Valtteri Bottas enjoyed an impeccable race at Melbourne, starting his season with 26 points after also recording the fastest lap of the race. Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen finished in distant 2nd and 3rd places.
For all those Ferrari fans who feel that the championship is over?
Mercedes fired up their first 2019 engine on Wednesday and it went pop. Racing Point, Williams and the works team therefore all ran PU's in lower modes today. If you really feel that Ferrari are more than half a second off against a non full power Mercedes, then logic is lost on you lot. The gains on a street circuit lie a lot in how much mechanical grip a driver he feels he has. It can variate between half and two seconds depending on how much grip he feels he has.. Hold the horses.
I haven't heard of Merc's engine went pop. When did it happen and what merc did tell about it?
That's because it didn't go pop, they had an oil pressure issue and pulled the engine as a precaution.
Lewis Hamilton enjoyed a trouble-free morning focused mostly on long runs on the C2 and C3 tyres, but the same could not be said for Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas - who stopped on his out-lap in the afternoon with an oil pressure issue.
Mercedes changed its engine as a precaution and Bottas made it out before the end of the session and completed a further six laps to end the day in 11th.
I think most of the performance swing we have seen today is 100% down to the tyres. Merc have a car that gets the tyres in the right window under the current temps in Australia. Is Spain it was far to cold. Merc were a good chunk behind in Spain. And a good chunk ahead in Melbourne. Most races this year will be near the Melbourne temps so it looks good for Mercedes.
Plus Mercedes may well have been running full tanks in Barcelona race sims and not just the 90ish kg required.
Well not entirely sure about the fuel. I mean it was at some point twitchy in Barcelona, but now as well. Can't imagine how fast they will be if they have everything sorted out.
Yeah I just meant heavy on their race sims in Barcelona.
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My observations from practice today compared with testing is if we consider last year, it looked like Merc were miles ahead and come Australia and the opening races that clearly wasn't the case - Hamilton pulled out a great lap in qualifying but Kimi was pretty closer to him on race pace. Since Barcelona got resurfaced last year it has had an unusual amount of grip, plus conditions in winter testing are also always largely unrepresentative. Merc last year benefited from that extra grip with a car that was inconsistent in the opening rounds and overheated its tyres. We now have Ferrari ironically in the exact same boat potentially - the car worked well in colder conditions on a high grip track, but is not working in hotter more representative conditions on a low grip track.
I am unsure of the issue with Merc looking stiff - McLaren for years ran with very stiff suspension when they used to win races and be in championship contention. Maybe it's just how Merc have been able to get this particular package into the envelope and crucially it isn't losing them significant performance - the car looks twitchy but also alive and responsive. It goes to the saying that just because a car is well balanced and planted, doesn't mean it will be fastest. I remember Alonso used to say McLaren had a really well balanced car, but it was just slow! I'm not saying Ferrari are slow but maybe the conditions in Barcelona have flattered the car a little and their extreme front-wing design philosophy was perfect for those conditions but may not be as well suited to traditional tracks. Maybe Merc's car always had more pace it was just difficult to drive, but now they've tamed it, it's let the beast loose.
I do recall James Alison saying a big focus of this car was on tyres and ensuring they worked them better than in previous seasons as e.g. Red Bull was far better on tyres in 2018. If they have succeeded in this, then I worry for the competition! Aside to Merc having good long runs, I was also impressed how on both short runs on the softest tyre in FP1 and FP2 Hamilton was able to put in better sectors after his first hot lap, so they're keeping the tyres alive well. In-fact Hamilton went slower in sector 3 on the soft than he did on the medium, so there's more potential there.
A final point I don't really understand is what Christian Horner has said about Merc being very stiff and difficult to drive and questioning whether that's sustainable over a race distance. Unless he thinks the car will literally fall apart, which would be bizarre, then I don't see what he's referring too - they clearly are dealing with tyres OK and their drivers aren't making mistakes (aside to Bottas' fun in the grass) so it cannot be that difficult to drive. This almost seems like a slightly childish remark made because they are annoyed that Merc are so quick and are making a stiff suspension work where normally it would not on a bumpy track.
We well know from the last few years that the best way to make Merc even stronger is to put them in a mini-crisis. Every time they had one bad race they would come back stronger and often be unbeatable there after. Well testing was the crisis, and now we see the result. The jury is out on how much of this is for show!
Mercedes fired up their first 2019 engine on Wednesday and it went pop.
I missed this? They're down an engine already?
No. I read it on Autosport as I follow discussions pretty actively there. They're not down an engine in the championship but they certainly had an issue on fire up on Wednesday.
"Sebastian there's very, you're a member of a very select few.. Stewart, Lauda, Piquet, Senna, Prost, Schumacher, Fangio.. VETTEL!"
No. I read it on Autosport as I follow discussions pretty actively there. They're not down an engine in the championship but they certainly had an issue on fire up on Wednesday.
In an article? if so please share the link. if you mean the forum, you are doing yourself a disservice.
It's very interesting, what a few weeks can make to the competitive picture!
For those who have been watching F1 for long enough, would understand how NOT to make definitive conclusions. I wouldn't be surprised if the picture keeps changing every day for the next many races. New set of regulations and opportunity to develop the cars and whoever has adopted a philosophy that provides bigger opportunity to develop, would start moving forward with upgrades. It's not necessarily where these cars stands right now that matters.
But the childish, so called EXPERTS across the F1 media circus have resorted to immature ways of misleading the readers and listeners with their half baked expertise and disregarding small details that should have helped them find a balanced opinion towards the competitive picture.
Mercedes fired up their first 2019 engine on Wednesday and it went pop.
I missed this? They're down an engine already?
No. I read it on Autosport as I follow discussions pretty actively there. They're not down an engine in the championship but they certainly had an issue on fire up on Wednesday.
Sounds alot like this in Winter testing:
Oil pressure issue hampers Mercedes on first day of Test 2
Red Bull... difficult to say. Verstappen ran shorter stints than the other front runners in P2, so I don't think his laps are representative of long run pace, otherwise he would clearly be the fastest over laps conducted under race simulation conditions. Gasly was a lot slower though, and I'd expect their true pace is somewhere between the two. This would place them ahead of Ferrari.
Verstappen didn't do any high-fuel runs at all. He indeed did ~10 more laps after setting his fastest time of the session, which definitely shows that the car wasn't empty for that one, but in no way you can see that as any indication for long run pace.
edit: but well, Gasly was slower than Sainz, so the same probably applies for that (long) run
Last edited by search on 15 Mar 2019, 15:09, edited 1 time in total.
But the childish, so called EXPERTS across the F1 media circus have resorted to immature ways of misleading the readers and listeners with their half baked expertise and disregarding small details that should have helped them find a balanced opinion towards the competitive picture.
But NOW we can already jump to conclusions, because for now it seems Merc is on pace the most? I’d like to see Q3 first, and also, know the facts behind the Q3 Numbers before a preliminary conclusion is on the table.
But NOW we can already jump to conclusions, because for now it seems Merc is on pace the most? I’d like to see Q3 first, and also, know the facts behind the Q3 Numbers before a preliminary conclusion is on the table.
and take qualifying in the mix aswell, although as said before Australian GP is a specific race and doesn't give a really good picture of the pecking order
Not FP3, but Q3 and wait also for the facts behind the times. Then we will have a first indication. Now we are simply continuing on with said behavior.
Not FP3, but Q3 and wait also for the facts behind the times. Then we will have a first indication. Now we are simply continuing on with said behavior.
we agree on the same thing, i just read FP3 instead of Q3
