2019 Azerbaijan Grand Prix - Baku, April 26-28

[Restomaniac]

This is just me, but I think his body language resembles the mental state he had towards the end of 2017 and 2018.

I’m starting to wonder if he has just accepted that their is a fundamental flaw in the current Ferrari set up.

Fundamental flaw in the set up? How do you imagine such a flaw? The car is a diva, that’s the main thing. It needs to be learned and the team will have more clue every race. Just like the Mercedes especially in 2017.
This talk about a fundamental problem is quite funny. If Ferrari managed to be faster than Mercedes in Bahrain and kind of faster (Leclerc) in Baku as well with a car which is claimed to have fundamental problems, then Mercedes might pray Ferrari not to overcome those issues?

Driver errors, A fragile PU (How many CE’s are Ferrari engines going to chew through?), consistent strategy errors, etc. When I say setup I mean the TEAM keep dropping the ball on one level or another. This is even before we talk about the car being hard to keep in its window.

Mercedes on the other hand have been nearly perfect in execution so far (a new 1/2 record).

[Jambier]

Curious to see Spain updates

And 2020 as this year is already done

[LM10]

Leclerc faster in Baku? Where did you get that from

Seems you’ve not watched the sessions until yesterday? Leclerc was constantly 3 tenths faster than Vettel and he probably would have gotten pole. Or let’s say, he at least would have been as fast as Mercedes and I’m not sure that would be possible with a car with fundamental aero problems.

What? Did you see that Mercedes was way ahead in race simulations? Free practice times mean nothing, especially when Vettel and Mercedes are holding back till Q3.

Why do you care about race simulations when you tell that free practice times don’t mean anything in the very next next sentence?
In the actual race Vettel was clearly slower on Softs because he had issues with them as he has told after race, but on Mediums he kind of was a match, surely not way behind as race simulations had shown.
Anyway, my whole point is that the talk about fundamental aero problems is just bs considering Ferrari still is the fastest opponent for Mercedes.

[Restomaniac]

Seems you’ve not watched the sessions until yesterday? Leclerc was constantly 3 tenths faster than Vettel and he probably would have gotten pole. Or let’s say, he at least would have been as fast as Mercedes and I’m not sure that would be possible with a car with fundamental aero problems.

What? Did you see that Mercedes was way ahead in race simulations? Free practice times mean nothing, especially when Vettel and Mercedes are holding back till Q3.

Why do you care about race simulations when you tell that free practice times don’t mean anything in the very next next sentence?
In the actual race Vettel was clearly slower on Softs because he had issues with them as he has told after race, but on Mediums he kind of was a match, surely not way behind as race simulations had shown.
Anyway, my whole point is that the talk about fundamental aero problems is just bs considering Ferrari still is the fastest opponent for Mercedes.

Erm the only person using the term ‘fundamental aero problems’ is you. I mentioned the Ferrari setup you just misunderstood what I meant.

[LM10]

What? Did you see that Mercedes was way ahead in race simulations? Free practice times mean nothing, especially when Vettel and Mercedes are holding back till Q3.

Why do you care about race simulations when you tell that free practice times don’t mean anything in the very next next sentence?
In the actual race Vettel was clearly slower on Softs because he had issues with them as he has told after race, but on Mediums he kind of was a match, surely not way behind as race simulations had shown.
Anyway, my whole point is that the talk about fundamental aero problems is just bs considering Ferrari still is the fastest opponent for Mercedes.

Erm the only person using the term ‘fundamental aero problems’ is you. I mentioned the Ferrari setup you just misunderstood what I meant.

I was not referring to your words regarding aero problems, but to those of Rosberg.

[Bill_Kar]

Seems you’ve not watched the sessions until yesterday? Leclerc was constantly 3 tenths faster than Vettel and he probably would have gotten pole. Or let’s say, he at least would have been as fast as Mercedes and I’m not sure that would be possible with a car with fundamental aero problems.

What? Did you see that Mercedes was way ahead in race simulations? Free practice times mean nothing, especially when Vettel and Mercedes are holding back till Q3.

Why do you care about race simulations when you tell that free practice times don’t mean anything in the very next next sentence?
In the actual race Vettel was clearly slower on Softs because he had issues with them as he has told after race, but on Mediums he kind of was a match, surely not way behind as race simulations had shown.
Anyway, my whole point is that the talk about fundamental aero problems is just bs considering Ferrari still is the fastest opponent for Mercedes.

You look at the fastest lap of each driver and conclude that leclerc was the fastest. Who tells me that leclerc wasn't pushing throughout the free practices and the others just had it easy? Which seems like a good guess in hindsight.
The point is that Mercedes dominated another race, ferrari was way off on the softs, and on the mediums they were a bit slower.

[Phil]

Because we are assuming both drivers in the same car are doing similar things to one another. It would be daft to assume they are just doing Sunday drives tootling around during FP, when in fact they are driving according to what ever their stints are dictating. Leclerc looked on top of things, Vettel less so. This picture prevailed right up until Q2 when Leclerc had his crash.

[Restomaniac]

Why do you care about race simulations when you tell that free practice times don’t mean anything in the very next next sentence?
In the actual race Vettel was clearly slower on Softs because he had issues with them as he has told after race, but on Mediums he kind of was a match, surely not way behind as race simulations had shown.
Anyway, my whole point is that the talk about fundamental aero problems is just bs considering Ferrari still is the fastest opponent for Mercedes.

Erm the only person using the term ‘fundamental aero problems’ is you. I mentioned the Ferrari setup you just misunderstood what I meant.

I was not referring to your words regarding aero problems, but to those of Rosberg.

Yet you hadn’t mentioned Rosberg until this point.

Hmm..Ok.

How about talking about the fact that Ferrari as a team have a fundamental flaw somewhere in it?

Past 2/3 years Ferrari have in one way or another given Mercedes a very easy ride at times when they (Ferrari) looked like they had the better package.

That was my point with regard to Vettel’s body language on the podium. It was almost like he has just accepted his lot.

[DutchDopey]

Curious to see Spain updates

And 2020 as this year is already done

Spain will be decisive. All the teams get upgrades in Barcelona. If Merc again dominates it will for the better part of the season.

[bauc]

The race was great in the first 15 laps, then it kinda fall off, but nevertheless it was better than China

[Restomaniac]

Curious to see Spain updates

And 2020 as this year is already done

Spain will be decisive. All the teams get upgrades in Barcelona. If Merc again dominates it will for the better part of the season.

That’s my worry. Ferrari have already brought forward a lot of theirs for this weekend. Mercedes have still got all theirs to come.

[NathanOlder]

Ferrari should have pitted Leclerc around lap 23 for softs, then again on lap 37. And had him push as hard as tyres would allow. He had 2 new sets of softs. Leaving him out, he gave away 25+ seconds. He caught Vettel on their first stints, he was back in play if they went aggressive. They chocked yet again, and as a Merc fan , I can't believe our luck. Ferrari giving the titles away by focusing on their under performing driver. Vettel only a few points in front of Leclerc despite Leclerc have PU issues and team orders against him. If the PU failure was on Vettel in Bahrain and the team orders all went the other way Leclerc would be way ahead of Seb with at least 1 win to his name.

[SmallSoldier]

Curious to see Spain updates

And 2020 as this year is already done

Spain will be decisive. All the teams get upgrades in Barcelona. If Merc again dominates it will for the better part of the season.

That’s my worry. Ferrari have already brought forward a lot of theirs for this weekend. Mercedes have still got all theirs to come.

But even if that’s the case, that Mercedes has more parts coming for Barcelona, that doesn’t mean that their upgrade will give them more lap time improvement than Ferrari could get out of theirs.

So far it seems that Ferrari is having a harder time putting energy into the tires, if their upgrade tackles that, they could get the upper hand versus Mercedes... Let’s also keep in mind that Ferrari seems to have struggled with lower temperatures, which shouldn’t be an issue during the European leg since it will be held in summer time.

So far, Mercedes has dominated really in 3 out of 4 races (Bahrain was definitely a Ferrari race)... And their advantage has really been based on having great work through the weekend, not only by the car, but as a team they have been better (better strategy, more reliability and less mistakes from their drivers)... This race showed how focus the team is with Lewis and Valtteri been extra careful in the first lap...


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[Restomaniac]

Spain will be decisive. All the teams get upgrades in Barcelona. If Merc again dominates it will for the better part of the season.

That’s my worry. Ferrari have already brought forward a lot of theirs for this weekend. Mercedes have still got all theirs to come.

But even if that’s the case, that Mercedes has more parts coming for Barcelona, that doesn’t mean that their upgrade will give them more lap time improvement than Ferrari could get out of theirs.

So far it seems that Ferrari is having a harder time putting energy into the tires, if their upgrade tackles that, they could get the upper hand versus Mercedes... Let’s also keep in mind that Ferrari seems to have struggled with lower temperatures, which shouldn’t be an issue during the European leg since it will be held in summer time.

So far, Mercedes has dominated really in 3 out of 4 races (Bahrain was definitely a Ferrari race)... And their advantage has really been based on having great work through the weekend, not only by the car, but as a team they have been better (better strategy, more reliability and less mistakes from their drivers)... This race showed how focus the team is with Lewis and Valtteri been extra careful in the first lap...


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But Ferrari have shown that those updates haven’t fixed their fundamental issues. ANY Mercedes improvement will make the Ferrari job harder. A job they so far are failing at.

However what have we learned about Mercedes and their updates in previous seasons? It’s normally they are bang on the money.

That’s before we even start on RedBulls updates.

[Brake Horse Power]

Ferrari should have pitted Leclerc around lap 23 for softs, then again on lap 37. And had him push as hard as tyres would allow. He had 2 new sets of softs. Leaving him out, he gave away 25+ seconds. He caught Vettel on their first stints, he was back in play if they went aggressive. They chocked yet again, and as a Merc fan , I can't believe our luck. Ferrari giving the titles away by focusing on their under performing driver. Vettel only a few points in front of Leclerc despite Leclerc have PU issues and team orders against him. If the PU failure was on Vettel in Bahrain and the team orders all went the other way Leclerc would be way ahead of Seb with at least 1 win to his name.

I would agree on pitting early, but to make a long second stint on the medium tyres. He was flying on those! Third stint than only a few laps on the soft tyre. Can't believe this was the maximum result with his pace

I must say I don't know if he had fresh mediums left