Lewis- "It was close out there."
Toto- "We were nowhere in testing."
Considering this evaluation only considered long-run pace, it wasn't completely unrepresentative.Fulcrum wrote: ↑15 Mar 2019, 13:37Having had a look at the long-run data, my conclusions are as follows.
The only categorically undeniable piece of evidence in the data is that Williams are at least 1 second per lap slower than the next slowest team, more likely 1.5 seconds a lap slower. I predict they will be lapped by the leaders twice if there are no safety cars, and their pace deficit indicates they could be lapped by drivers from all other teams.
At the other end of the grid, Mercedes do have an advantage, potentially quite a big one under certain circumstances.
Ferrari were consistently slower than Mercedes, by more than 0.5 seconds per lap. Hopefully, for the sake of competition anyway, this gap lowers tomorrow and on Sunday.
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.
In the true midfield, drivers will make the most difference IMO. Kvyat and Raikkonen clearly differentiated themselves from their teammates today, but any of Haas, Alfa, RP, Renault or TR could be fighting for 7th on the grid.
McLaren ran a very short program so I don't know about them, but they weren't particularly competitive either.
Ordered average lap hierarchy from combined team stints:
Mercedes
Red Bull
Ferrari
Racing Point
Alfa
Toro Rosso
Renault
Haas
McLaren
Williams
I expect this to change significantly tomorrow!
typical flame baiter, I already admitted I forgot.GPR -A wrote: ↑16 Mar 2019, 09:16Details doesn't matter, as long as the surfacial view is pleasing. Exactly what all the experts around the world did in winter testing.zibby43 wrote: ↑16 Mar 2019, 09:14With a monumental VSC gaffe while Hamilton was leading comfortably.FrukostScones wrote: ↑16 Mar 2019, 09:12
last year they won with basically the same gap after qualy. last year 0.664/0.674 , this year 0.704/0.956 both Ferrari
And with no Bottas in the equation because of his qualifying crash.a
Speaking of those experts, I was quite surprised that all of them were writing off a team like Mercedes based on running in unrepresentative conditions. And hardly anyone acknowledged the fact that Merc only got to run 1 week of testing with their "actual" car.GPR -A wrote: ↑16 Mar 2019, 09:16Details doesn't matter, as long as the surfacial view is pleasing. Exactly what all the experts around the world did in winter testing.zibby43 wrote: ↑16 Mar 2019, 09:14With a monumental VSC gaffe while Hamilton was leading comfortably.FrukostScones wrote: ↑16 Mar 2019, 09:12
last year they won with basically the same gap after qualy. last year 0.664/0.674 , this year 0.704/0.956 both Ferrari
And with no Bottas in the equation because of his qualifying crash.
This is what I'll be watching out for at the start tomorrow.Schuttelberg wrote: ↑16 Mar 2019, 09:20This specially applies to the first two names who are renowned for trying too hard and ramming into one another.
No worries!FrukostScones wrote: ↑16 Mar 2019, 09:16oopsy, my memory..........
then Ferrari is doomed.
Maybe VER can safe the day and got some ultra race pace.