This forum contains threads to discuss teams themselves. Anything not technical about the cars, including restructuring, performances etc belongs here.
The Ferraris had a massive race pace delta in FP2 where fuel loads were mandated at a 20kg. They were also gapping the competition by 1 second in race pace in FP1.
This looks like it's going to be a snoozer where Ferrari absolutely dominates.
Didn't they have to use mandated tires? Ferrari was using mediums while Red Bull and McLaren were on softs.
Hard to have same pace on a non durable tire.
Fuel loads were fixed as well, 20kg for the short runs, 100kg for the long runs.
Exactly. So extrapolating any race pace from those sessions is bound to have huge margins of error. McLaren usually has a good read of their race pace and if they think they are similar to McLaren, I think we should trust them. Only caveat is that it may be that lower temperatures help Ferrari who seemed to overheat their tyres in earlier stages of qualifying.
PIA has been down on pace for a few races, if he continues to struggle he will put into jeopardy our championship fight in the constructors.
Lets hope he can recover well today, maybe P5-P6 if he plays his cars right.
Another positive note is that 3 out of the 4 last winners here started from P3
I've been trying not to write anything lately. But it's interesting how people hate Lando when he screws up, and how they defend Oscar when he makes mistakes in qualifying time after time. This isn't his first mistake this year. For a driver with a clear head and a cool head, he makes a lot of mistakes even by rookie standards, with a potentially very fast car.
Yes, it is quite possible that Ferrari could take the constructors' cup. Nothing can be ruled out now. Yes, it is very likely that Lando will not only fail to take first place at the end of the season, but could even fall back to third place, letting Leclerc pass him. The good news is that, compared to last year, this year is more chaotic and requires much more stability from the drivers, because the competitiveness of the teams changes among the leaders from track to track.
Right now, no one has a better car. One that would dominate the whole year. And this is, oddly enough, very good news. I don't agree with those who are now writing that Ferrari has the fastest car. What nonsense. Why weren't they as fast in Singapore or the Netherlands? It is unclear on which other tracks McLaren will be most competitive, because external factors such as the selection of optimal settings and weather conditions have a significant impact on the final result.
In the race, Ferraris should be fast. But the first lap can again decide a lot. Pirelli says that tyre wear and general degradation are low, and therefore it will be preferable to start on medium tyres and switch to hard tyres on laps 25-32.
Overall I would say the car during this qualifying session was competitive, and was in a condition to score the pole position, even though Carlos in the final session kind of raised the bar quite a bit," said Stella.
"If we take the natural progression, then with Lando we might have been there. But we have to say that the two laps in Q3, they weren't great.
"In the first one, there were a couple of mistakes - these overheated the tyres and then the tyres were going away from Lando.
"In the second one, it wasn't very clean, but it was important to make sure that it was decent enough to be there in the first or the second row.
So, it’s finally confirmed that Oscar is Stella’s protege… Can’t believe Stella is throwing a Norris under the bus like that, for no reason and on a weekend where Oscar was so poor.
Overall I would say the car during this qualifying session was competitive, and was in a condition to score the pole position, even though Carlos in the final session kind of raised the bar quite a bit," said Stella.
"If we take the natural progression, then with Lando we might have been there. But we have to say that the two laps in Q3, they weren't great.
"In the first one, there were a couple of mistakes - these overheated the tyres and then the tyres were going away from Lando.
"In the second one, it wasn't very clean, but it was important to make sure that it was decent enough to be there in the first or the second row.
So, it’s finally confirmed that Oscar is Stella’s protege… Can’t believe Stella is throwing a Norris under the bus like that, for no reason and on a weekend where Oscar was so poor.
I wouldn’t say so, it’s just context. I watched the interview, he was specifically asked about Lando going for pole which the article is focused on.
As I recall he was hardly complimentary about Oscar either
The retarded overtaking guidelines still exist though, so Lando will overtake no Red Bull into T1. Will have to wait for the pit stops.
That remains to be seen. He might as well choose a different strategy to overtake. Perhaps Max will be distracted with Sainz trying to divebomb him on T1 and both of them go out of bounds leaving the door open for Lando and Leclerc. Don't forget it's a huge straight to T1 with a good slipstream.
In a battle so tight every small bit counts. Lets hope for a good result today
I don’t know what to think at the moment, every little helps yes but the quotes don’t add up to me, especially as this new floor has been talked about since the summer break if I remember right.
There is supposedly another upgrade to come to Brazil- good but if it’s another ‘tiny’ step then they’ll still be behind Ferrari there too.
