Formula 1 - F1 - Current Season Discussion

[Marbles]

Ugh. And I am sure they are still holding significant performance back. Vettel is half a second behind already.

Those little antenna wings look horrific.

Red Bull don't appear to Have the pace. Beginning to look already a lot like last year, only with a bigger gap between the 2 merc drivers.

Never ceases to amaze me how many people fall into this trap. The only time that every team's programs align at the same time is quali and the race. Everything else is smoke and mirrors.

Vettel fastest by 0.5s in FP3, BTW

 

[Texasmade]

Bottas the Bold qualified better than I thought he would finishing only .3 seconds off of Lewis's time. Good thing Vettel managed to split the Mercedes and there may actually be a competitive race.

 

[idfnl]



Bottas the Bold qualified better than I thought he would finishing only .3 seconds off of Lewis's time. Good thing Vettel managed to split the Mercedes and there may actually be a competitive race.

.3 is a lot. I expected .5. Vettel did well. So the Ferrari didn't have the goods, but they're closer than last year.

Red Bull over 1 second back. Does not look good. That car is really on a knife edge.

At best, it's a 2 horse race between Merc and Ferrari.

Grosjean was the man of qualifying. Lance Stroll, poor performance.

 

[Texasmade]

Well considering Bottas was .5 to .6 behind Lewis in FP1 and 2, closing the gap to .3 was a big improvement. The Red Bull doesn't look good with Max nearly losing it in FP2 and Ric spinning out in Q3.

The onboard with Stroll in one of the FP sessions or Q, I don't remember which one it was, showed he really struggled controlling the car. His hands were all over the place fighting the car compared to Lewis's onboard on his pole setting lap where he was smooth all the way around the track. Plus side, McLaren didn't break down and Alonso had a decent showing getting into Q2.

 

[idfnl]

The cars are faster, but they don't look a lot faster on TV. There are more mistakes, but missing is that viciousness of F1 cars of the past. It's too smooth, as you mentioned, just look at Lewis's lap.

 

[idfnl]

It came down to 1 corner. This video changes my viewpoint, the Merc and Ferrari might be spot on evenly matched, at least at this circuit.


[VIDEO][/VIDEO]

 

[Pilot]



The cars are faster, but they don't look a lot faster on TV. There are more mistakes, but missing is that viciousness of F1 cars of the past. It's too smooth, as you mentioned, just look at Lewis's lap.

Ehh Idk, the cars look like fast-motion compared to last year

 

[Texasmade]

Ricciardo already out on the recon lap on his own home GP. Man that's terrible.

Update: RB managed to fix his gear box and join the field like 3 laps in.

 

[DeSense]

Vettel on course to win?

 

[Texasmade]

Rare Mercedes strategy **** up that Ferrari got right. Mercedes pitted Hamilton 2 laps too early.

 

[DeSense]

Vettel putting in some fast ones and stretching the lead to 8 secs. At the same time Bottas closing in on Hamilton, who just got told to "stretch it out" = back to one-stop-strategy.
This won't win him the race either way, possibly losing 2nd as well.

 

[idfnl]

Wow, very surprised. The Ferrari had pace to spare. Nice to finally see the domination break. I hope it continues.

Bottas was catching on Hamilton, he had 14 laps, not sure why he couldn't get on the back of him.

3.5 seconds a lap faster thank last year's fastest lap. It's not enough, they still don't look scary to drive. Wide tires look great though.

 

[idfnl]

Hamilton already whining. Love to see it. Go Instagram a pic of yourself on a yacht bro.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/formulaone/article-4350190/Lewis-Hamilton-hits-new-F1-rules.html

 

[DeSense]

^^ Bottas gaining and then holding back sounds like (pre-race, maybe general) team order. Sth. like "you don't race your team buddie, but if you do it's "you break it, you pay it".
And of course he wouldn't want to get on Hamil's bad side right from the start of the season.
Then there is the likelihood of a clear #1/#2 ranking, and if it had been in reverse, Bottas might have had to give way...
Shame Rosberg wasn't in that car in that race. Would have been fun, no doubt.

 

[sugarbutch]

LOL. You Hamilton haters are so predictable. Hulkenberg said the same thing:

"I was hoping he would have a little bit of a problem on the soft and I was obviously on the ultra soft," said Hulkenberg. "But quickly I understood that it wasn't going to happen. And these cars, the dirty air is huge, so overtaking - almost impossible. I probably could have gone more than a second quicker, but it's just not in there."

Rosberg would have finished in third just like Bottas did.