2019 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir, March 29 - 31

[Hammerfist]

Redbull might shock everyone here. Honda was very impressive at Bahrain last year, they were best of the rest with that unspectacular TR chassis. I will not be surprised if they win this race. With that said, I think there is a decent possibility that Merc is again the class of the field, and I actually fear that they may be head and shoulders above everyone else the rest of the year. This race should answer a lot of questions, that is for sure.

[Carl Mccoy]

Ferrari will compete against Max for third place.
There is no chance that Ferrari will get rid of all its problems in such a short time. This race will show who currently has the best engine. The 2014 race was one of the worst for Ferrari I remember. And then the heads rolled. Binotto knows it too ...

[search]

What are the expectations for renault on this track?

I haven't read anything about it recently, but as fast corners always used to be the main problem for Renault, on paper, this should be one of the better tracks for the car

[Bill_Kar]

Sorry for the dumb question, but what do you guys mean when you say Bahrain it's smoother but more abrasive?

[TAG]

Sorry for the dumb question, but what do you guys mean when you say Bahrain it's smoother but more abrasive?

Smoother means not bumpy, remember the cars bounding all over the place in Melborune? Well Bahrain is a real circuit and it's free of all those bumps.

More abrasive... 180 grit sand paper compared to 400 grit. The pavement in Bahrain is very abrasive because they used local stone/aggregate/sand mix in the asphalt and it adds abrasion to it.

[Mach]

My opinion is about the same. Ferrari will be closer, but i don't think they will be ahead, unless Merc makes a mistake.

The amount that Ferrari was off the pace in AUS, shows that something nontrivial is wrong. If I had to guess, it looked their aero and suspension philosophy didn't let them work the tires correctly in higher temperatures.

Yes, something was/is wrong with Ferrari SF90. This Friday should be an indicator if solution is demonstrated within 30 minutes of FP1 followed up with longer run stability stage of FP2.....otherwise, another long and boring season with Hamilton/Mercedes dominance

no FP1 isn't really a indicator, in FP 1 the track will be green, and the teams will be looking for the set up they can use and because it isn't done at the same time as the race, I don't see FP1 as a real indicator, FP 2 is mostly checking long run pace and setup for it... so here we might see a bit of an indication, but this will be only for the race itself, and there we know that the first 3 teams are mostly at the same pace

raw pace is shown on Saturday in FP3, and Quali

Under normal circumstances, yes Capharol, I would agree. However, I think Ferrari are in a very high alert "all hands on deck" situation to make sure the conceived solution figured out this past week actually works with full and immediate effect....not after 90 minutes

C'mon, they were 7 seconds adrift of Mercedes in Australia....TOTAL embracement of former technical director Mattia Binotto's maiden race as the new Team Principle...and Ferrari's Senior Management team that voted him into the position

[zibby43]

[zibby43]

Yes, something was/is wrong with Ferrari SF90. This Friday should be an indicator if solution is demonstrated within 30 minutes of FP1 followed up with longer run stability stage of FP2.....otherwise, another long and boring season with Hamilton/Mercedes dominance

no FP1 isn't really a indicator, in FP 1 the track will be green, and the teams will be looking for the set up they can use and because it isn't done at the same time as the race, I don't see FP1 as a real indicator, FP 2 is mostly checking long run pace and setup for it... so here we might see a bit of an indication, but this will be only for the race itself, and there we know that the first 3 teams are mostly at the same pace

raw pace is shown on Saturday in FP3, and Quali

Under normal circumstances, yes Capharol, I would agree. However, I think Ferrari are in a very high alert "all hands on deck" situation to make sure the conceived solution figured out this past week actually works with full and immediate effect....not after 90 minutes

C'mon, they were 7 seconds adrift of Mercedes in Australia....TOTAL embracement of former technical director Mattia Binotto's maiden race as the new Team Principle...and Ferrari's Senior Management team that voted him into the position

What I think he was getting at is the fact that FP1 takes place during the daytime, in (potentially) very hot conditions. Accordingly, it isn't a very representative session, as both qualifying and the race will occur at night.

It's risky to do all of the car setup work in the warmer, daytime temperatures because the balance and tire degradation will change completely when the sun goes down and both the ambient/track temperatures drop a little. The car might not be in its final qualifying/race spec, in terms of bodywork, either, as teams may open up the cooling a bit more in FP1.

If that makes sense. So, you want to try to get some sort of baseline during FP1, but you won't be fully committed. Nor will you want to unnecessarily stress the PU this early in the season.

[BwajSF]

no FP1 isn't really a indicator, in FP 1 the track will be green, and the teams will be looking for the set up they can use and because it isn't done at the same time as the race, I don't see FP1 as a real indicator, FP 2 is mostly checking long run pace and setup for it... so here we might see a bit of an indication, but this will be only for the race itself, and there we know that the first 3 teams are mostly at the same pace

raw pace is shown on Saturday in FP3, and Quali

Under normal circumstances, yes Capharol, I would agree. However, I think Ferrari are in a very high alert "all hands on deck" situation to make sure the conceived solution figured out this past week actually works with full and immediate effect....not after 90 minutes

C'mon, they were 7 seconds adrift of Mercedes in Australia....TOTAL embracement of former technical director Mattia Binotto's maiden race as the new Team Principle...and Ferrari's Senior Management team that voted him into the position

What I think he was getting at is the fact that FP1 takes place during the daytime, in (potentially) very hot conditions. Accordingly, it isn't a very representative session, as both qualifying and the race will occur at night.

It's risky to do all of the car setup work in the warmer, daytime temperatures because the balance and tire degradation will change completely when the sun goes down and both the ambient/track temperatures drop a little. The car might not be in its final qualifying/race spec, in terms of bodywork, either, as teams may open up the cooling a bit more in FP1.

If that makes sense. So, you want to try to get some sort of baseline during FP1, but you won't be fully committed. Nor will you want to unnecessarily stress the PU this early in the season.

Yup very true.
If we observe the trend, Ferrari have topped the FP3 by 0.2 minimum in the weekends they have performed well.
So if Ferrari are not atleast equal to Mercs or ahead of Merc by 0.2 in FP3 final standing then the world championship will be decided between bottas and hamilton.

[GPR-A]

Before the Australian GP, there was a news article where a former F1 test driver, Ho-Pin Tung who is now the Radio Analyst, mentioned that, Mercedes were supposedly bringing an upgrade worth a full second to Melbourne. But in Melbourne drivers' press conference, Hamilton said they have not brought any upgrades. That means, either the news article was wrong OR Mercedes did not bolt that upgrade in Melbourne.

Link -> Tung believes: "Mercedes will win a second in Melbourne by update"

Red Bull have advanced their upgrade package due to the damage to Verstappen's car, which means, they already have a new floor that was supposed to have been bolted in China. Do they have more?
More teams have plans of bringing upgrades in this race or in China, including Mercedes and Ferrari.

We need to see who would have brought better upgrades.

[Vasconia]

Before the Australian GP, there was a news article where a former F1 test driver, Ho-Pin Tung who is now the Radio Analyst, mentioned that, Mercedes were supposedly bringing an upgrade worth a full second to Melbourne. But in Melbourne drivers' press conference, Hamilton said they have not brought any upgrades. That means, either the news article was wrong OR Mercedes did not bolt that upgrade in Melbourne.

Link -> Tung believes: "Mercedes will win a second in Melbourne by update"

Red Bull have advanced their upgrade package due to the damage to Verstappen's car, which means, they already have a new floor that was supposed to have been bolted in China. Do they have more?
More teams have plans of bringing upgrades in this race or in China, including Mercedes and Ferrari.

We need to see who would have brought better upgrades.

A full second update sounds way too much. It would be true if we take into account two facts that I highly doubt:

1. Ferrari was 0,5 seconds faster than Mercedes in Barcelona.
2. The gap between Mercedes and Ferrari in Australia was real in its entirety or at least at a 80-90%.

Obviously I can´t believe it.

[Just_a_fan]

Before the Australian GP, there was a news article where a former F1 test driver, Ho-Pin Tung who is now the Radio Analyst, mentioned that, Mercedes were supposedly bringing an upgrade worth a full second to Melbourne. But in Melbourne drivers' press conference, Hamilton said they have not brought any upgrades. That means, either the news article was wrong OR Mercedes did not bolt that upgrade in Melbourne.

Link -> Tung believes: "Mercedes will win a second in Melbourne by update"

The drivers said that the pace increase was down to analysing the data from testing and improving the set up rather than by changing the aero/chassis parts themselves massively.

[GPR-A]

Before the Australian GP, there was a news article where a former F1 test driver, Ho-Pin Tung who is now the Radio Analyst, mentioned that, Mercedes were supposedly bringing an upgrade worth a full second to Melbourne. But in Melbourne drivers' press conference, Hamilton said they have not brought any upgrades. That means, either the news article was wrong OR Mercedes did not bolt that upgrade in Melbourne.

Link -> Tung believes: "Mercedes will win a second in Melbourne by update"

The drivers said that the pace increase was down to analysing the data from testing and improving the set up rather than by changing the aero/chassis parts themselves massively.

True. It's also obvious right. While people were nailing down the pecking order in the immediate aftermath of winter testing, I told this that, their B spec car only ran for 4 days while compared to other cars, who had 13 days (2 tests and 5 days in between). It was natural that, they wouldn't have understood the car in it's entirety in the second test. While they kept complaining about cold graining with such a new car, they did manage to put together almost similar lap times as that of Ferrari on race sim and short runs. The two weeks after the tests is where they have made progress with their B spec, work of which was evident in Melbourne.

Allison had mentioned in one of his interviews that aerodynamicsts were finding "hand over fist" gains on aero, which had prompted them to change their winter testing approach. While Racing prompt bolted a big upgrade for Melbourne, Otmar mentioned that, they have another BIG package for Barcelona. So, you can expect top teams to be finding more gains and upgrades would flow in the next few races. Whether that "1 second" upgrade was just a "rumor" or in fact Mercedes do have such an upgrade, remains to be seen.

[Capharol]

This article is a rephrased what he said in Dutch TV, shortly after RB announced that they will bring the China upgrade to AusGP ..... never believed that rumour anyway

[GPR-A]

1. Ferrari was 0,5 seconds faster than Mercedes in Barcelona.
2. The gap between Mercedes and Ferrari in Australia was real in its entirety or at least at a 80-90%.

I still don't understand how the 0.5 second difference was arrived. Nobody knew the fuel levels that either teams carried and the PU mode that was used while clocking times. With bigger fuel tanks coming in picture for this year, there was every reason to stay away from pronouncing the performance difference and pecking order. Yet, some people did, despite Mercedes matching the times that Ferrari did on Race sim and short runs. The fact is, all those who predicted those 0.5 seconds gap, were all proven wrong. So their theories should be in junk yard by now.

Who knows, Mercedes was probably already faster than Ferrari and were carrying way more fuel with the help of that bigger tank and more conservative than Ferrari in PU, despite having cold graining issues. When they arrived with better understanding of setup in Melbourne, it was simply the same two cars from Barcelona Test 2 and the difference was finally obvious, with better temperatures, better setup and on fumes. Everything is possible. If Mercedes has continued their development work, after the Spec 2 has gone in to production, there was good couple of months that they have already spent in development. With such new specs, there is more to explore now than, probably 12 months later. That's my hunch.