Regardless of recent form, who is the quickest driver on raw pace?
Most will say Vettel, others may say Hamilton, but generally HAM,VET,ALO are considered the 3 fastest men in F1.
In my opinion, not beacause i’m a HAM fan, my loyalties lie with Alonso, i think Lewis Hamilton is the fastest man on raw pace currently on the grid. I think it is easy for Seb with a car so Technically advance to rivals (Best part of a second faster) to stick it on pole, however Hamilton’s efforts in qualifying have been astonishing.
Laps like the Q3 run at the Nurburgring and his 1st run in Q3 at the Hungaroring where astonishing and are a few examples of many that suggest he is the quickest driver out there.
In hugary, DC was astonished in the box, that a man who on that day had no experiece on the Super Softs (Lewis didn’t run them in FP3 or Q2) and thus had no experinece on where the grip levels were, and were and how late he could brake in to certain corners etc.., could just come out and produce such an electrifying lap that at the time had him on provisional pole, about 0.026 ahead of Vettel who had all the experience.
At the Nurburgring, his Q3 Lap had me on the edge of my seat, how did he put that Mclaren on the front-row, unbelievable, he out qualifying JB by more the a second, simply amazing, more than amazing, again this Q3 session backs up my theory.
On general, when Hamilton’s Q3 runs are compared with Vettels e.g Monza he is usually ahead for 2/3rds of the lap before a sector which differentiates downforce levels comes and SEB pulls out a few metres on him. Also, in other Q3 runs where he comfortably gets outpaced e.g Hungary, He is again on for pole around most of the lap before either making a silly mistaked e.g locking up and wrecking his lap.
What seperates Vettel and Hamilton in this sense, is that Vettel with a much better car doesn’t need to risk braking so late into corners that he locks up, because he knows that in another area of the lap, where donforce matters more, his car’s downforce levels will help him pull out a big margin on the likes of HAM. (In Monza it was a 3-4 Metres in the middle sector) Whereas, Hamilton knows he has to maximise every corner if he stands a chance of beating that Red Bull and thus tends to make more mistakes in qualifying even when he’s on for pole i.e hungary, when this antiscipation causes him to overshoot the final corner and run wide.
Overall, my judgement is that Hamilton in that Mclaren dances on the rear end grip in qualifying and produces amazing laps and he in the same car as vettel will most of the times out pace him.
