2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix - Jeddah, March 07 - 09

[dialtone]

EDIT: and all of this lesser downforce for what? 3kph more speed? Good luck.

That's DRS for you. Won't be the case in the race. You can clearly see it in the traces, Merc is faster in the middle of the straight, before DRS has had full effect on the Ferrari.

Take out the DRS and look at the straight to T13, the difference in top speed is still just about 5kph. That's not good enough if you're losing that much time in the corners. RedBull went for higher downforce as well. I think Mercedes built an SF-23 this year.

[Cs98]

EDIT: and all of this lesser downforce for what? 3kph more speed? Good luck.

That's DRS for you. Won't be the case in the race. You can clearly see it in the traces, Merc is faster in the middle of the straight, before DRS has had full effect on the Ferrari.

Take out the DRS and look at the straight to T13, the difference in top speed is still just about 5kph. That's not good enough if you're losing that much time in the corners. RedBull went for higher downforce as well. I think Mercedes built an SF-23 this year.

One straight can be heavily influenced by deployment. Looking at the race sims gives a clear enough picture. And RB has less wing level and drag than Ferrari, they're in between.

[dialtone]

That's DRS for you. Won't be the case in the race. You can clearly see it in the traces, Merc is faster in the middle of the straight, before DRS has had full effect on the Ferrari.

Take out the DRS and look at the straight to T13, the difference in top speed is still just about 5kph. That's not good enough if you're losing that much time in the corners. RedBull went for higher downforce as well. I think Mercedes built an SF-23 this year.

One straight can be heavily influenced by deployment. Looking at the race sims gives a clear enough picture. And RB has less wing level and drag than Ferrari, they're in between.

At the end of the day we'll see tomorrow how it goes in the race. May the best of the rest arrive 2nd.

[CHT]

Things are not looking great for LH hope he will do better for qualifying.

Fact that he is so involved with W15 design input and yet struggle to keep pace with GR does make me wonder how he is going to pull through this season..

FWIW, Jeddah was Lewis' worst qualifying relative to Russell last year. Ultimately, you need confidence in the car to throw it in the Sector 1 corners, and he still doesn't like the rear of the W15.

After ditching the W14 zeropod design and shifting the driver's corkpit further back to suit LH likely, I am sure its only natural that fans will be expecting him to do better than last year. I read that some are already giving conspiracy that Merc is sabortaging his car.

[organic]

Take out the DRS and look at the straight to T13, the difference in top speed is still just about 5kph. That's not good enough if you're losing that much time in the corners. RedBull went for higher downforce as well. I think Mercedes built an SF-23 this year.

One straight can be heavily influenced by deployment. Looking at the race sims gives a clear enough picture. And RB has less wing level and drag than Ferrari, they're in between.

At the end of the day we'll see tomorrow how it goes in the race. May the best of the rest arrive 2nd.

Naturally it'll be Charles Vs Checo and the winner of that duel will be clear within the first 10 laps

[Chuckjr]

I can easily see merc sacrificing all out performance and points in order to keep the secrets of their car secret by locking Lewis out of important info, and I don't think I'd blame them either, given that Ferrari are their main rivals and that's exactly where Lewis is going.

Called that already right after he signed. Same happened to Vettel when he left.
Lewis will crash into Ferrari and Charles will then take him to the cleaners. Wash, rinse, repeat for two years. It’s going to be quite a sight watching Ferrari pay him 400 large to finish behind his team mate.

[TeamKoolGreen]

Now i am 100 percent sure, I have not the slightest doubt, now I know and understand exactly why Lewis decided to drive for Ferrari in 2025, it was certainly a very difficult decision for him to switch to Ferrari, but after today's qualifying I think that even Lewis no longer has any doubts whether it was a good decision to switch to Ferrari.i'm not saying it's a good or bad decision, i'm just saying i understand why Hamilton made such a difficult decision.

There's a thread for that. Russell got P3 in qualifying last week.

[TeamKoolGreen]

I've known him for ages, very dislikeable person, his dad too.

ticktum or ferrucci levels of bad?

hard to say, wasn't exactly a clean driver, could be fast over one lap but often raced badly. put it this way, at least 10 drivers where better than him in england.

I read something about his dad buying a karting engine manufacturer to rig the game to help his son. Not sure if there's truth to it or what the story was.

Bearman has to beat Antonelli in F2. That wont be easy.

[Apexseal157]

ticktum or ferrucci levels of bad?

hard to say, wasn't exactly a clean driver, could be fast over one lap but often raced badly. put it this way, at least 10 drivers where better than him in england.

I read something about his dad buying a karting engine manufacturer to rig the game to help his son. Not sure if there's truth to it or what the story was.

Bearman has to beat Antonelli in F2. That wont be easy.

As interesting as I find this chat, on reflection it's not really relevant to this thread. Bearman had very good equipment as many wealthy drivers had and I think we should leave it at that. My bad not the right place.

[TFSA]

That is not what history says. It is usually easier in quali. Hulkenberg came out of retirement and put the 2020 Racing Point p3 on the grid but he fell back miserably in the race. And thats an experienced driver. Seems you underestimate the workload a driver has to go through during a race. Knowing how to use all the tools at your dusposal is the most challenging part. Then the tire management takes a lot of experience to get right. Imo you cant expect this kid to go forward tomorrow. But hey maybe he gets lucky.

Hulk had tonnes previous experience driving F1 cars. That's vastly different being practically a newbie in an F1 car (yes, Bearman had previous Free Practice sessions).

And it's not so much the pace in Quali, as it is the risk of losing it and wrecking the car. Way higher chance that to do that in Quali than in a race.

[venkyhere]

courtesy : f1pace.com

What I can infer (correct me please) about the car setups for this race :
1. There is nothing in it, amongst the top teams, in Sector2. Sector1 has the slow turns and is a traction competition, Section3 is all about how T22-T23 forming end of Sector2 and start of Sector3 sets up the two mega "straights" (which aren't really straght, actually)
2. Redbull have the downforce, they also have low drag
3. Mercedes have barely some downforce, they had to do it to lower drag - expecting more tyre deg than others
4. Ferrari & McLaren have the downforce, they also have a lot of drag
5. AstonMartin is the surprise here, they seem to have downforce v/s drag well balanced like RedBull.

[Justthatek]

alonso was only 1 tenth after S2... did he make a mistake in the final corners or he reached the limit of his car?

He had a massive tow from Lewis down the start, so that probably inflated his final run time

[organic]

[Vanja #66]

Ollie to start on Softs, dew it Ferrari

[TFSA]

https://i.imgur.com/MFArjwE.jpeg

Why does Piastri only have one tyre (a medium) that isn't used? Did he scrub his hard on purpose?