М. Хьюз о стиле пилотирования матадора )
текст Fernando is medium-hard on the brakes and witha bit of overlap between braking and cornering. Then as he’s coming fully off the brakes he applies a lot of lock very quickly, initially partly stalling the front tyre to give a sort of false understeer. Occasionally the front will bite better than he anticipates and with so much lock on that can induce the rear into suddenly stepping out – and it’s then you see him applying punches of oversteer to which he’s very attuned, as if he’s half-expecting it. More usually the understeer stays through most of the corner and the balance is maintained with more or less throttle. It’s a less extreme version of the technique that was very evident in the rearward-heavy Renaults of 2003-’06. But it wasn’t invented for those cars, they simply allowed him to amplify it to good effect. “I’ve always driven like that – ever since karts,” he said back in 2003. It’s a technique that allows him to take in enormous momentum, making the car very alive but without the hazard of too much oversteer. It lends itself to great repeatability, but puts a slightly low ceiling on ultimate peak grip. But it’s consistent, makes the car malleable in that crucial, early part of the corner and it keeps strain off the delicate rear tyres. It’s a great fighting technique, working over a wide variety of lines and grip levels as he uses the throttle to finehone the car’s placement. It’s a bullying technique, dominating the car rather than going with its flow in the way, for example, Kimi Raikkonen would. It’s quite similar, in fact, to how Felipe Massa drives but is less aggressive on the brakes, slightly earlier and therefore more consistent, with fewer line-altering lock-ups. It was a technique that allowed Alonso to minimise the penalty of the trait of 2010 and ’11 Ferraris not bringing their front tyres up to temperature quickly enough. Because he doesn’t actually need the ultimate front grip; so long as he gets some sort of turn-in he’s manipulating the angle with brakes and throttle, almost rally-style. It’s a long way removed from the minimal-input neutrality Michael Schumacher used to stretch the Ferrari elastic in the tyre-war days, but in the Pirelli era Alonso’s more physical technique is probably more effective. Michael was still trying to drive his way in the control-tyre era, using steering lock only grudgingly on his Mercedes, his brain hard-wired to feel that steering lock equalled momentum loss. But when the tyre cannot support the momentum, the car refuses to adopt a stance of sliding neutrality after just the slightest hint of steering lock. Thus the Alonso method is much more adaptable. With the higher grip of the 2013 Pirellis it’s going to be interesting to see if that still applies. If it does not, expect Alonso to adapt, just as he did when going from Michelins to Bridgestones in 2007 – though it took him a few races
