2025 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir, April 11 - 13

[Quantum]

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[venkyhere]

I predict that this time, it will be Russel who is going to be a thorn in McLaren's flesh, since Mercedes no longer have the 'deg problem' that Redbull does.

Glad to be proven right.

Overall impressions :
1. Piastri has surely gotten into the head of Norris. No matter how he smiles, he knows Piastri is mentally tougher than him and skill wise, has improved a lot since his debut in 2023. Norris must have also realized that he has a long way to go, in terms of 'race-craft'. In wheel to wheel racing, both LeClerc and Russel had his number. Easily. How long did it take him to realize that T4 was the better overtaking spot, not T1, given the lower top speed that the McLaren had ?
2. Both Ferrari drivers did well. LeClerc did exceptionally well.
3. Antonelli screwed by his pitwall. He shouldn't have pitted during the SC. Could have finished ahead of Hamilton.
4. Brilliant drive by Gasly, Ocon and Bearman.
5. Average performance by Tsunoda, not bad, not good.
6. Sainz and Lawson were behaving like 13 yr old cart drivers. Sending the car on the inside, when there is no pace advantage, banking on the 'other guy' to take evasive action, for them to gain position. Deserved licence points docking, both of them.
7. Redbull don't just have a bad car after their correlation issues hitting them hard, they have suddenly become bad in 'race operations' (slow pitstop in Japan, total meltdown with the stops today, poor decision making to preserve two H instead of two M through the FPs). This is the real position of Redbull in the pecking order - 4th fastest car, barely clearing midfielder cars like Alpine and Haas.

[search]

Hülkenberg DSQ incoming for too much skid wear. Sauber had to raise the car in China already because of too much wear in practice.

[search]

How unlucky was Antonelli today? I thought he drove really well, but was unlucky with strategy and SC.

Horrific luck. He wasn't on for a podium or anything, but he would probably have finished P6 or P7 without the safety car and Mercedes making strategy blunders.

wasn't Antonelli on a 3-stopper? He took (used) softs with 30 laps to go

[zeph]

Russell is in the clear, no further action.

[Sevach]

How unlucky was Antonelli today? I thought he drove really well, but was unlucky with strategy and SC.

He was unlucky with a Sainz projectile.
I don't know what was going on with Carlos today.

[Mandrake]

Would have been interesting to see verstappens race without being held up behind Ocon. Both times he pitted it was taking long and the undercut could be covered easily. He had no real pace to overtake on track

[dialtone]

Russell is in the clear, no further action.

Ridiculous judgement. As if you need to gain an advantage to be penalized. NOR didn’t gain 3 spots because he started 10cm ahead of his box.

Max touching Lewis car didn’t gain or lose anything for either car.

Unserious.

[organic]

Russell is in the clear, no further action.

Ridiculous judgement. As if you need to gain an advantage to be penalized. NOR didn’t gain 3 spots because he started 10cm ahead of his box.

Max touching Lewis car didn’t gain or lose anything for either car.

Unserious.

If Russell would get DSQ for it then so would Leclerc. He had a similar experience with DRS opening well outside of the drs zones in this race

[fourmula1]

Russell is in the clear, no further action.

Ridiculous judgement. As if you need to gain an advantage to be penalized. NOR didn’t gain 3 spots because he started 10cm ahead of his box.

Max touching Lewis car didn’t gain or lose anything for either car.

Unserious.

If Russell would get DSQ for it then so would Leclerc. He had a similar experience with DRS opening well outside of the drs zones in this race

I think dialtone is just looking for a level of consistency. If you can let the DRS slide you could let the "one tire contact patch" slide. Or penalize them all from a sporting code requirement. Its just all over the place. I could even go on about track limits at turn 4 but wont bring that up again.

[dialtone]

Russell is in the clear, no further action.

Ridiculous judgement. As if you need to gain an advantage to be penalized. NOR didn’t gain 3 spots because he started 10cm ahead of his box.

Max touching Lewis car didn’t gain or lose anything for either car.

Unserious.

If Russell would get DSQ for it then so would Leclerc. He had a similar experience with DRS opening well outside of the drs zones in this race

Nor, Rus and Lec all had drs on in the wrong spot, and it was due to Rus car being broken. I’m not sure why other drivers should be penalized for rus car being broken

[Sevach]

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/why- ... /10713196/
The logic behind Russel's decision.

Fair imo.

Overall impressions :
1. Piastri has surely gotten into the head of Norris. No matter how he smiles, he knows Piastri is mentally tougher than him and skill wise, has improved a lot since his debut in 2023. Norris must have also realized that he has a long way to go, in terms of 'race-craft'. In wheel to wheel racing, both LeClerc and Russel had his number. Easily. How long did it take him to realize that T4 was the better overtaking spot, not T1, given the lower top speed that the McLaren had ?

It's shocking how much pace Piastri found in one off season, no idea what changed, but suddenly he looks like he has the edge in qualy pace(race administration is no problem for him either), even when he lost the battle in Suzuka it looked like if they play that again he would be the one to get it.
Mclaren said they stopped doing their cars around what Norris asks, is this what happened?

Hülkenberg DSQ incoming for too much skid wear. Sauber had to raise the car in China already because of too much wear in practice.

Teams are really at the limit with current rules, upgrades won't bring them what simply running lower will.

[Seanspeed]

Lando is such a noob. You can say whatever you want, sruffy with LEC and then unexplicably goes side by side in T1 instead preparing final attack into t4 with RUS….

Russell baited him into that. Great work by Russell. Offer him half a chance on the outside only to close it immediately and thus destroy NOR chances into T4.

Agree. Norris did well enough to salvage P3 from a mediocre weekend. He should have passed Russell, maybe, but that dude just was ON it today.

Really? Norris got saved by favorable stewards several times and then only *barely* reconciled things even with a massively dominant car.

EDIT: My bad, thought you were talking about Norris being 'on it'.

[zibby43]

Ridiculous judgement. As if you need to gain an advantage to be penalized. NOR didn’t gain 3 spots because he started 10cm ahead of his box.

Max touching Lewis car didn’t gain or lose anything for either car.

Unserious.

If Russell would get DSQ for it then so would Leclerc. He had a similar experience with DRS opening well outside of the drs zones in this race

Nor, Rus and Lec all had drs on in the wrong spot, and it was due to Rus car being broken. I’m not sure why other drivers should be penalized for rus car being broken

Reading this it comes across that this is about an outcome that you didn’t want, more than a consistency problem.

Not 100% 1 to 1, but if it’s consistency that’s important (don’t think it is), then it would seem the decision was in line with precedent.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/sergi ... 4/5318644/

What was broken on George’s car? Who makes the part?

[Tamburello]

I predict that this time, it will be Russel who is going to be a thorn in McLaren's flesh, since Mercedes no longer have the 'deg problem' that Redbull does.

7. Redbull don't just have a bad car after their correlation issues hitting them hard, they have suddenly become bad in 'race operations' (slow pitstop in Japan, total meltdown with the stops today, poor decision making to preserve two H instead of two M through the FPs). This is the real position of Redbull in the pecking order - 4th fastest car, barely clearing midfielder cars like Alpine and Haas.

This seems to be very track dependent. In Australia and China, RB and Mercs were pretty equal in pace, as the second fastest car. The RB easily second fastest car in Japan, if driven optimally, but slowest of the top 4 in Bahrain.