2016 Chinese Grand Prix - Shanghai, Apr 15 - 17

[GPR-A duplicate2]

2015 QUALIFYING


2015 RACE RESULT


2015 POLE LAP


2016 TYRE CHOICE

[Vasconia]

The gap between Mercedes and Ferrari was truly big last year on qualy, I hope this time will be smaller, though I expect another 1-2 for them.

For the race the lower temperatures suit Mercedes so I expect a dominant victory for the German team.

[matt_b]

Lets hope the Mercs finally race each other rather than one of them cruising out front. Who knows what qualifying format we will get for this one...

[Vasconia]

Lets hope the Mercs finally race each other rather than one of them cruising out front. Who knows what qualifying format we will get for this one...

With this "magic botton" no matter what sort of qualifying we have, they will dominate. We need Ferrari doing good stars, and what is even more important, having a race pace similar(or superior) to Mercedes.

[seezung]

http://i.imgur.com/sGzXRzv.jpg

[ME4ME]

2015 tyre strategies:


http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2015/04/13/r ... potential/

[Sevach]

With the softer tires this year we may see 3 stops, 2 ss 2 softs.

[godlameroso]

The gap between Mercedes and Ferrari was truly big last year on qualy, I hope this time will be smaller, though I expect another 1-2 for them.

For the race the lower temperatures suit Mercedes so I expect a dominant victory for the German team.

It's going to be the warmest race of the season, temperatures will be around 26c throughout, at least it won't rain. Track temperatures will easily be in the mid to upper 30's so the soft tire may be useful. This track has much heavier tire loadings particularly the fronts.

I think a 3 stopper like Bahrain will work but it will be the soft tire with it's high working range that will work best over a 15 lap stint.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Having seen Haas executing a 3 stopper with SS, there would more teams who would want to do the same in China. Williams definitely are poised to do that with 7 sets of SS. If that happens, the Haas dream run might just get affected. As for leaders, it might be a simple SS-S-S race.

The circuit is just front limited, specifically left front takes a lot of burden. So rear degradation isn't going to be an issue at all and we might see longer stints on SS.

We would also know the ERS capabilities of all the PUs with one of the longest straight on the calendar, immediagely followed by Start straight. Any deployment issues would become immediately apparent here.

[godlameroso]

I don't think the SS tire will go 15 laps in China, turn 1,2,7,8 and, 11 put a lot of loading on the tires. The warm temperatures, and high loadings will allow the soft tire which has a high working range, to warm up and work without much graining. The medium tire will be slower and last not much longer than the soft tire, and the super soft will overheat and not keep pace after a few laps. Something tells me Soft tire is the preferred race tire for the track and conditions.

The pit lane loss is higher here than at other circuits which makes 3 stopping much trickier.

[BanMeToo]

Have to agree with that assessment, yea

[f1316]

The thing about tyre strategy is that we saw in Bahrain Mercedes abandoning what they felt was optimum to cover Ferrari.

So you might see Ferrari try to go aggressive - considering they have an extra set of SS and Haas used this well in Bahrain running Ferrari suspension- and Mercedes might find themselves wanting to cover (or vice versa depending on who's ahead); but then the allocation becomes more interesting because teams won't always be able to cover depending on how many new sets you have available.

Running 3 and 4 though, Ferrari have nothing to lose/everything to gain by trying something different- the gap to Red Bull seems big enough to give them that leeway. The mistake they made in Australia was doing it when leading - when there was something to lose.

[Vasconia]

The gap between Mercedes and Ferrari was truly big last year on qualy, I hope this time will be smaller, though I expect another 1-2 for them.

For the race the lower temperatures suit Mercedes so I expect a dominant victory for the German team.

It's going to be the warmest race of the season, temperatures will be around 26c throughout, at least it won't rain. Track temperatures will easily be in the mid to upper 30's so the soft tire may be useful. This track has much heavier tire loadings particularly the fronts.

I think a 3 stopper like Bahrain will work but it will be the soft tire with it's high working range that will work best over a 15 lap stint.

I guess you mean the warmest so far!! because I have in mind a few races which will be warmer.

Is 100% sure that it will not rain? what a pity.

Teams tend to SS but I hope the will make the same mistake once again and another tyre will be the best for the race hahah.

[f1316]

As far as I can see, fastest ever pole lap here was a 1:33.7 by Vettel in 2011. That's definitely on to be beaten with last year's a 1.35.7.

We shouldn't be too carried away with that though, given Michael did a race lap in 1.32.2 in 2004.

[godlameroso]

We'll probably see a 1:32 on pole.

It's supposed to be light rain a couple days next week, but getting warmer as the race weekend rolls on.

Yes it will be the hottest race of the year, so far. It'll be interesting to see how temperature affects tire performance.