Mark Hughes: Trackside View

A snapsnot. Friday afternoon, halfway through the second practice session, turn 13, the penultimate one, the long, long hairpin. For the driver, different each lap. The track is still evolving, the line of rubber build-up increasing the track's grip level at the same time as the graining rubber is decreasing that of the tyres. The two are as awkward as a pair of contrary toddlers.

In an ideal world, the driver wants to carry in a lot of momentum, either braking late like Robert Kubica, or braking early but coming off early too, like Lewis Hamilton. From there it's a balancing game up to the apex, trying to carry that momentum without over-stressing the front-right, trying to get the whole car to pivot on that little contact patch.

So that, as the front bites into the turn, the load shifts to the right-rear. This should coincide approximately with the apex, and from there the driver wants to get as much acceleration load into the rear, but doesn't want the traction to be too good initially - because that just leads to the front running wide.

So, paradoxically, he doesn't want too much traction control dialled in here, wants a little bit of spin to lock the car into a slight oversteer balance that will allow him to accelerate hard but still keep away from that exit kerb.

Except this is compromise time. Only a few drivers on new tyres manage this - Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button notably - and thereafter tyre degradation forces improvisation. On new rubber Kubica is almost binary in his inputs, brilliant in how he brakes late without ever taking off a fraction too much speed.

From turn-in he carries that speed up to the apex, off the throttle, then once there buries his right foot, no melding between the two states. As he piles on the laps and the tyre grip fades, so he gets more lurid on entry. Giancarlo Fisichella is the opposite: chivvying it through almost the whole turn, ahead of the traction control, busy on the throttle, papering over the cracks of grip with a right-foot dance.

The car is in the corner a long time here, giving the driver much more of a feel than normal. Such is the duration and the ever-changing variables that you see all the different ways the drivers have of expressing themselves in the car:

Heikki Kovalainen neat, simple and committed, just like him; Fisi more expressive but still controlled; Kubica a free spirit. In time the track grip will increase enough to meet the tyre in a place of mutually accepted performance and they will stop graining. But it won't be today.