The style counsel

It was more obvious in generations gone by. The drivers were more exposed, and it was easier to see how they worked. The cars also moved around a lot more and the driver had a bigger influence over the car’s performance than today where lap time is much more reliant on the machinery itself. Therefore, it’s harder to compare different driving styles today than those of, say, Prost, Senna and Mansell. But though those differences may be less visible, that’s not to say they are not there.

Lewis Hamilton’s strength has always been this supreme ability to brake late and really load the front of the car under braking, with a huge amount of longitudinal load initially. Once he pitches the car onto its nose, he then uses the fantastic feel he has to balance the release of the brake pressure with the steering input into the apex of the corner. This means the back of the car is quite mobile on entry, but he doesn’t mind that bit of movement from the rear, which is why so many of his teammates struggle to match his pace in races when the tyres start to wear.

Max Verstappen owes his style of driving to his karting days. I remember standing on the outside of turn four in Barcelona watching him during pre-season testing for his first F1 season with Toro Rosso and seeing his amazing ability to steer the rear of the car on the brakes just like Michael Schumacher used to during his career (before his Mercedes comeback, at least). Max likes a very sharp and responsive front end and has this incredible car control to balance the movement at the rear of the car during the first phase of the corner.

Like Michael, Max steers the car with the rear end before the apex, which means he needs less steering lock from the apex to the exit and is therefore able to accelerate with less lateral load on the tyres. This is why he’s been brilliant at tyre management in tough races like Austria or Austin this year. The high rake concept of the Red Bull also really energises the front wing by getting it closer to the ground. Its design philosophy really suits Max, whereas drivers like Gasly, Albon and Perez, all excellent performers elsewhere, have struggled against him.

One of the most fascinating case studies is Michael Schumacher because I really think one reason his Mercedes return was less successful than everyone hoped was the Pirelli tyres. True, he came back in 2010 when F1 was still on Bridgestones but the team was in recovery mode after the wave of rule changes in 2009. The Pirelli tyres – especially the early ones – didn’t allow drivers to brake and turn in the same way as the Bridgestones. Michael, therefore, couldn’t load the front axle and brake-steer like he could at will during his Benetton and Ferrari years.

If there is a current equivalent to Michael’s great rival Mika Häkkinen, it’s George Russell. Mika had this classic style of point-to-point, straight-line driving with decisive, minimalist steering inputs and when you watch George’s onboards he’s very much the same. There aren’t the small steering corrections we see with Max, but a straightforward brake input followed by a single, clear turn of the wheel and a quick release of the lock to get the car straight as fast as possible. It’s all very Mika.

Michael’s troubles with the Pirellis also made me think of two other World Champions who are still on the grid. Between 2006 and 2011 Fernando Alonso and Kimi Räikkönen raced on grooved Michelins, grooved Bridgestones, slick Bridgestones and then the slick Pirellis of today.

Each needed a different style of driving. The Michelins offered a lot of support on the front axle with its squared off sidewalls, but there was a phase where the tyre would create understeer due to graining as the rubber wore down to the grooves. The drivers had to wind on the lock, let the front slide a bit and suffer, knowing the grip would return in a few laps.

The Bridgestones allowed a much more normal driving style although it didn’t offer the same initial sharpness. And as I said before, the Pirellis required drivers to under-drive on entry by not overloading the front tyres by braking and turning at the same time.

Fernando was brilliant at adapting to the different tyres straight away. He’s a very clever driver, able to understand the theory behind what needs to be done, but also sufficiently versatile to change his style and still extract the speed out of the tyre. The way he aggressively turned the wheel in the Michelin-shod Renault was bizarrely effective, yet a year later he’d completely changed his style in the McLaren on Bridgestones.

Such adaptability is why he’s exceptional during the race, because as the car’s weight reduces and the tyres wear, he’s able to adjust better than most to the perpetually changing balance. So it was no surprise at all to me that he was able to go to Indy or Le Mans and be on the pace almost immediately.

Kimi, by contrast, was at his zenith during the Michelin years with McLaren. Between 2003 and 2006, I’d argue that there was no driver who was faster than Kimi, especially in qualifying. Like Mika and George he has a minimalist style, but to make it work effectively he always needed a car where the front end was sharp and responsive on turn-in, and a rear that remained settled. The Michelin offered this support, so although he won his World Championship in 2007 on the Bridgestones, I don’t think we ever saw that devastating speed from Kimi since the Michelin days.

The driver who has confused more than anyone else over the past couple of seasons is Sebastian Vettel. His struggles at Ferrari from the middle of 2018 until the end of 2020 were baffling to everyone in Formula 1. This after all was a driver who not only won four World Championships, but was also brilliant in the junior formulae and won a Grand Prix in a Toro Rosso. Of course the Red Bull was a great car from 2009 until 2013 but Mark Webber was no slouch and Seb had him covered the majority of the time.

Then again, that era of the rules and the way the Red Bull worked was perfect for Vettel. He was often slower than Mark in high-speed corners but his strength was his ability to brake late in a straight line, then make one aggressive turn to get the car to rotate sharply, turning corners into a ‘V’, before getting hard on the gas from the apex.

This era of success was built around the rear of the cars having huge grip, first from double diffusers and then from the exhausts blowing hot air onto the diffuser to energise the rear floor. This required the drivers to have a lot of faith and confidence in the rear of the car as they would basically have the throttles open all the time to varying degrees – even under braking – in order to fire the exhaust gases onto the diffuser. Seb understood the concept very well and this stable and predictable rear end gave him a huge confidence when attacking corner entries.

And it’s what he lacked at Ferrari during the latter years as the rear of the car was far less stable and predictable. On top of that, these wider cars with fatter tyres have less elasticity, meaning you can’t just have a little slide and get away with it. We often see now that when these cars start to slide, it’s snappy and aggressive with grip falling off a cliff, sending the drivers spinning. That isn’t good for a driver who needs a stable rear to give him confidence.

It’s true that the modern cars with all the downforce, similarly configured power units and identical tyres offer less variance of driving style than 20 years ago, but as I’ve highlighted, there is still a reasonable range of styles out on the grid today. You just have to look a little harder to see it.