Davidson and Zonta: Why so quick??

[fast95pony]

I can't help noticing how quick these two drivers are during the practice sessions. Are they running less fuel ?? What exactly are they testing during these sessions ?? If they are running similar settings to their team mates, surely they deserve a ride.Is Davidson a better driver than Sato ??

[joe rossi]

I think its a case of more revs and less fuel than the other guys, but they are both pretty handy drivers. Even Glock was faster today than the other two Jordan guys. They just run less restricted engines as they don't need to conserve the motors for the whole weekend

[alesi95]

Low fuel, High revs and possibly new development parts.

[ralf fan]

a combination of things, firstly i think that Davidson is a fast driver.... i also think that they are running more REVS to test the engine and probably a few new parts as welll...

[shiny side up!]

I think they may well also be told to really push hard, flog the tires so the team knows what they can expect worst-case from the race or qualifying. I would suspect that they are on qualifying fuel loads, trying to help with qually setups so the race drivers can focus on the setup for Sunday.

[neilap]

How about the possibility that they are fast drivers?

Also the objectives may be a little different. Ant was doing longer runs for tire testing purposes. That eliminates the low fuel assumption. I dont know what Zonta was doing.

[shiny side up!]

In no way did I mean to imply that they weren't good drivers... If they weren't, then telling them to push really hard on a run (short/light fuel, long/haevy, otherwise) wouldn't do a bit of good. I think they are both quick drivers, but if they were indeed quicker than the race drivers, and had the racecraft to use that speed, then they'd be racing the ones racing instead of testing.

[Mike Holmes]

They are good drivers but a major factor is that their engines don't have to do 2 qualifying sessions tomorrow and hopefully a full race distance on Sunday.

[Don K]

If I remember correctly, test drivers are allowed to use more sets of tyres on friday than regular drivers.

Also, the regular drivers will have to make sure that their engine will last the the complete weekend.

[BootsOntheSide]

The test guys definately get to run higher revs, and will quite often be on lower fuel. Also, they know that this is their chance to shine, so they will be driving at 110% to get good laptimes, whereas the racers will pace themselves more.