2019 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, March 15-17

[Sieper]

Thought so

[munudeges]

I can't see how or why Ferrari would be sandbagging to this extent, if indeed they are. Where Red Bull are concerned, it looks like par for the course.

We'll see how the automatons at Autosport spin this one.

[Sieper]

I think they likely ran into a set up issue once speeds picked up on In FP2, a Pic was shown with a tire with quite Some degradation. But in FP1 they were right there so also for Ferrari, Lets please just wait for Q3, the Logic behind the times and then realise it is just a first qualy.

[GPR-A]

I can't see how or why Ferrari would be sandbagging to this extent, if indeed they are. Where Red Bull are concerned, it looks like par for the course.

We'll see how the automatons at Autosport spin this one.

Oh they already have. I have that stupid Autosport Plus subscription.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/feature/89 ... y-practice

A lot of assumptions like, Verstappen could have gone faster, Ferrari could have. He doesn't mention the same about Mercedes! If that assumption apply to others, why not for Mercedes? On what grounds one believe that, Mercedes is not struggling and can find more pace? Just because they are ahead on times, take it as all hail for them.

For these guys, if number of laps done in a stint is smaller, then it is given, that the car is carrying less fuel and if someone does a few more laps, then that car is very heavy and hence, could go faster. Nothing wrong in that second scenario, but potentially wrong in that first scenario.

In winter testing, the lap times (long and short) of Ferrari made them leaders, then Mercedes are now leaders by same yardstick after two practice sessions. Isn't it? All the effort going in to suggest that the Ferrari is not on actual pace, was missing in telling the world as to why Mercedes was struggling in winter testing. In fact, all efforts were made to shoot down Mercedes' pace on last couple of days. It's funny now that they are desperate to show that Ferrari has pace, but are struggling due to various factors.

[GPR-A]

They have to keep the clicks and new subscribers coming! It seems traditional journalism has completely gone the way of the dodo.

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.

Some of those guys are downright stupid, but I understand the need to make profits make the owners bring these half brain experts that saves cost, but those enormous number of click baits from the average joes, provide more than accounted for.

I get utterly surprised, how does the comments from the likes of Marko, is taken at the face value, when the guy has been notoriously infamous for making outrageous remarks. Someone throws like, GPS shows us this or that and nobody even questions, how does the GPS data determine who is faster or slower, without knowing the engine modes that a car is using OR the fuel load that car is carrying. EXPERTS watching the cars at the on track with naked eye, telling which car is stable and which is not, with absolutely no idea of what the age of tyres is and various other parameters.

I still remember the 2013 winter testing, when Mercedes was quickly bringing the tyres into performance window and pounding around good times, everyone back then was quick to point out that, if a car puts the tyres so quickly into working window in cold winter, what would happen on normally hot race weekends? But this time, no one bothered to question.

How is a struggling manufacturer like Honda makes a big jump to match the power of Mercedes and Ferrari, is accepted without even taking that with a pinch of salt and not overplay the performance until it is proven through the rigors of race weekends. But on the same breath, quickly jumping to accept and propagating that a team that has won 5 double titles on the bounce, suddenly moves down to 3rd place. When a team is telling the world that, they have been struggling with cold graining in the winter testing, but comes close to match the winter leaders in both short and long runs, doesn't that warrant to be considered with caution, before pushing them down the pecking order?

[search]

I can't see how or why Ferrari would be sandbagging to this extent, if indeed they are. Where Red Bull are concerned, it looks like par for the course.

We'll see how the automatons at Autosport spin this one.

Oh they already have. I have that stupid Autosport Plus subscription.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/feature/89 ... y-practice

A lot of assumptions like, Verstappen could have gone faster, Ferrari could have. He doesn't mention the same about Mercedes! If that assumption apply to others, why not for Mercedes?

well, after setting his fastest lap time of the day, Verstappen did 7 more laps before coming back to the pits. So most obviously the car was far from empty. 7 laps of fuel equal something like ~half a second.

But sure, whether the other teams would still have had enough fuel to do the same, we just don't know.

[elMaestro]

Even though i am a huge Mercedes fan judging from these 2 practice sessions i cannot help but think that Ferrari has had some set-up issues in getting their car to work properly. Also judging from last season where Ferrari sometimes had these same set-up issues on Friday, they would usually come back on Saturday and race day aswell. They might be and im saying, might be behind, but not 8 tenths behind. I apologize if someone didnt understand me but English is not my native language.

[FittingMechanics]

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.

Really good analysis overall. About Verstappen, from what I've seen, apparently RB/Verstappen were not happy with the setup and they decided to do a lot of setup work during FP2, not doing long runs as was initially planned. His car was refueled between runs to keep fuel level consistent for better comparison between setup changes. So you are completely right, his times are somewhat misleading as most other drivers did not do so many short runs.

I think this info is from SoyMotor.

[HPD]

The times of Verstappen are not very representative. They are not happy with the car (they are even changing the chassis at this time).
His best lap was in a round of 12 laps.

[Juzh]

People saying mercedes is twitchy but I just don't see it. On the onboards their car was planted on all the usual oversteer corner exits in S1 and had no understeer in S3 even on medium (yellow) tire. Compared to ferrari which didn't necessarily oversteer but instead understeered like a van. From telemetry it's apparent they had good high speed corner performance, but fell behind in medium and low speed stuff.



Straight line performance almost equal between all three. So far...

[Capharol]

The times of Verstappen are not very representative. They are not happy with the car (they are even changing the chassis at this time).
His best lap was in a round of 12 laps.

which they claimed was already planned before the weekend......

[munudeges]

I'm sure Ferrari will be closer, but I'm just not seeing anything here that suggests Mercedes are doing glory runs or Ferrari are sandbagging with something that would point to a hidden performance advantage.

[djones]

Ferrari will gain a big chunk of time I think with setup alone. But Mercedes will of course find some time too.

I do not remember the last time the gap was so big in FP2.

Ferrari fans should be setting expectations low to avoid disappointment come Q3.

[dans79]

I'm sure Ferrari will be closer, but I'm just not seeing anything here that suggests Mercedes are doing glory runs or Ferrari are sandbagging with something that would point to a hidden performance advantage.

It was posted earlier, but all you have to do is look at their tires, to see the Ferrari are having set-up issues. The real question is how much performance will they have to sacrifice to maintain proper tire temps, and have a well balanced car.

https://twitter.com/AlbertFabrega/statu ... 6475668480

[Artur Craft]

The gap back to midfield looks same as usual, no sign of them closing up to within half a second as rumours suggested.

Yup. And my excitement is gone because of it. Everything remained the same as last year. Mercedes/Ferrari easily on top, RB some 0.5s behind and others over 1s behind

Merc/Fer are gonna qualify on the Medium tyres on Q2