Nico Rosberg has won the inaugural Grand Prix at Baku, leading the race from start to finish. Sebastian Vettel finished a distant second, and he too was unthreatened in that position. Perhaps the happiest man on the podium was Sergio Perez, who followed up on his podium finish at Monaco some weeks earlier.
Red Bull must be doing this on purpose. Probably ordered by Red Bull Marketing (not a real thing) in order to keep up Marko's comments.FoxHound wrote:@Juzh
From the 6 minutes of Red Bull and Ferrari footage I've seen, they have massive issues and all in relation to traction in and out of corners, when accelerating, turning or braking.
I'm guessing the track is "green", but both teams will be hoping the track rubbers in.
Explain then, why Ferrari are having traction issues?giantfan10 wrote:Actually the main reason Ferrari is off the pace is because they are both running pre montreal engine
So no percentage of the time ferrari are off pace can be accredited to the old spec PU?FoxHound wrote:Explain then, why Ferrari are having traction issues?giantfan10 wrote:Actually the main reason Ferrari is off the pace is because they are both running pre montreal engine
Is it because the pre montreal engine was so vastly different, that it changed the geometry of the suspension to the point of messing up the entire car? A car that was, with pre montreal engine, about 0.5 off the Mercedes at other tracks?
It's about tyres and traction. Not engines. Tyres and traction, tyres and traction I'll reiterate.
The track will at some stage rubber in, benefiting teams that are suffering with traction. But you simply cant palm this off as use of a practice engine, which likely Mercedes are doing exactly the same anyway.
I agree with your argument 100%.Fulcrum wrote:In essence, yes, or very nearly. There are plenty of turns on this very track where the kerb literally hugs the wall. Examples being, turns 1, 3, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.j2004p wrote:OK, maybe I'm missing something and if I am I apologise, but what would you prefer instead of a kerb?Fulcrum wrote:Sorry, that's not an argument that holds much water with me. That's actually part of my point. Placing kerbs on this track where they have effectively neuters it.
Why do the drivers need to have 'something' to 'negotiate' with?
You've stated it yourself. Without kerbs the balancing act is negotiating the wall, which seems a much better application of skill than 'negotiating' an arbitrary point like a kerb.
As such, removing the kerbs would place a much higher emphasis on the driver than the car.
A wall or a white line with identical flat tarmac to the main track on the inside of the white line?
Turns 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 15, 16 all create artificial apexes and I don't see the point of this when the track is physically bound by concrete blocks. The safety argument, slowing cars down with strategic kerb placement, doesn't correlate because the kerbs are tight on entry to T1, T12, T13, T14, all with high approach speeds or high apex speeds.
I don't see how the kerbs here can even be motivated as safety features at all. They're raised, destabilise the car, and are likely to cause more accidents than they 'prevent' from an errant driver getting too close to the wall. What's more, they're extremely dangerous in the wet - not that important here as it doesn't rain much.
The approach to turn 15 is actually made more dangerous by the completely idiotic kerb placement on the outside of the track in the approach.
To summarise, my general argument is that the placement of the kerbs creates for a far worse layout than could be experienced were they placed consistently close to the walls throughout, the best examples being T15 and T16. Both of these corners have been 'sanitised' in a manner that detracts from the circuits potential.
An old mercedes engine functioning as it was intended to function is more than likely a much better engine than the Ferrari engine with a bum turbo and MGU-H that couldnt even sustain max power along the Bahrain start finish straight which pales in comparison to its counterpart in Baku.FoxHound wrote:Explain then, why Ferrari are having traction issues?giantfan10 wrote:Actually the main reason Ferrari is off the pace is because they are both running pre montreal engine
Is it because the pre montreal engine was so vastly different, that it changed the geometry of the suspension to the point of messing up the entire car? A car that was, with pre montreal engine, about 0.5 off the Mercedes at other tracks?
It's about tyres and traction. Not engines. Tyres and traction, tyres and traction I'll reiterate.
The track will at some stage rubber in, benefiting teams that are suffering with traction. But you simply cant palm this off as use of a practice engine, which likely Mercedes are doing exactly the same anyway.
Yet Amus reported yesterday that Red Bull would do a back to back comparison between the Canada and Barcelona wings.LookBackTime wrote:From AMUS:
They had loaded their cars with Barcelona-wings. Only Mercedes, Williams and McLaren started the adventure on the new route with wings at the spa format. The result proved them right. The 3 cars occupied in the first session and the first places.
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Also said they might raise it as well.ME4ME wrote: I think the main reason for the competitive order shake-up are the tyres. Pirelli have been very conservative not only with compounds, but also with the prescribed starting pressure of 22 psi. Accourding to Motorsport.com Pirelli is now evaluating data from FP 1&2, and might decrease pressures if possible.
Ferrari had a rear suspension geometry update in Monaco maybe it won't let them get heat into the tires here??FoxHound wrote:Explain then, why Ferrari are having traction issues?giantfan10 wrote:Actually the main reason Ferrari is off the pace is because they are both running pre montreal engine
Is it because the pre montreal engine was so vastly different, that it changed the geometry of the suspension to the point of messing up the entire car? A car that was, with pre montreal engine, about 0.5 off the Mercedes at other tracks?
It's about tyres and traction. Not engines. Tyres and traction, tyres and traction I'll reiterate.
The track will at some stage rubber in, benefiting teams that are suffering with traction. But you simply cant palm this off as use of a practice engine, which likely Mercedes are doing exactly the same anyway.
Even without sector times: old turbo saving engine would not explain such difference, Traction/tyres specifically - why would they have bigger problems than TR/FI?SamH123 wrote:Ferrari had good pace in s3 so the engine argument falls flat
Haryanto almost matched them in s2
"It is clear that some teams and drivers have hit a sweet spot while some others are not quite in their usual ranking position. This means there are some factors that are specific to this circuit, which we need to understand and react to tonight. It will also be tricky to try and second-guess the track changes that will happen as the new tarmac settles and the temperatures increase through the weekend."
I wasn't able to catch any of today's coverage, but Hamilton was clearly flat in the onboard posted here. What about the guys lower down the order?SectorOne wrote:It´s flat in the game he was playing, F1 franchise games are not known for their accuracy.ChrisDanger wrote:Ricciardo said it's flat (during commentary over video of game footage), and Alonso said a lift will probably be required (I couldn't tell how sure he was) (during first question of driver's press conference).SectorOne wrote:Medical car doing a lap around the track. I have my doubts on 18-19 being flat.
http://www.formula1.com/content/fom-web ... _Baku.html
Thats not an engine arguement thats an engine fact and one of 2 facts that we have at this point when trying to explain Ferrari being that slow in practice.SamH123 wrote:Ferrari had good pace in s3 so the engine argument falls flat
Haryanto almost matched them in s2
