2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix - Baku, April 27-29

[Phil]

According to AMuS, RedBull are the team to beat with around 3-4 tenths ahead on the US tire. Things are a tad closer on the other tires. QF should be closer though when Mercedes and Ferrari turn up their engines. Mercedes apparently with headaches, especially with getting the ultras into the temperature window. They dont like the cold...

[gandharva]

The average times from AMUS are completely misleading. They calculated with traffic laps... On SS RBR is even stronger compared to US.

[matt_b]

I can see a singapore 17 type qualifying coming up tomorrow, red bull look the fastest but come Q3 ferrari will claim pole, the real excitement should come in the race though.

[Vettel165]

It was the same in China in FP2, RBR looked the fastest, with Ferrari, Mercedes saving their engine a lot more, and were running just to a certain delta time. In race pace in China the Ferrari was the fastest car on the same tyres, slightly ahead of Mercedes, then RBR. Sorry I forgot RBR started on US tyres there, but still with the fastest rubber they couldnt keep up with Bottas, Vettel in first stint. I know this track is different, but I still see Mercedes, Ferrari on the first two rows with their superior engine power in Q3 (no particular order). Will see.

[Unc1eM0nty]

Still early days, which ever way qualifying goes I think the race pace of the top three is going to be super close, its hard to overtake here and with the all the barriers - safety cars to decide the winner again ?

[GPR-A duplicate2]

In race pace in China the Ferrari was the fastest car on the same tyres, slightly ahead of Mercedes, then RBR.

Disagree with that. The fact that, despite being close behind Vettel in the dirty air for the entire first stint, Bottas kept himself within the undercut window and pulled off an undercut. Despite being in free air, Vettel was unable to get out of undercut window. After the undercut, Bottas went on to maintain the position, which shows, the Mercedes was faster car in China. And without a doubt, Mercedes was the faster car in Melbourne. So that is, 2 out of 3 races, where they were faster!

Ferrari on the first two rows with their superior engine power in Q3 (no particular order). Will see.

If qualifying result from the first 3 races are the basis for deciding the superiority of the engines, then Mercedes was way more superior in Melbourne and then suddenly lost the edge in the next two races! I wish it would have been that simple to decide. By their own admission, Mercedes are struggling to maintain temperatures in tyres, which is the reason why they have struggled for that one lap pace in the previous two GPs. In essence, it's the way the cars are treating their tyres, that has differentiated between the two cars, not the engine superiority.

[FrukostScones]

RB gaining more laptime with an emptying fuel tank than Merc and Ferrari, was my observation over the 3 first races. Excluding tyres.

[carisi2k]

Bottas wasn't actually in the dirty air and he was 3-4 seconds behind Vettel when he pitted. It was Ferrari's slow stop and the fact Bottas was told to put the Merc into party mode which allowed him to get the undercut and to overtake Vettel. If there wasn't a safety car I believe that both Mercedes tyres would have fallen off the cliff right at the end of the race due to the way they wrecked the tyres on those first laps out of the pits.

Also Vettel was easily able to stay in the wake of the Mercedes and within 1 second of Bottas.

[FLuidd]

In race pace in China the Ferrari was the fastest car on the same tyres, slightly ahead of Mercedes, then RBR.

Disagree with that. The fact that, despite being close behind Vettel in the dirty air for the entire first stint, Bottas kept himself within the undercut window and pulled off an undercut. Despite being in free air, Vettel was unable to get out of undercut window. After the undercut, Bottas went on to maintain the position, which shows, the Mercedes was faster car in China. And without a doubt, Mercedes was the faster car in Melbourne. So that is, 2 out of 3 races, where they were faster!

Ferrari on the first two rows with their superior engine power in Q3 (no particular order). Will see.

If qualifying result from the first 3 races are the basis for deciding the superiority of the engines, then Mercedes was way more superior in Melbourne and then suddenly lost the edge in the next two races! I wish it would have been that simple to decide. By their own admission, Mercedes are struggling to maintain temperatures in tyres, which is the reason why they have struggled for that one lap pace in the previous two GPs. In essence, it's the way the cars are treating their tyres, that has differentiated between the two cars, not the engine superiority.

I agree with the fact that in Melbourne, Ferrari was out of pace and I agree that in China, Vettel could not pull a bigger gap on Bottas to avoid an undercut. However, if we are to look at the last 2 races we could see an anomaly.

1. In Bahrain we had a Vettel with a considerable gap on Bottas before being told about plan D which meant to 1 stop and Soft tyres to the end.

2. In China we had another anomaly since we had Ferrari starting on Softs and changing for Mediums to the end of the race.

What I am trying to say here is that in my humble opinion if Ferrari can make SS US and HS work in a race, then Mercedes can not compete with Ferrari on race trim. That being said, up until now Mercedes got flattered by the fact that both them and Ferrari used Softs for the majority of time in all races so far.

Amazing isnt it how in Bahrain with US, Vettel could pull a gap on Bottas, but not with the softs.

I rest my case.

[Restomaniac]

Here you go.

https://postimages.org/

Thanks, mate, but he knows what I meant

Oh I did. The SS is THE tyre Ferrari (and the rest) and their great simulations brought too many sets of US

[Yurasyk]

Disagree with that. The fact that, despite being close behind Vettel in the dirty air for the entire first stint, Bottas kept himself within the undercut window and pulled off an undercut.

No wonder you disagree with the fact that Mercedes were slower. They got lucky with slower Vettel's pit stop and in lap (Bottas out lap was great, BTW).

[Brenton]

Something to keep in mind when watching FP3. I just looked at the FP3 and qualifying top times for the previous 5 races, typing up a table of subjective rankings. For the top 6 teams, there was a very strong correlation between FP3 and qualifying ranking on a subjective judge of performance. (after considering factors like for example Bottas crashing out of Q3 at Australia)

4 of 5 races had the same ranking between Mercedes and Ferrari. The top 3 were the same in 3 of 5 races! Only difference in the other two were Mercedes either moving ahead of Red Bull (Bahrain) or they moved ahead of both RB and Ferrari (Australia).

The teams ranked 4th-6th were very similar as well, when looking at the averages of both drivers performances. The only major outlier was Haas in Australia, leaping far ahead from practice to qualifying... and McLaren dropping from #4 to #7 at Abu Dhabi.

So even without looking at times in detail, analyzing long run performances like some of you graciously do here, the simple results table is quite telling of what will happen in Q3.

[Brenton]

I wonder why teams don't hedge their bets more on tire selection. Choosing 2-4 sets instead of 1-2 of the least favored compound? Do they need so many sets of the favored compound?

With the tire issues, I'm extremely excited for this grand prix. I really like the track. Not my favorite in the world, but by today's F1 track standards it's great. It's a low downforce street circuit! And a real street circuit... tight, narrow, inches from the wall street circuit. Not a glorified parking lot with painted lines showing "track limits" that drivers don't even follow. It punishes mistakes like a race track should. There are overtaking opportunities, and it's a test of power as well as handling.

With the current situation in F1, where two drivers are neck and neck for a title race and three teams are almost identical in car performance... and the midfield is extremely competitive as well... there's rarely been a better time to be an F1 fan IMO! I say this as someone who grew up loving the V10s. There's a lot to hate about current F1 but overall it's great. We have extensive TV and internet coverage that's miles better than in the past. Even the driver lineup... the back of the grid talent IMO is miles ahead of what F1 was for most of its history. There's so much to love. So I recommend this weekend, appreciating what we watch.

Max crashed! ohh nooo
How could that happen!?

He blamed it on the wind... How surprising? Is it a cultural thing within Red Bull? I want to love them but their Modus Operandi seems to be blame everyone else publicly for their failures. The way Horner immediately put in an insult to the Renault PU during the Sky practice interview for example...

[Morteza]

[JPBD1990]

Here you go.

https://postimages.org/

Thanks, mate, but he knows what I meant

Oh I did. The SS is THE tyre Ferrari (and the rest) and their great simulations brought too many sets of US

I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic, but Mercedes redbull and Ferrari have (I think) identical tyre allocations left after FP2 - so, as I suggested earlier in the thread, people freaking out about tyre allocations are wasting their energy. Ferrari simply used their extra soft on Kimi’s car and the extra SS of vettels car - now they have one of each and 7 US each - the same as merc.

If you were being sarcastic then I apologise.