But what do they gain from sandbagging? Do the other teams think "oh we're quick enough, let's stop trying to go quicker" so that Red Bull can come along and surprise them?HampusA wrote:Aha but that´s not what i´m saying. I´m saying RBR is sandbagging in FP´s.Poleman wrote:Since i remember RBR, so far this season and the previous one,everyone preety much expected them to be the fastest in quali regardless their FP times...Thats hardly an upset,even yourself for this grand prix,you still believe that they will come out on top.It would be surprising if you didnt expect them to be fast and yet claim pole,which is what Beelsebob said and he's right.So far this year at least noone expected McLaren and Ferrari to be fast at qualy at times,yet they surprised us a few times each.
Not what you or me feel they will end up in the end.
I just say that they haven´t showed the real pace yet.
The teams don't really tend to think like that any more. They'll be running fuel loads to check setup and test performance for the times in the race where they think they need to optimise the most.
For this race Red Bull may be most worried about their performance on the first few laps where the combination of weight and their cars downforce may stress the tyres to their limits, and they need to make sure that they'll cope. This could lead to them running more fuel than their rivals, but it won't be just to hide their pace. Red Bull even had to break the curfew last night to work on the cars, so it's clearly not a case of them hiding their true pace and then sailing off into the distance come race day.
I think that this is going to be another German GP in terms of competitiveness. Red Bull will be up there but Ferrari and McLaren will be really pushing them and may well have the edge in the second half of the race.