2018 French Grand Prix, Le Castellet, June 22-24

[JonoNic]

Vettel seemed to be quite happy and to think they would be strong in the race, so let’s see.

Definitely advantage Mercedes.

He should be worried, he has Max next to him and Ric behind. If the get away is clean, he might get jumped during the stops.

It's quite a drag to the first corner. Are you sure?

[zeph]

How the mighty have fallen; McLaren and Williams dead last on the grid.


And Grosjean? SMH. I’d be surprised if he returns next season. That seat seems like a logicalnext step for Leclerc.

[Wynters]

Dominant Mercedes. They were not beatable today. But I hope Mercedes fans won't tell that it's up to the new engine which is vastly faster than Ferrari's. It was a combination of all factors.

It's odd, isn't it? Where has Ferrari's engine advantage gone?

On a serious note, where were the other Mercedes powered cars compared to their Ferrari and Renault rivals? The midfield battle is great this year! It's genuinely difficult to pick out who will finish where.

Fingers-crossed for a dry start then some rain during the race. Changable conditions are far more interesting than everyone rolling around in a slow train.

[MtthsMlw]

[media]https://twitter.com/tgruener/status/101 ... 17760?s=19[/media]

[JonoNic]

Raikkonen, Grosjean and Boullier are having some mediocre or even very bad seasons for a while now. What happened to these big role players from the magic Lotus years?

[Restomaniac]

How the mighty have fallen; McLaren and Williams dead last on the grid.


And Grosjean? SMH. I’d be surprised if he returns next season. That seat seems like a logicalnext step for Leclerc.

I was waiting for Grosjean to randomly blame someone, anyone else for his crash today. He could have just stated that he had done it on purpose again though.

[Brenton]

Super close between Ferrari and Mercedes it looks like!

I don't blame Kimi for his so-so performances. He is doing just fine.
Any driver that has to compromise so many of their races "for the team" (as he does) would have both motivation and confidence deficits.

What I don't understand about the Kimi apologists who say that he's doing a good job, is what would they consider to be an unsatisfactory performance? Finishing behind a Renault? Miss Q3 on a regular basis?

The gap between the top teams and the rest is quite large here.

Exaggerated though by the fact that 9th place's time in Q3 would have been too slow to get out of Q1.

[Fulcrum]

Kimi clearly fudged up his Q3 lap. His Q1 and Q2 times were on par with his teammate, so 6th is clearly not representative of his speed.

However, I can't excuse the fact he made the mistake - that's all on him, and he will be living with the mistake for the entire race should he not get a good start.

It's worthwhile noting that while we are singing Leclerc's praises he also produced a bit of a turd of a lap in Q3 - slower than his Q1 time, and it would have qualified him 14th (1 place in front of Ericsson) had he produced it in Q2. He got 8th by default, as the Haas drivers threw their laps - and cars in the case of Grosjean - away.

[F1NAC]

Kimi clearly fudged up his Q3 lap. His Q1 and Q2 times were on par with his teammate, so 6th is clearly not representative of his speed.

However, I can't excuse the fact he made the mistake - that's all on him, and he will be living with the mistake for the entire race should he not get a good start.

It's worthwhile noting that while we are singing Leclerc's praises he also produced a bit of a turd of a lap in Q3 - slower than his Q1 time, and it would have qualified him 14th (1 place in front of Ericsson) had he produced it in Q2. He got 8th by default, as the Haas drivers threw their laps - and cars in the case of Grosjean - away.

I think Leclerc ran on used tyres

[Fulcrum]

Kimi clearly fudged up his Q3 lap. His Q1 and Q2 times were on par with his teammate, so 6th is clearly not representative of his speed.

However, I can't excuse the fact he made the mistake - that's all on him, and he will be living with the mistake for the entire race should he not get a good start.

It's worthwhile noting that while we are singing Leclerc's praises he also produced a bit of a turd of a lap in Q3 - slower than his Q1 time, and it would have qualified him 14th (1 place in front of Ericsson) had he produced it in Q2. He got 8th by default, as the Haas drivers threw their laps - and cars in the case of Grosjean - away.

I think Leclerc ran on used tyres

Fair enough, although why? He would get an extra set just for making Q3 right?

[Vanja #66]

Fair enough, although why? He would get an extra set just for making Q3 right?

It's very possible the team forgot about that, it's been a while after all.

[GrandAxe]

What I don't understand about the Kimi apologists who say that he's doing a good job, is what would they consider to be an unsatisfactory performance? Finishing behind a Renault? Miss Q3 on a regular basis?

"Apologists"? You should be ashamed of your manners.

Anyone who has to throw away races, including wins like Kimi is bound to be demotivated and to lose a degree of self esteem. He is a human being with feelings and aspirations after all, not a robot. Every driver who has been in that position (the likes of Coulthard, Barichello, Massa etc) speaks bitterly about the experience. You and I would to.

We are also forgetting that Kimi is a World champion who by dint of his talent, has spent the majority of his F1 career at top teams. Only the best can reach such heights, therefore it is only fair to see Kimi's current performances within the circumstances of his current role. A fairer argument would be to question why a senior driver and WDC would take the role of a number two, which should be a younger drivers preserve.

Lastly, I'm a Lewis, McLaren and Mercedes fan, but that doesn't stop me from being objective.

[Fulcrum]

What I don't understand about the Kimi apologists who say that he's doing a good job, is what would they consider to be an unsatisfactory performance? Finishing behind a Renault? Miss Q3 on a regular basis?

"Apologists"? You should be ashamed of your manners.

Anyone who has to throw away races, including wins like Kimi is bound to be demotivated and to lose a degree of self esteem. He is a human being with feelings and aspirations after all, not a robot. Every driver who has been in that position (the likes of Coulthard, Barichello, Massa etc) speaks bitterly about the experience. You and I would to.

We are also forgetting that Kimi is a World champion who by dint of his talent, has spent the majority of his F1 career at top teams. Only the best can reach such heights, therefore it is only fair to see Kimi's current performances within the circumstances of his current role. A fairer argument would be to question why a senior driver and WDC would take the role of a number two, which should be a younger drivers preserve.

Lastly, I'm a Lewis, McLaren and Mercedes fan, but that doesn't stop me from being objective.

$$$ - very noble of him.

[Fulcrum]

Fair enough, although why? He would get an extra set just for making Q3 right?

It's very possible the team forgot about that, it's been a while after all.

Possible. Wouldn't have made a difference anyway, considering Sainz was on a 1:32.1

[LM10]

It's odd, isn't it? Where has Ferrari's engine advantage gone?

Ferrari has never had a real engine advantage. If any, they were on par with Mercedes.
The thing which made Mercedes look slower than they were in Qualifying was mainly the tyre issue they had.

Redbull has been just within 2.5 tenths off Mercedes' pace in every Qualifying. The only 2 Qualifying sessions in which Mercedes was clearly faster than Redbull were Barcelona and Paul Ricard (I intentionally didn't count Melbourne because that was 80% up to hammer time). On both weekends the special tyres were used and on both weekends Mercedes was 6-7 tenths faster than Redbull. Even on a power sensitive track like China the one lap pace advantage of Mercedes over Redbull was just 1.5 tenths.

So the more interesting question should be: Why was Mercedes almost half a second faster than usual only in Barcelona and France?