little easier to pry a few bucks out of the corporate world. Mark is drawing the attention, and Alex is supporting that by being so bad. With every real race finish in front of Name drivers in Name cars the chances of real development funds being found improves. With Asiatech apparently serious about mounting a Ferrari style one stop shop attack on F1 they may even put some effort into improving the engine first. If they can find a few horsepower Mark has shown he can drive through the deficiencies of the chassis. Whether they will want to do that given it's a recalcitrant Aussie making the waves, and at the expense of the home boy, is another issue. I'm not sure why Asia has never produced a top driver, motorsport is hugely popular there and they do have a reasonable sized population to draw on. If you have ever caught a taxi in Bangkok or Shanghai you would understand that the few survivors of those schools do understand car control at ten tenth's. Perhaps the real talent is kept below the ceilings that daddies' money builds? Cooky from Australia writes "Yes more of the
same, Saleem get your hand off it mate they have the same car, if Rubens could
do it he would of by now. The Quali-flyer replies: Cooky, Well said. Ferrari will give every advantage they can to Michael, short of compromising Barrichello's chances of earning constructors points. Team orders won't move Rubens back down the grid and won't see him shortchanged on equipment. You're also right about Williams, if it doesn't happen here it ain't gonna happen. They will do well here or it's back to the drawing board. I suspect that even on this track (that could have been designed by a Williams engineer) they will be short on answers for the disappearing Red questions. If Michael doesn't win the real race then it will only be because the autopilot failed and he finally got pushed back to second by Rubino. Of the rest, I think Trulli may finally break his recent form and show his stuff. Massa/Heidfeld? - you're right, its a real close call. My gut tells me it's getting close to parity and Nick is going to have to work very hard at keeping the upper hand, I see a turnaround in fortunes there with Massa ending the season in a much stronger position than he is now. DC vs KR, no contest really, Coulthard still has a couple of real race wins left in him, but the rest are Kimi's! Saleem K from Malaysia writes "With regards to the question U asked.. "Have u got a better explanation for his recent exploits"?..Yes.. I do....referring to MS...it's his car.. it's not him.. I think if u put DC or half of the other competition in it they will take him for a ride too..." - (Ref - Quali-flyer's Austria Predictions) The Quali-flyer replies: Saleem. Sorry, I can't agree with you there. Maybe if you put DC in the F2002 he could have driven the way Rubens has but he couldn't have found the extra little bit that Michael does. That's the difference between The Best and the next tier. David, Ralf and a bit less than half the other competition fit in that 'best of the rest' category. To get a drive in Formula 1 today you need a lot of talent and a lot of luck or, if you are Alex Yoong, 80 Million US Dollars (!!). Even the worst of the rest are very fine drivers, just not champions. Today, only Michael can deliver World Champion performances consistently. Now, tomorrow? The depth of young or relatively inexperienced talent in the field today is as high as I have ever known it. Button and Raikkonen are certainly two future world champions, Montoya might get there and Massa and Webber are possibilities. Yoong, Sato and McNish ...... well, perhaps not. S Ku from Hong Kong writes "You're right, there should be a qualifying championship" - (Ref - The Real Race - Spain) The Quali-flyer replies: And now there is! Our budget does not quite extend to champagne and trophies but we do have an abundant supply of 'Also Ran' awards to ensure that those deserving individuals who put the so much effort into delivering the goods for their fans, team and sponsors are appropriately recognised. Hopefully we can arrange a black tie event at the end of the season and invite Mark Webber, our reigning Qualifying Hero, or whoever manages to topple him from that throne, to present the 'Ultimate Underachiever Award' to that driver judged as our most consistent also ran for the season. Then again, the way things are going he could just hand it over in the team garage, Alex looks like a sure thing for 2002. Rob D. from Australia writes "Finally somebody is singing the praise openly about Mark Webbers unbelievable performances to date......lets hope that Sauber, Renault, Jordan, and even the "Top three" are taking note!!" - (Ref - The Real Race Explained) The Quali-flyer replies: Rob, You have to give praise where praise is due. In my arena nobody has even come close to matching Mark's performances. While it has been great in highlighting Marks talent it is a damn shame that Yoong can't drive. If he was partnered with somebody like Heidfeld, as Raikkonen was last year, then his talents could be seen in perspective. Mark needs to get into a competitive car but the experience he is gaining this year is invaluable. Even Yoong (OK maybe not Yoong, but anyone else on the field) could be fast in a F2002, it takes real talent to push a Minardi into the pack the way Mark has. It took him a long time to get there but he has done enough already this year to give him a real car for years to come. Cooky from Australia writes "Yea Ferrari first, Ferrari second Williams Daylight third, most all cars lapped. Lots of red flags in the crowd. Bells ringing in Italy, capice (humour). Regards" - (Ref - Qualif-flyers' Spain Predictions) The Quali-flyer replies: Cooky, I gather you are a tifosi? Capice? Hope you enjoy the real race in Spain .......... on second thoughts, as a Ferrari fan I'm sure you will! Bill from Australia writes "I just think these graphs you made do show the talent and successes of all the drivers, but in some form it should relate on how well they drive in the race in comparison to their starting position. It will give more info and it may express talent from qualifilying to racing." - (Ref - The Real Race Explained) The Quali-flyer replies: Bill, Thanks for the comments. We have modified the 'main race' page and hopefully this will now give a better picture of what we are trying to achieve. One problem with relating the outcome of the real race with that of that other minor event is that there are many influences that can change a GP result that don't occur in qualifying. Schumacher will come home in front of Rubens unless the team has to sacrifice points to have it happen. If Rubens can outqualify Michael, as he did in Melbourne and almost did in San Marino, then he can do so without external influences being bought to bear. Kimi Raikkonen outdrove David Coulthard in San Marino (both in the real race and on Sunday) but it was David who came away with the points. The Sunday event is covered in commentary by the Heretic, my focus is on the level playing field of the Real Race. Josh from Australia writes "I think your tables are great, but the lower drivers with not as good cars I feel should get credit for their performances, it's a table showing talent, but then why doesn't it?" - (Ref - The Real Race Explained) The Quali-flyer replies: Josh, The table is only part of the story, check out the graphs showing both cumulative and per race performance on the individual race pages. By a significant margin the best performer in every race to date has been my consistent top Qualifying Hero, Mark Webber. Of course it helps his cause that he has the worst performer in the entire field to get measured by. This doesn't take anything away from Marks efforts this season. Mark, along with Salo and Frentzen have scored four from four in the Real Races. Those two however are very much more experienced than their team mates. Yoong and Webber are both rookies (leaving aside Yoong's couple of starts last year) and Webber is embarrassingly better than the cashed up young Malaysian. The Qualipoints table is there to show relativity between the teams and to provide a vehicle for me to maintain a running score of wins/losses and best spots. The graphs show the relative performance of the drivers and the Also Ran Award allows me to give the worst performers a hurry up. While I have had a positive response from Nick, Eddie and Ralf I am not holding my breath for Alex to get up next race. Alex from the USA writes "How do you compute the
drivers standings chart? Montoya is not first in points, "wins" or
cumulative differential (where he in fact trails his "also ran" team-mate),
yet leads the standings. How so? The Quali-flyer replies: Alex, Thanks for the comments. The Drivers Standing on the individual race page is presented in the sequence they ended that Real Race. Montoya was on Pole in Brazil so for the Brazil page he is first, Schumacher came second etc. Montoya is behind Ralf on cumulative differential, but only because Ralf got a clear dry(ish) lap in Melbourne and Juan Pablo didn't. That one second advantage will skew the facts for quite a while. We have actually discussed running the cumulative average differential chart exactly as you have suggested, look for it on a revised leader Real Race page sometime after the next round. Jacques got a mention in my San Marino predictions and I really can't see him failing to win an 'Also Ran' or two to go with his now aging collection of trophies. Nick was such a stand-out winner of the 'Also Ran' for Melbourne and Jacques has won the last two Real Races. Give him time, perhaps less than a week? Trulli is a very good hot-lap pilot, one of the best in the business. Button did very well to almost match him in Brazil and prior to that they each had a 0.6 second win. I suspect that your question of how long Button can stay with Trulli will start to be answered this weekend, where Trulli will go up one more. Having said that I am still very impressed with Button's turnaround from last year. Everybody, well maybe everyone other than his Mum, had written him off by mid 2001 but he has shown some of the same spark this year that made him rookie of the year in 2000. Enjoy the San Marino Real Race, with Bridgestones 'other' teams starting to benefit from cooler track conditions we may see some movements in the middle order. We may even see one of those hard working team supremo's take time out from their busy round of PR excuses to accept a brand new 'Also Ran'. Dr. J K from Canada writes "I find your
statistics very interesting! Thank you. It gives good perspective of the
especially driver ability. I think we are heading for a interesting year!
Thanks." The Quali-flyer replies: Dr K, Thanks for the support. You are absolutely correct, it will be an interesting year in fact yesterdays Real Race was one of the best sessions I have witnessed Anusha S from India writes "I don't think one
can downplay Ralf Schumacher's chances....Michael considers his brother as
much of a threat to the title as JPM. JPM may be very fast and aggressive, but
Ralf is the more consistent Williams driver, and Michael won't feel
comfortable at all if Ralf jumps into the lead early on. Ralf now has 4 race
wins in the last 14 odd races, and though rarely on pole, usually outqualifies
Montoya." The Quali-flyer replies: Ralf is a very consistent driver, and he is fast. Ralf cannot however match Montoya as a racer. He will not take the calculated risks that Montoya, and indeed Michael, will. I am not a big fan of Ralf, putting him probably on the same level as Coulthard and a few others, the best of the rest. Only Montoya poses a credible threat to Michael's 2002 crown. Ralf did convincingly outqualify Juan Pablo in 2001 - 11
to 6 in fact. However, if you look at the trend of qualifying performances
across the year, Ralf outqualified Juan Pablo 9 times in the first 10 rounds
of the season and Montoya only just pipped him at the A1-Ring stopping a
perfect haul. Ralf has a much better historical record than Juan Pablo, but he is slower, as shown in Malaysia where he was a clear 1/2 second behind JPM in qualifying and effectively led the race from near the start without having to battle through traffic (twice) as Juan Pablo did. Australia, where Ralf qualified almost a second up on Juan Pablo, simply didn't count. Ralf won the weather lottery there. Michael knows Ralf, intimately, and despite the rhetoric - He doesn't fear him as a threat to the title. JPM is in a whole different league. Michael knows that Ralf is a seasoned driver, Juan Pablo was a rookie last year (albeit a rookie with lots of experience in other forms of racing) and he keeps getting better, without losing his aggression. Michael doesn't want anyone in front of him, but if it has to happen he will be much more comfortable with Ralf than JP. GOP from the Netherlands writes "Its very
difficult to agree with these predictions as these tend to be a bit wild.
There is no confirmed data that F2002 is so unreliable and couple of testings
done shows that it is fast, but not tooo fast. And looking back, Montoya is
Not So Good in Qualifying. With Such a powerful Car, He did not get pole in
the last 2 races of this season and at Aus, he was behind Ralf. The Quali-flyer replies: GOP, While I agree that there has been no confirmation from Ferrari that the F2002 is unreliable, there remains the real question: If the F2002 IS reliable enough for Michael, and its certainly faster than the '01, why not have a second '02 as a back-up, and why hinder Rubens with a slower car? Given the amount of science that goes into modelling the results before the race, Ferrari knows that the Williams BMW will be faster than the F2001. The only explanation that works for me is that Michael wants to use the speed of the F2002 to get on pole. He may then opt to risk it breaking and run the '02 car in the race, but only if Rubens is convincingly outpaced by the two Williams BMW's. The gap would need to be very significant as Michael will rightly allow a 1/2 a second a lap plus for the Schuie factor. I stand by my prediction, '01for the points and '02 for the grid. While Montoya has not had a pole position yet this year, he was the only driver in Malaysia to improve his 2001 qualifying time by more than 1/2 a second and he was a clear 1/2 second faster than Ralf, who could not match his own time from last year. The weather lottery in Melbourne dealt Montoya a lousy card. He was hampered by traffic/flags on one run and could not capitalise on the break in the rain for a quick lap. Malaysia offered a much more level playing field and Montoya certainly surprised me by the differential he achieved to Ralph in qualifying. I am not personally a big fan of JPM, he is too hard on his car and does not have the smooth style of MS, but he is very fast, very motivated and very aggressive. No other driver, including Ralph, represents the same level of threat to Michael's chances of retaining the Drivers Championship and no other track better illustrates the superiority of the Michelin/Williams duo than Interlagos. If anything goes wrong with the F2002 on Saturday, then my money is on Juan Pablo for his first, but not last, pole of the season. Otherwise, expect to see him sitting beside Michael on Sunday afternoon when the lights come on. I don't believe Michael expects to win here, I do believe he has settled on a strategy to control the damage and to achieve this he will use the Real Race." LuckyLak from India writes "Hey guys.. this is a good analysis... but as far as I see.. this just shows and proves which drivers are not wort to have a F1 car in their hand ... not fit to drive ... Yoong and Sato are really useless.. and I see no chance to improve... rgding McNish I think he may improve quite a bit... the first two guys can be actually kicked out from F1." The Quali-flyer replies: "Thanks for the encouraging comment. Hopefully we will see a few taller poppies cut down as the season progresses. Not all the underachievers are rookies with connections. Toyota obviously think McNish will make it. With their budget they could pick and chose as they like. The juries still out on him, but I'm not too hopeful. We all were ready to write Button off last year, even Flavio Briatore wanted to get rid of him but couldn't find a taker. McNish spent a lot of time testing last year, but testing doesn't develop racecraft, I'll give him till midseason to prove me wrong. Personally I think it's a bit early to write off Sato as well, although it doesn't look promising. Fisichella can be very fast and is a good hot lap pilot with a lot of experience. I would not expect a rookie to be able to match his pace this early in the season, and being Japanese sure doesn't hurt when your running a honda engine. As for Yoong, well I suppose Webber needs someone to make him look good, and Minardi do need the sponsorship dollars. Pity he can't drive. His situation is made even worse when its another rookie outperforming him. If he had someone like Heidfeld or Coulthard against him nobody would expect him to match them, except for Massa and Raikkonen of course."
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