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Post by RyRy on May 7, 2018 18:19:59 GMT
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Post by RyRy on May 7, 2018 18:22:09 GMT
@wb you better be happy with my choice of Grid Girls! hahaha  This week could be a turning point for various teams, we've got a lot of big upgrades coming this weekend and we've also got a big change to the tyre compounds coming. The tyre tread for this weekend has been reduced by 0.4mm to reduce overheating issues. |
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Post by Wß on May 8, 2018 13:33:29 GMT
LOVE IT! Or I should say... ME GUSTA MUCHO!  |
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Post by Wß on May 8, 2018 13:39:00 GMT
Ferrari have owned the season to date, the fact that they're not leading the championship is due to cosmic powers. Everyone will be bringing a mass of upgrades. Who'll make the big leap it something we'll have to wait till Saturday to figure out.
The saying is if you're good here you'll be good just about everywhere else.
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Post by RyRy on May 8, 2018 14:20:32 GMT
Ferrari have owned the season to date, the fact that they're not leading the championship is due to cosmic powers. Everyone will be bringing a mass of upgrades. Who'll make the big leap it something we'll have to wait till Saturday to figure out. The saying is if you're good here you'll be good just about everywhere else. Ferrari have had to change their mirrors a little after their little vortice generators actually break one of the rules, not that it will make any real meaningful difference. Mercedes were comfortably faster at Australia, Ferrari have just been clearly faster in the straights without having to sacrifice any downforce so China, Bahrain and Baku have all been perfect races for their car. Mercedes should be stronger at the Spanish GP, Monaco GP, Austrian GP, German Grand Prix, Hungarian GP, Singapore GP, Japanese GP Ferrari should be stronger at Canadian GP, British GP, United States GP, Russian GP, Italian GP, Belgian GP. |
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Post by racechick on May 10, 2018 13:11:30 GMT
That sounds weird. It’s arse about face. China Bahrain Silverstone USA Monza Spa Canada. They’re all Lewis tracks, he does well at all those. You reckon Ferrari are strong now at those tracks? They’re power tracks and drivers tracks , that should be perfect for Lewis and Merc. So is Ferrari now the car benefitting from power tracks? Credit to them if they’ve sorted their engine. I wonder if the whinging and moaning from ‘certain quarters’ about how unfair life is because Mercedes can go faster has stopped now? Perhaps the moaning now is..’Oh it’s so unfair that Ferrari can go faster, we need a level playing field. Wah, wah.’ Hmmm I think not.
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Post by RyRy on May 10, 2018 15:16:08 GMT
That sounds weird. It’s arse about face. China Bahrain Silverstone USA Monza Spa Canada. They’re all Lewis tracks, he does well at all those. You reckon Ferrari are strong now at those tracks? They’re power tracks and drivers tracks , that should be perfect for Lewis and Merc. So is Ferrari now the car benefitting from power tracks? Credit to them if they’ve sorted their engine. I wonder if the whinging and moaning from ‘certain quarters’ about how unfair life is because Mercedes can go faster has stopped now? Perhaps the moaning now is..’Oh it’s so unfair that Ferrari can go faster, we need a level playing field. Wah, wah.’ Hmmm I think not. Yeah, it does sound weird. Lewis is strong at many tracks so... we could list most tracks They're all power tracks more than anything and there isn't a huge amount of difference separating Hamilton & Vettel and Raikkonen & Bottas. Ferrari have the better engine on power, maybe not reliability we'll have to wait until the end of the season to see about the reliability. I have a feeling Mercedes sacrificed a lot of their speed to make sure they have the reliability for the season. Mercedes actually run out of battery way before the end of the straight at Baku yet Ferrari were able to go much further before they ran out but Mercedes are still faster through the corners which means at the aero tracks Mercedes should be able to win them, even better if they can steal a few of the power track wins. If Merc want to beat Ferrari at the power tracks they need to bring some decent upgrades to this weekend. Ferrari have brought a new floor to Barcelona, that's a second floor since Bahrain... and we all know their old floor was a big improvement.  They've also brought some weird wings for the new mirrors that come off the halo and are essentially making a new mid-car wing.     They also made the inlet on the mirror much bigger, the theroy is that it's diverting half of the air up towards the rearwing and the other half is being directed down towards the inlet on the sidepods.  They also changed the diffuser:  Mercedes have brought this weird tiny deflector on the suspension:  Mercedes also have a little tip on their sidepod defelector:  Mercedes also changed the shapes of the flaps on the rear wing:  Force India have copied Ferrari's floor a little and changed it dramatically:  They've also brought an upgraded wing, bottom wing is the new one:  McLaren brought some new turning vanes:   McLaren added another level to their diffuser:  Now for the ugly part... their very complicated and ugly nose..     Check out this beastly looking rear brake duct fin section:  They also brought a big update to the sidepod deflector:  Red Bull brought some new bargeboards, mainly the new sections towards the front and rear with new slots being added.  Renault updated their front wing endplate and side flaps, bottom is the new one.  |
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Post by dogued on May 11, 2018 4:36:46 GMT
Calling it now... with the way he's felt the last few rounds.. this is going to be a Lewis demonstration weekend. Unless of course I'm wrong, then forget everything I just said |
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Post by RyRy on May 11, 2018 9:17:33 GMT
Calling it now... with the way he's felt the last few rounds.. this is going to be a Lewis demonstration weekend. Unless of course I'm wrong, then forget everything I just said Yeah, I agree so if you are wrong so am I! EDIT: Interesting we're half way through FP1 and all of the top teams have done a soft lap run and Mercedes are 1.5 seconds faster than Red Bull & Ferrari (Hamilton is only 1 second faster), whats even more interesting is that Hamilton on the mediums can match Red Bull & Ferrari's soft times. He did a 1:19.7 and yet Red Bull can only do a 1:19.8 and Ferrari 1:19.9. I highly doubt thats the true gap but looks good so far if Mercedes can be fast so early on. EDIT: Bottas just went out on 10 lap old tyres and went purple in all 3 sectors, now 1.7 seconds faster than Red Bull, 1.8 faster than Ferrari, Hass & McLaren EDIT: Red Bull just managed to set a lap on the mediums 1.5 seconds behind Bottas's laptime. EDIT: Ferrari just did some super soft runs and could only get to within 0.9 of Bottas' 10 lap old soft tyre lap. Mercedes should be doing their super soft runs soon. |
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Post by Hammer on May 11, 2018 10:33:34 GMT
Calling it now... with the way he's felt the last few rounds.. this is going to be a Lewis demonstration weekend. Unless of course I'm wrong, then forget everything I just said Change the name to Bottas and I think you're spot on. |
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Post by dogued on May 11, 2018 10:59:51 GMT
nah.. Bottas will bottle it somehow... he still lacks that edge
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Post by Wß on May 11, 2018 12:14:24 GMT
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Post by RyRy on May 11, 2018 12:17:00 GMT
Who the hell do they keep getting to do these paintings! They messed up Hartley's name a few races ago and there was a mess up with another painting in one of the previous races. |
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Post by Wß on May 11, 2018 12:26:21 GMT
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Post by Hammer on May 11, 2018 13:22:04 GMT
nah.. Bottas will bottle it somehow... he still lacks that edgeHe's not proven either way as yet. The guy drove really well in both China and Baku (outperformed Lewis both times) and lost 2 wins painfully. I don't see him as a guy who crumbles under pressure, just someone who doesn't have the killer instinct when it really matters. But if he's on song with the car he seems like a hard guy to stop. |
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Post by Wß on May 11, 2018 13:57:52 GMT
The wrong color smoke pouring out the back of Kimi's car.
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Post by RyRy on May 11, 2018 14:51:39 GMT
Looks like it's already starting for Ferrari, replacing those engines.
As for P2.
- Ferrari look very strong on race pace
- Red Bull look even stronger on race pace and probably look like the strongest car aerodynamically, probably why their race pace looks so good.
- Mercedes look poor on race pace, I can only assume they are either running very heavy or very light when doing their qualli simulations.
- Williams looks horrible to drive.
- Hass look comfortably the 4th best team at the moment both on race pace and qualli laps, followed by McLaren and Force India, with McLaren's race pace being better than Force Indias
- Renault are somehow really far off the pace, it's really not stable through the slow corners. They're fighting with Toro Rosso & Sauber.
- Toro Rosso looks decent, they've got a very stable car but just lacking a bit of speed. Not sure if that's the engine or the drivers just not pushing anywhere near full.
Bottas still looks comfortable, his onboard was very smooth and looks like hes got loads left in the bag.
Race looks decent, the Soft tyre is the prefered tyre for sure but with the super soft graining up it might make some cars take the medium tyre. If you start on the soft I have a feeling teams will go Soft > Super Soft > Soft; you could go Soft > Soft > Super Soft but then everyone knows you will be pitting again.
The most important thing though... Kubica was faster than both Stroll & Sirotkin:
Kubica: 1:21.510
Stroll: 1:21.556
Sirotkin: 1:22.060!
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Post by RyRy on May 11, 2018 16:21:50 GMT
 Forecast says that it will be raining Friday night, all of Saturday and in the morning of Sunday so the race should be dry but qualifying is likely to be wet. |
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Post by RyRy on May 12, 2018 10:22:36 GMT
Morning All! So weather changed last night a bit, it rained last night but it's dry on the track at the moment for practice 3. Chance of rain is much lower than it was exepected to be but rain is very close to the track so still very possible for quallifying. Temperatures are much cooler which may help Mercedes and should help the super softs and stop them graining up. It also means anyone who was good with the softs will get a boost, the softs look like they might be the best tyre even for qualifying which is odd, I expect to see a lot of teams try and run the soft in Q2 but tyres are taking multiple laps to warm up. EDIT: Mercedes did about 8 laps, improving each lap. Wind has dropped significantly so it's making a few corners much easier. ------------- Renault think they've improved and fixed the car overnight as they were way off their single lap pace Toro Rosso also think they've fixed their car overnight as they were having issues mid-corner. Ferrari have been given a 1 race "grace" period to remove the wing mirror winglet as it's illegal as per the rules and FIA/Ferrari believe it's too much work flying in their old HALO & wing mirrors out to the track OR removing the winglet from the mirror. Go figure... teams fly stuff in all the time, they could have easily flown them out in time for Friday or Saturday. -------------- Wß I've got you another picture of the grid girls!  -------------- Massive crash for Brendon Hartley: streamable.com/2a5jqThey started moving the car and the rear of the car snapped off:  streamable.com/8j4t8 |
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Post by RyRy on May 12, 2018 13:49:33 GMT
I never understand why teams send out their drivers for a second run when they clearly don't need to, there was no chance that Renault, McLaren, Sauber or Force India could beat Ricciardo in 7th, they were getting no where near in Q1 and on their first run in Q2. The track isn't going to improve by 7 tenths of a second in 5~ mins when only 8~ cars are going around and the temperature isn't changing. Hass managing to complete Q2 on the soft tyres too, clearly the 4th fastest when it comes to aero tracks. There are rumours going around that Ferrari were sandbagging in order to try and influence the decision on the halo mirror winglets. Mercedes look like they're struggling really badly when following cars, in Q2 Hamilton was following a Red Bull and the car was very very twitchy. Super Softs don't look much faster than Softs, they're like 2-3 tenths it looks. Red Bull & Ferrari are both very fast in S3 which is perfect for the race as they'll get a good run onto the long straight but Mercedes look the strongest in S2 but only when in clean air. ---------- Q3 Starting Now First runs complete, Hamilton managing to put in a stonker of a lap. Both Red Bulls also throwing in very very strong laps only 3 tenths down on Hamilton. Bottas was matching Hamilton up until S3, he was a little slower in S1 but faster in S2 and then had a mistake in S3 finishing 4 tenths behind Hamilton in P4. Ferrari having a troublesome first run, Raikkonen made a big mistake and Vettel just appeared to be slow, I didn't see any mistake. Somehow Alonso is in P6 (p7 after the next run), he's currently faster than both the Hass who have been consistantly the 4th fastest team. --- Ric going out on the softs, manages to go green in Q2 and purple in S3, I think they're taking time to heat up. Both Ferraris agreeing with Ric and going out on the softs, Raikkonen goes green in all 3 sectors and ends up P2 Everyone else going out on super softs, Hamilton goes slower in S1, purple in S2 and green in S3, goes 0.4 clear of P2 Bottas goes green in all 3 sectors too and manages to go P2 only 0.040 behind Hamilton. Vettel goes green in all 3 sectors just like Raikkonen and manages to go P3. Interesting to see how some teams can go faster on the soft tyres. Front row lockout by Mercedes, 0.132 clear of Vettel and 0.439 clear of Raikkonen and 0.6 clear of Red Bull. ---------- racechick so far my thoughts on what tracks they should and shouldn't be good at is going correctly. This is an aero efficiency track and they looked comfortable. |
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