@Fragile yeah that porpoising on the Mercedes, there was one slow-mo on Russell and it looked like the tyres were close to actually leaving the ground. It sounds like a big problem for McLaren came from the quick fix they had to do for their brake cooling and they apparently have done a proper solution now. Fingers crossed they can push on from here and be competitive.
Leclerc made it look easy in the end, very comfortable in the car, still the one to beat. Not sure what happened to Carlos. Not consistent enough. Max and Sergio very close, Max still wrestling with the car more than teammate.
Good to see McLaren back competing, great drive by Lando for P4, Daniel in P7.
Merc P5&6 as good as they could expect did well. Car looks awkward every time you see it. Surprised to see Lewis beat George as George was car behind this weekend and had the tow.
Alonso on a flyer till crash, a shame, would have likely been competing for 1st or 2nd row which would have been fun In the race.
Most of the rest of the field looked significantly behind.
Lastly potential for a couple of penalties. Lance? Sergio? Max? Others?
Had to catch up a bit later but pretty interesting session. Don’t think I appreciated quite how bad the porpoising is, even on the Ferrari. It looks really brutal on the long straight.
Good to see the McLaren's and the Alpines in the mix. Shame that Alonso went out as he was on it here but he might go well in the race. Unlike the Mercs though which just don’t look good. They seem just really unstable and easily unsettled even in the slower corners.
Whatever Merc’s problems they both got a very good launch.
That Alonso helmet cam for the start was cool, you can see how much they have to check their mirrors at the start.
Bit disappointed in the season so far honestly. LEC much faster than VER, win never looked in doubt. Closest potential competitors SAI and VER both not scoring. Very early days only 3 races in but looks like LEC going to need some DNFs to not run away with this right now.
The new regulations haven’t really worked YET imho. Field looks much less competitive at each level through the field than last year. While it looks like similar paced cars can follow each other more closely what we’ve seen is:
1) Easy overtakes if very closely matched in car and tires, they often don’t feel as earned IMO
2) If you aren’t quite the same pace then overtakes are almost impossible. Watching RUS & HAM behind PER each with DRS after each SC and not even getting close was particularly disappointing. Want to see more racing between teams.
3) Long DRS chains in the midfield
Hopefully as cars become more competitive and evenly matched over the course of this and next season we will start to see better racing, but honestly not impressed so far.
Biggest excitement is reliability and SC right now.
Sorry, bit doom and gloom, perhaps just hung over and jaded from super early start 😂
@themightyant I'm a bit more optimistic than you, although that wasn't a great race. Australia has never been a great track for me though. Leclerc with that Ferrari certainly looks like he is going to pull away a lead but I think it could be similar to the season Jenson won. They dominated and got a big lead but Red Bull caught them before the season was over, but just too late. It's a long season and think Red Bull and Merc can make this competitive, George and Merc are second overall while their car is a 'mess'.
I personally feel some of those things (mainly 2&3) have been the case for years and the regulation changes have just shuffled up who has dominance. I like that the lower teams from last season get more wind tunnel/development allowance so hopefully they can close the gap easier. I think there a clear signs the cars can race closer too, certainly enough drivers have said so too.
Hopefully the next race at Imola will be better, it's normally a good race. The 2 week gap will maybe mean a few updates from a lot of teams too. At least it will be a more hospitable time 😁
You’re right, it is very early in the season, plenty of time for things to change, it just looks a little ominously one dimensional and uncompetitive to me right now. Hopefully that will change quickly.
My chief concern is that last season, and in previous seasons, if midfield cars like McLaren or Alpine had DRS they could trouble Mercedes, Red Bull or Ferrari on the straights after a safety car whereas this year that doesn’t seem to be the case. Merc, McLaren, Alpine etc just don’t have a chance v FER & RBR even with DRS advantage. Field just seems more spread out right now.
Merc second but only due to several DNF’s (they all count) otherwise they’d be well behind in third.
Like you I’m a HUGE fan of benefiting the lower teams through more wind tunnel time and other rules, I wish British & European sports would adopt something similar to prevent the same 3-4 clubs winning everything ever year, seemingly forever. It’s one thing I’ve always respected about American sports is the draft system (last place gets first pick and vice versa) it means that a team that finished last can compete in a few years and constantly keeps the field changing. Much fairer!
Also looking forward to Imola, usually a better race. Fingers crossed.
That wasn’t a great race. Again it relied on misfortunes of some to shake things up. The safety car was always going to come into play here so it’s no surprise but even so without it I don’t think we’d have seen quite so much of a shakeup of that top 10.
It is early days but just feels like a lot of the teams providing the racing are those in the middle to low midfield. It was also a shame to see Haas and Alfa look further away than they have been, like actually these gaps have the potential to grow rather than shrink.
And again not really a race for the lead, it was a forgone conclusion. That Ferrari looks surprisingly quick considering it bounces around more than even the Merc.
Thought it was good too see the McLaren care not looking terrible, though realistically they're just gonna be in a battle for 4th in the constructors with the other non top three teams. Also surprised how well Albon was keeping pace with tires that had done the whole race (even with the safety car laps).
Scary to imagine how far Leclerc would have won by without the SC!
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
Was super busy yesterday and completely forgot Quali was on a Friday. doh! Had to catch up later.
Rain always makes it interesting, but add in 4 Red flags and I think the field could actually be a little mixed up compared to race pace which should lead to a more exciting race.
@Sorteddan Agreed good to McLaren not suck. Ricciardo was briefly top of the timesheet which had me all excited for a while
@themightyant Same. It was really late last night when I realised so made sure I didn’t look at any news sites until I could watch it this morning.
It was an interesting session and pretty much every off bought out a red flag so lots of ruined laps. Can’t believe how far off the pace Merc have fallen but great to see McLaren putting in a super strong performance. Feel sorry for Sainz, especially after his last race, but hopefully he’ll get back into it in the sprint race.
I wasn’t convinced by the sprint races last year but I’m keeping an open mind and hoping that they prove they are worth keeping.
@themightyant I had forgotten but thankfully got reminded when checking on some tennis on bbc sport. Rain is always great at mixing things up and helps more driver skill come to the fore.
@Fragile When Italy was mentioned as the next GP my mind was stupidly thinking of Monza not Imola. I can't really remember if this track is a good one or not but interested to see how the sprint race goes.
I'm still on the fence with the whole sprint race thing and I didn't realise until this morning they have changed the point system for it this season with a lot more points up for grabs. Could make them much more significant this season.
@render I think it will be interesting to see how aggressively Sainz goes in the sprint race knowing the main race is still tomorrow. I wonder how much if at all the drivers have Sunday's full race in mind when the lights go out today.
@BearsEatBeets It is going to be interesting. They can at least be a bit more aggressive on the tyres knowing that they don’t have to go that long on them. It could bring some people back into play.
I haven’t seen the weather forecast for the rest of the weekend. Is it meant to be dry from here on in?
@render Not sure how many laps it is exactly (25ish) but yeah I would imagine they can push most of the race. I haven't seen the forecast either, believe today will stay dry but no idea for tomorrow.
Even though it's dry now I still think we could get someone crash out and get a safety car which has got me thinking. Even though there isn't a need for a pit stop do the rules allow them to do a tyre change should that happen and it looked beneficial to do so? Probably hard for circumstances to occur where that would be worth it.
Forums
Topic: Push Square Formula 1 thread - F1
Posts 121 to 140 of 764
Please login or sign up to reply to this topic