2024 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir, Feb 29 - Mar 02

[sport777]

Verstappen's best lap is 1:32.6, this is absurd, his stint on the soft was 20 laps, this is the pace of 2019-2020

[AMG.Tzan]

Not really!

2014-2016 the championship goes down to the last race of the season 2 times and ends just 3 races from the end in 2015!

2017-2018 Ferrari shows up with a faster car yet Hamilton bleaches them!

2019-2020 were dominant seasons by Mercedes yet we got a ton of Mercedes vs Ferrari battles all through 2019 and some Red Bull battles at the end!
2020 ended up like that because of COVID but it was half a season with multiple new exciting circuits like Mugello and some new winners (Gasly, Perez)

2021 we got the greatest duel ever

So I wouldn’t say 2014-2021 were boring! 2011 and 2013 were far more boring…

It is OT here... So this is my last message on this:

2014-16 nobody but mercedes fans care that it came down to last race.
2017-18 nope, Ferrari was slower, the worse engine didn't allow to capitalize on a good car, and these were also the first years where the engine freeze was removed (so kinda proving my point). the way ham passed vettel in spa in 2017 still haunts me.

after 6 years on the formula we're finally getting some competition in 2019-20 and after removing engine freeze 3 years earlier and finally having Honda catch up and allowing at least RBR to properly race.

No one in good faith can argue that budget caps or freezes at the START of a formula help competition. Whoever nails the formula has won the era.

Interesting theory but we can all recall how this era started, that is with Ferrari just as fast if not faster than RB. In other words, RB gained this advantage through superior development during the CC era. Others can gain it back the same way.

This was masked by Red Bull having a 20kg overweight car at the start of 2022 and a few technical gremlins!

Had they started 2022 at the weight limit it would have been 2023 all over again…

[GrizzleBoy]

While these new regs are certainly interesting technically, their worth and return on investment in terms of exciting, headline worthy championship battles, it's a failure. We're losing money.

I think if most people are really honest with themselves and compare the Ham vs Ros, Ham vs Vet and Ves vs Ham sagas of the old regs, each one of them are far more interesting than what the cost cap has locked us in for till 2026 and probably beyond.

Maybe the point there then, is not so much the regs but the fact that the cost cap artificially stifles any opportunity to counter a dominant team.

And despite the actual pace of the cars behind Max being much more similar, the racing overall hasn't really exactly been worth all the kerfuffle in the long run.

[dialtone]

If I am correct this is the exact order we had end of 2023

Red Bull
Ferrari and Mercedes quite close
McLaren
Aston

Nothing changes. Can we go to 2026 please?

Mercedes and Ferrari aren't quite close. McLaren and Mercedes are quite close, so at least that changed.

[PlatinumZealot]

Well this one was a real snoozer. I switched off after 15 laps. It was inevitable Max was going to win and Perez second.

Lewis's batter was syaing 1% might explain his dip in pace if the battery charging system was buggy. George had decent race pace. And I'm surprised by the pace of Carlos. Perhaps Leclerc sacrificed too much in the opening laps and glazed his brakes?

[Cs98]

It is OT here... So this is my last message on this:

2014-16 nobody but mercedes fans care that it came down to last race.
2017-18 nope, Ferrari was slower, the worse engine didn't allow to capitalize on a good car, and these were also the first years where the engine freeze was removed (so kinda proving my point). the way ham passed vettel in spa in 2017 still haunts me.

after 6 years on the formula we're finally getting some competition in 2019-20 and after removing engine freeze 3 years earlier and finally having Honda catch up and allowing at least RBR to properly race.

No one in good faith can argue that budget caps or freezes at the START of a formula help competition. Whoever nails the formula has won the era.

Interesting theory but we can all recall how this era started, that is with Ferrari just as fast if not faster than RB. In other words, RB gained this advantage through superior development during the CC era. Others can gain it back the same way.

This was masked by Red Bull having a 20kg overweight car at the start of 2022 and a few technical gremlins!

Had they started 2022 at the weight limit it would have been 2023 all over again…

Every car had weight issues, RB didn't weigh 20kgs more than the Ferrari. The technical gremlins didn't stop us from seeing the fact that the Ferrari was faster in Bahrain and MUCH faster in Australia, the two races Max DNFd. Besides, shedding weight costs money under the cap too.

[dialtone]

Interesting theory but we can all recall how this era started, that is with Ferrari just as fast if not faster than RB. In other words, RB gained this advantage through superior development during the CC era. Others can gain it back the same way.

This was masked by Red Bull having a 20kg overweight car at the start of 2022 and a few technical gremlins!

Had they started 2022 at the weight limit it would have been 2023 all over again…

Every car had weight issues, RB didn't weigh 20kgs more than the Ferrari. The technical gremlins didn't stop us from seeing the fact that the Ferrari was faster in Bahrain and MUCH faster in Australia, the two races Max DNFd. Besides, shedding weight costs money under the cap too.

Then TD39 came and the whole concept went bust and wasted a year on fixing it, definitely on Ferrari this last one but still... Reiterate it's OT here. We should reopen that other thread so we can chat about this there as it's more fun than the season we're about to see.

[chrisc90]

This was masked by Red Bull having a 20kg overweight car at the start of 2022 and a few technical gremlins!

Had they started 2022 at the weight limit it would have been 2023 all over again…

Every car had weight issues, RB didn't weigh 20kgs more than the Ferrari. The technical gremlins didn't stop us from seeing the fact that the Ferrari was faster in Bahrain and MUCH faster in Australia, the two races Max DNFd. Besides, shedding weight costs money under the cap too.

Then TD39 came and the whole concept went bust and wasted a year on fixing it, definitely on Ferrari this last one but still... Reiterate it's OT here. We should reopen that other thread so we can chat about this there as it's more fun than the season we're about to see.

I have asked politely about the possibility, keeps the team/race threads more on topic....and of course saves moderation and deleted posts.

[Aesop]

Redbull on top of things, other teams not so. Will be very hard to beat Max this year, but Ferrari with Leclercs issues and how they handled driver swap, and Mercedes with their cooling issues and Lewis broken seat(???!) left a lot on the table.
Hopefully they can put some pressure on the bulls next week.
McLaren should be better also, but I fear for Aston.

[SirBastianVettel]

I expect it will be closer in most races than today. I'm hopeful we'll get some exciting races this season. The new DRS rule worked quite well today (except for Max who chose not to participate..).

[maxxer]

At least we have sunday off to find some more exciting sports
Anyway after testing having the race right after on the same track it is to be expected not to be so exciting.
Bring back testing on tracks which are not on the calender and also more testing time to at least improve.

[sport777]

If we add up the best sectors of all the leading pilots in the race, we get a picture just for a general understanding, so:
Perez - 1:34.0;
Leclerc - 1:33.9;
Hamilton - 1:34.0;
Alonso - 1:34.0 (late pit stop);
Norris - 1:34.3;
Piastri - 1:34.4;
and the absurdity of Verstappen - 1:32.6!
Just to think about it, Perez lost by 1.4 seconds on the same soft tyres.

[dialtone]

If we add up the best sectors of all the leading pilots in the race, we get a picture just for a general understanding, so:
Perez - 1:34.0;
Leclerc - 1:33.9;
Hamilton - 1:34.0;
Alonso - 1:34.0 (late pit stop);
Norris - 1:34.3;
Piastri - 1:34.4;
and the absurdity of Verstappen - 1:32.6!
Just to think about it, Perez lost by 1.4 seconds on the same soft tyres.

That’s valid but not representative imho. Max had time to charge the car and did his lap on the 2nd of brand new softs while everyone else was on hards except PER who had SAI within 2s and couldn’t really spend time charging.

[chrisc90]

If we add up the best sectors of all the leading pilots in the race, we get a picture just for a general understanding, so:
Perez - 1:34.0;
Leclerc - 1:33.9;
Hamilton - 1:34.0;
Alonso - 1:34.0 (late pit stop);
Norris - 1:34.3;
Piastri - 1:34.4;
and the absurdity of Verstappen - 1:32.6!
Just to think about it, Perez lost by 1.4 seconds on the same soft tyres.

Still with 18 laps of fuel on board too! Practically a quali lap with 1/3 tank of fuel and doing a stint afterwards.

I do suppose the tyre choices, and lack of a late SC today meant that there was no real other chance for anyone to try and beat it.

[sport777]

If we add up the best sectors of all the leading pilots in the race, we get a picture just for a general understanding, so:
Perez - 1:34.0;
Leclerc - 1:33.9;
Hamilton - 1:34.0;
Alonso - 1:34.0 (late pit stop);
Norris - 1:34.3;
Piastri - 1:34.4;
and the absurdity of Verstappen - 1:32.6!
Just to think about it, Perez lost by 1.4 seconds on the same soft tyres.

Still with 18 laps of fuel on board too! Practically a quali lap with 1/3 tank of fuel and doing a stint afterwards.

I do suppose the tyre choices, and lack of a late SC today meant that there was no real other chance for anyone to try and beat it.

Verstappen was only seen today at the start of the race for 1.5 laps and that’s it, he simply flew away, instead of Perez, let’s see Hamilton in RB or Alonso, Leclerc and it could have been much different, at the race pace Perez is a clear average