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Post by Hammer on Mar 13, 2018 8:47:30 GMT
Lol
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Post by Frontrunner on Mar 13, 2018 10:09:44 GMT
"I'm better than ever"
That saying gets way overused by sportsmen and sportswomen.
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Post by London on Mar 14, 2018 21:02:43 GMT
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Post by London on Mar 14, 2018 22:13:07 GMT
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Post by London on Mar 16, 2018 19:49:24 GMT
Karun Chandhok's pre-season analysis and predictions1. Mercedes vs 2. Ferrari
Last year, Ferrari looked like they were a real match for the Mercedes in pre-season testing and when we got to Melbourne, that certainly proved to be the case. This year however, the Brackley squad seems to have taken another good step forward.
Visually the car is a logical update on their 2017 championship winner, but it’s obviously had all the right changes to make it much more user-friendly. Watching Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas out on track, they are able to metronomically hit the same line lap after lap with remarkable consistency. And speed.
Mercedes have been very smart about not showing their hand with the faster tyres, but make no mistake – a quick look at the race runs shows very clearly that they’re a step ahead of the pack. I reckon that gap is about four-tenths of a second at the moment, and unless they have some dramatic chassis imbalance when they use the softer tyres – high unlikely – they are unquestionably on top.
Watching at the very fast Turn 9 right hander, Bottas carried an unbelievable amount of speed through the apex without even a full lift of the throttle on the medium tyres, with fuel on board. In contrast, when watching either the Ferrari or the Red Bull on the long run, they just didn’t have the grip to carry the same speed through.The change of direction with the front end seemed to be a good step forward from last year. When you watch either between Turns 2 and 3 or further around the lap in the final sector, the Mercedes drivers are able to change direction incredibly sharply when they have a sequence of corners.
This allows them to just open up the line to the second part of a sequence and carry more apex speed than anyone else.
This is particularly worrying for the opposition, as the one opportunity that they had last year was on slower, twistier circuits like Monaco or Budapest. Clearly that area of weakness has been focused on and dealt with.The headlines from the last week of testing show that Ferrari were fastest on three days and Red Bull on the other one. However, come qualifying in Melbourne, I think the entire paddock will be pretty shocked if anyone other than a Mercedes is on pole position.
Watching the Ferrari out on track, it’s clearly a fast car. Last year in pre-season testing it looked like an easier car to drive than the Mercedes, but this time whenever the drivers try and lean on it a bit more and extract some more speed, it just doesn’t seem to be there.
Watching at Turn 4, for example, Kimi Raikkonen would charge in and try to get the nose to bite, but it just doesn’t dig in and pivot in the same way the Mercedes does. That rotation that they need mid-corner to get the car to turn while carrying the apex speed they want just isn’t there in the medium and slow-speed corners.
Watching at Turns 11 and 12 shows the stark difference between the lazier Ferrari and the sharper Mercedes in changes of direction.
3. Red Bull vs 4. Renault vs 5. McLaren
The RB14 looks like Red Bull have carried on their progression from the end of last year, where their chassis was working brilliantly. It’s really very hard to fault the car out on track in the slow and medium-speed corners, and the braking stability into Turn 1 and 10 looked excellent.
In the faster corners, however, the Mercedes still looks like it’s got a bit of an advantage. When you look at Turn 9, for example, on the race runs, I noticed Daniel Ricciardo had a much bigger lift than Bottas, and every time he had a go at just a bit more apex speed, he just ran out of road.
Red Bull’s weakness could still be in the power department. Renault seem to have made good progress on the reliability front, with some good testing mileage being banked by Red Bull and the works Enstone team. I hope this means they can turn up the power a bit more in qualifying, but insiders still reckon they are going to be about 40 horsepower down on the Mercedes.
On the whole, I would say the two teams are very evenly matched. Conveniently they even did race runs at similar times of the day, which helped us peg the gap between them as being fairly even. They will need a big step forward with updates to catch Mercedes, though.
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Post by London on Mar 16, 2018 19:53:54 GMT
I like this video, Mercedes is looking like a rocket through the corners. A Ferrari fan boy who was present during the testing told me the complete opposite of what Karun Chandhok said. Certainly biased. We will find out soon anyways.
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Post by Wß on Mar 16, 2018 20:22:28 GMT
This is good stuff from a purely analytical standpoint. what it means from a season's worth of competition standpoint it's entirely a different subject.
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Post by RyRy on Mar 20, 2018 12:26:23 GMT
So apparently Mercedes didn't even try their qualli mode during winter testing and Hamilton's already calling it "party mode" which is worrying for other teams. I've also read on various sites from fans who were at the track during testing that Ferrari looked rather weak through the corners compared to Mercedes and I quote "to the extent of comparing a team like Toro Rosso vs Mercedes in 2017"
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Post by Wß on Mar 20, 2018 13:53:26 GMT
Mercedes have changed their suspension, entirely redesigned their PU, something I'm sure we'll hear more about during the season as you don't do that to the class lead PU unless there's appreciable gains from it. They also clearly have evolved their long car philosophy from last year and it worked for them, enough for Ferrari to lengthen their car as well, so there's validity to the design seeing Ferrari go to such drastic lengths (no pun intended) Mercedes length Ferrari length and rake Red Bull rake I'm loving the designs so far. Halo notwithstanding.
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