Qualifying times

[Derwent]

We may well berate some of the back markers like the Hass duo but the time difference between the fastest and slowest on the grid is surely getting smaller?
I can remember GP grids when the second or third row places were more than two seconds off pole.
At Silverstone the top 17 were within two seconds of pole and that seems to be a trend. So really they are all very good.
it is interesting to note the differences within teams. George is way better in the Williams than his paying team mate. On the other hand young Mick is not really outshining his pay pal!

[chunterer]

The field spread is a lot less in qualy is a lot closer now.

In the Schu Ferrari days he could be well over a second faster than the next car in qual, but that still wasn't as huge a difference as say 1988 or '92!

Russell said yesterday however, that Williams seem to have optimized the car in qual trim but it's still not where they need it to be over a race distance, hence the patchy performances.

On the whole though it's the cars that are closer in performance today, not necessarily the drivers, although I think there are less tuggers on the current grid than in the late 80's, early 90's but then again there are a lot less cars now.