2015 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne

[dren]

7/8th tanks then, but definitely not "light" long run pace would be too slow if they were running half. From testing to now we have not seen low fuel runs from Ferrari yet. They are going to upset the apple cart...

Historically Ferrari run lighter in practice sessions. In the past, Mercedes and Williams usually filled up and did their plan. I expect Willaims to be nipping at Mercedes, with Ferrari somewhere in the hunt for 3rd. Don't get your hopes up too much.

Historically Williams is a midfield team and Mercedes suffers with severe tire degradation...

Ok, I should have said based on last year.

But I think you're right, Ferrari were probably running with a full tank, and if rumors are true, their tanke is 200% larger than it needs to be. I also heard rumors they ran the hard tires, but painted them to look like softs, you know, to hide their pace. So they will be super duper ultra fast in low fuel configuration. Something in the range of 1.025 seconds faster than Mercedes.

[Chene_Mostert]

@Chene: The difference is that Mercedes and Williams disproved that last year. Ferrari has not yet proven the contrary.

For the record, I'm not going to make comments on fuel load, whether they are running 0.02 litres or 2000 litres. That's everybody's guess. We can only assume they'll probably, I said probably, be running 100 kg on Sunday, and that everybody is using free practice according to that.

Yes, the only pointer we have is that at some point in FP2 Ferrari had at least 17» laps wort of fuel.

[Raleigh]

I just looked through ESPNs coverage of last years races, not once did Ferrari match their best FP position of the weekend in qualifying.

FP1 - looking good - FP2 - looking good - FP3 - looking good - Quali - nowhere

Every single weekend from Australia to Abu Dhabi.

But hey, new management and drivers, clearly better car, might have changed their policy of running light in practice. Just have to wait for tomorrow to see where people really are.

[Juzh]

7/8th tanks then, but definitely not "light" long run pace would be too slow if they were running half. From testing to now we have not seen low fuel runs from Ferrari yet. They are going to upset the apple cart...

Historically Ferrari run lighter in practice sessions. In the past, Mercedes and Williams usually filled up and did their plan. I expect Willaims to be nipping at Mercedes, with Ferrari somewhere in the hunt for 3rd. Don't get your hopes up too much.

I dont understand this, Ferrari is not a team who needs to do this, and running lighter than the other teams doesnt give them the opportunity to check out the real pace with full tanks. Moreover, they dont hide any potential and their fans think that they are in a better position than they really are.

I know that traditionally they have done it, but its difficult for me to see the reasons behind this.

Ferrari always runs lights in FP2. Remember last year. Even alonso admitted to it.

[Juzh]

are you serious? the fact that vettel is on the slower tire doesnt matter in your "analysis"?

You are a little bit late. I have already said that I thought they were running with the same tyre.

RB seems to be putting Renault under a great pressure with those declarations. I am sure that Renault is not happy at all with this attitude, you know, it is always better to solve your "family" problems at home.

Their PU is blowing up 50km into its lifetime. You think RB is happy with that? Going public is the only right thing to do after all the arrogance renault has shown in pre-season.

[Chene_Mostert]

I just looked through ESPNs coverage of last years races, not once did Ferrari match their best FP position of the weekend in qualifying.

FP1 - looking good - FP2 - looking good - FP3 - looking good - Quali - nowhere

Every single weekend from Australia to Abu Dhabi.

But hey, new management and drivers, clearly better car, might have changed their policy of running light in practice. Just have to wait for tomorrow to see where people really are.

Yes, last year Ferrari was a total mess in all aspects of their the game.
It was a all time low for them and they will just move forward from there. We will have a Ferrari in P3 at the end of Q3 with a gap to P1 of no more than 0.6X.

[Sevach]

Ferrari's Q pace wasn't on totally empty tanks they kept going for 4/5 laps, car seemed super nice, good turn in, smooth power delivery.
Long run looked almost too good.
Williams looked much slower, the car looked very understeery, maybe they can adress it and find a lot of pace.

Mclaren stinks, Honda is terrible and the car also lacks downforce, if Sauber races they have a fight to get out of last place.

[giantfan10]

But hey, new management and drivers, clearly better car, might have changed their policy of running light in practice. Just have to wait for tomorrow to see where people really are.[/quote]

running lighter may have played a small role but the primary reason was the fact that ferrari could not produce enough electricity to do a full lap at max ouput ...
so when the other cars turned up the power for quali ferrari was basically left behind in quali mode.
the problem was masked in the race bacause no car runs at max output for the entire race.
that i'm willing to bet was their number one priority as far as the updated PU was concerned this offseason

[giantfan10]

Ferrari's Q pace wasn't on totally empty tanks they kept going for 4/5 laps, car seemed super nice, good turn in, smooth power delivery.
Long run looked almost too good.
Williams looked much slower, the car looked very understeery, maybe they can adress it and find a lot of pace.

Mclaren stinks, Honda is terrible and the car also lacks downforce, if Sauber races they have a fight to get out of last place.

lol i think its a fight between Manor and mclaren if manor races

[dans79]

Did anyone here any of Lewis's side of the garages radio communications? About the only thing I heard here in the us from merc, was Nico saying something about not knowing gears, and his side of the garage twice telling him he is using to much fuel.

[Chene_Mostert]

Ferrari's Q pace wasn't on totally empty tanks they kept going for 4/5 laps, car seemed super nice, good turn in, smooth power delivery.
Long run looked almost too good.
Williams looked much slower, the car looked very understeery, maybe they can adress it and find a lot of pace.

Mclaren stinks, Honda is terrible and the car also lacks downforce, if Sauber races they have a fight to get out of last place.

Yes Merc was the only team with Nico & Lewis who did a proper Q3 simulation with out lap, fast, in.
Williams with Bottas did Out, Fly, Slow, Fly, in. as did Ferrari.

[dans79]

Ferrari's Q pace wasn't on totally empty tanks they kept going for 4/5 laps, car seemed super nice, good turn in, smooth power delivery.

I'm not sure I would agree with that, from the on board footage I saw, it looked like the car was trying to kill the drivers every time it got a chance. It looked to have sever snap over-steer.

[Silent Storm]

Historically Ferrari run lighter in practice sessions. In the past, Mercedes and Williams usually filled up and did their plan. I expect Willaims to be nipping at Mercedes, with Ferrari somewhere in the hunt for 3rd. Don't get your hopes up too much.

I dont understand this, Ferrari is not a team who needs to do this, and running lighter than the other teams doesnt give them the opportunity to check out the real pace with full tanks. Moreover, they dont hide any potential and their fans think that they are in a better position than they really are.

I know that traditionally they have done it, but its difficult for me to see the reasons behind this.

Ferrari always runs lights in FP2. Remember last year. Even alonso admitted to it.

I remember Alonso used to do just 1 quick lap in FP1 and sometimes in FP2 last year but today both drivers were doing 4-5 laps while setting fast lap times.

[S.vettel]

hello evry1

[S.vettel]

By seeing ferrari performance i guess alonso shld hv stayed.....