2019 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, March 15-17

[djones]

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

Was this actually wear though?

I suspect it was damage from the Leclerc spin.

[Sieper]

That looks nothing like skidmarks to me.

[GPR-A]

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

I had my own opinion about it, which I expressed last week.

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=27954&p=820291&hil ... ed#p820291

[munudeges]

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.

Sorry, but you don't lose over a second in 'setup issues' nor are you likely to gain that back.

If that genuinely is the tyre issues they've had that points to a car issue that did not rear its head in testing.

[wickedz50]

I predict pole to be high 19 to low 20. Is this a reasonable expectation? or am i out of my mind

[Capharol]

I predict pole to be high 19 to low 20. Is this a reasonable expectation? or am i out of my mind

no that's is exactly my prediction aswell .... pole will be 1.19.8 or something like that

[digitalrurouni]

Is it because Albert Park is a street circuit that it's considered not a representative track for the rest of the calendar? In my mind that is the reason.

I am a bit surprised with Ferrari though I think during the race and during qualifying they will definitely be closer.

I am very happy to see Red Bull finally get a decent engine in the back of their car. I am very curious to see Max being a thorn in the side of Mercedes and Ferrari. I don't hold Gasly in much high regard from my armchair. I think Daniel Ricciardo will regret moving to Renault especially since Cyril is already groaning about B teams. All in all so very happy F1 is back.

[GrandAxe]

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qWWqyggLOI

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

Its how the car bounces on the bumps, not cornering performance that they're talking about. The mercs are quite stiffly sprung.

However, since it doesn't affect cornering grip, its hard to understand why many think this is slowing them down and equally difficult to see how they can gain much more speed by getting rid of their stiffly sprung set up.

[munudeges]

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.

The problem with McLaren is their stiff set up ended up badly porpoising the car, but they couldn't really do anything because without that set up the car didn't work aerodynamically.

[matteosc]

Its how the car bounces on the bumps, not cornering performance that they're talking about. The mercs are quite stiffly sprung.

However, since it doesn't affect cornering grip, its hard to understand why many think this is slowing them down and equally difficult to see how they can gain much more speed by getting rid of their stiffly sprung set up.

Bouncing on bumps is very relevant to cornering grip, as the airflow below the car and therefore the downforce are highly influenced. I suspect that their soft setup and high rake doesn't work that well with bumps an uneven surfaces.

[CRazyLemon]

I see Ferrari only 2 tenths faster in FP2 than FP1, does that make sense?I'd like to think they where using FP2 to evaluate things that just don't lend itself to quick times.

[LM10]

Its how the car bounces on the bumps, not cornering performance that they're talking about. The mercs are quite stiffly sprung.

However, since it doesn't affect cornering grip, its hard to understand why many think this is slowing them down and equally difficult to see how they can gain much more speed by getting rid of their stiffly sprung set up.

Bouncing on bumps is very relevant to cornering grip, as the airflow below the car and therefore the downforce are highly influenced. I suspect that their soft setup and high rake doesn't work that well with bumps an uneven surfaces.

Did Mercedes use soft setup and high rake?

[HPD]

The forum when tomorrow Max makes the pole

[GrandAxe]

Its how the car bounces on the bumps, not cornering performance that they're talking about. The mercs are quite stiffly sprung.

However, since it doesn't affect cornering grip, its hard to understand why many think this is slowing them down and equally difficult to see how they can gain much more speed by getting rid of their stiffly sprung set up.

Bouncing on bumps is very relevant to cornering grip, as the airflow below the car and therefore the downforce are highly influenced. I suspect that their soft setup and high rake doesn't work that well with bumps an uneven surfaces.

Its not that simple, especially as the Merc is much faster than most through the corners.
A lot depends on how the various parts of the car compensate (or not) aero performance when in oversteer or understeer conditions.

[Ringleheim]

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qWWqyggLOI

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

On Sky, Martin Brundle was consistently commenting on the twitchy nature of the Mercedes at various points around the track, as he was onlooking from just a short distance away.

He did clarify that the Mercedes seemed "just as fast" as the Ferrari, but not nearly as planted and stable. He seemed convinced that the Ferrari was the best looking car of all all around the track.

So then what to make of FP2 times? Has Ferrari just not yet optimized its setup? Are they sandbagging? Running a tire degradation assessment program and not really concerned with outright pace?

We don't know! And none of us will know until about the last 3 minutes of Q3! Then we will find out how fast the Ferrari can go and how fast the Mercedes can go.

So in that sense, at least this is still a riveting and suspenseful start to the season.

I cannot wait for Quali to get here!