Simtek wrote:Gentlemen, a short view back to the past:
Thirty years ago, Niki Lauda told us: "Take a trained monkey, place him into the cockpit, and he is able to drive the car." Thirty years later, Sebastian Vettel told us "I had to start my car like a computer, it's very complicated", and Nico Rosberg said he pressed - during the race, I don't remember what race - the wrong button on the wheel.
Question for you two both: Is Formula 1 driving today too complicated with twenty and more buttons on the wheel? Are they too much under effort? Under pressure? What are your wishes for the future concerning the technical programme during the race? Less buttons? More? Or less and more communication with the engineers?
In an attempt to offer something of a more serious view, I would say that situation has come about because of the fact that quite a few fans pushed the attitude that "we want the driver to be in control of everything", such that quite a bit of the work which might have been originally automated or done by the engineers on the pit wall is now being loaded onto the drivers.
In the case of Rosberg, the race that you are probably thinking of would be Baku in 2016, where both he and Hamilton had problems during that race. In the case of Rosberg, he only worked out what had gone wrong because the problems happened immediately after he made that change, so he could immediately reverse it and solve his problems.
Meanwhile, Hamilton was stuck for most of that race wondering what to do and, as that came in the period where, thanks to pressure from the fans, the FIA had restricted the radio transmissions between the pit wall and the drivers "to reduce driver coaching", that lead to him getting to the point where he was pretty much flicking every switch and cycling through every menu option to try and work out what was going wrong - something of a distraction in the circumstances.
What was interesting is that quite a few fans seemed to take the attitude of "well, it's your problem" and suggested that Hamiltion should "just read the manual" - although, as Rosberg noted, no such manual existed (and, as I believe Hamilton revealed a few years ago that he is dyslexic, saying that he "should just read the manual" is a bit tasteless in that context). It's a bit odd - there were those who decried the current level of complexity, but at the same time an expectation that the driver should "just get on with it" and deal with it himself.
