2021 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir, March 26 - 28

[JordanMugen]

These new practice sessions are way too short

I feel so cheated

I thought it was far superior and an excellent regulation. Much better than watching Williams and Haas going around for 30 minutes!

[kenshi_blind]

Medium runs done, Merc nearly 6 tenths up on Max . Hmm....

Oh dear, are you sure? Bottas said the car was "undrivable" -- yet 6 tenths up on RBR!? That doesn't sound right.

that was on the qualy runs (on medium) , Mercedes seemingly didn't improve on the soft runs while Redbull improved by 8 tens or so
Bottas quote is about the long runs but Lewis's and Max's time are nip and tuck

[mkay]

Medium runs done, Merc nearly 6 tenths up on Max . Hmm....

Oh dear, are you sure? Bottas said the car was "undrivable" -- yet 6 tenths up on RBR!? That doesn't sound right.

It would be very spicy indeed if McLaren and Ferrari are evenly matched to the Mercedes.

The puzzler though: Alpine so slow, and with poor balance too. Alonso will not be a happy chappy.

To be fair, Bottas' race sim pace does suggest his car was undrivable. He was trailing HAM by over 0.5s/lap throughout the 10-odd lap stint.

[214270]

BOT needs to be in the mix but he doesn’t seem comfortable at all.

[maxxer]

I'm generally tired of hearing about all the bs (as far as i'm concerned), handicaps etc.

They’re borderline carnival barkers.

They have a product to sell. They do it with all the sports they cover.

Ruin it once they have the rights?

[dans79]

Medium runs done, Merc nearly 6 tenths up on Max . Hmm....

Oh dear, are you sure? Bottas said the car was "undrivable" -- yet 6 tenths up on RBR!? That doesn't sound right.

It would be very spicy indeed if McLaren and Ferrari are evenly matched to the Mercedes.

The puzzler though: Alpine so slow, and with poor balance too. Alonso will not be a happy chappy.

To be fair, Bottas' race sim pace does suggest his car was undrivable. He was trailing HAM by over 0.5s/lap throughout the 10-odd lap stint.

they change his front suspension set-up in fp1, i'm betting it gets changed back overnight!

[JordanMugen]

Ok, let's jump to conclusions

Maybe Mr. Alonso will be in for a long year. I don't understand why Alpine are so slow. Perhaps Ricciardo did the right thing going to McLaren, and Renault's improvements in 2020 were typical Renault flattering to deceive.

[grubschumi13]

These new practice sessions are way too short

I feel so cheated

Very much so. They need to restore them to the 90 minute sessions. Paying the same amount to sky for less action is not right.

[JordanMugen]

I'm generally tired of hearing about all the bs (as far as i'm concerned), handicaps etc.

It's a massive improvement on Ferrari getting 100m USD just for turning up at least...

Why not have measures to make the field more compact and competitive (instead of the traditional FOM Bernie philosophy of pouring more revenue into the top teams and making the disparity worse)!?

I'm sure Allison, Newey et al. welcome the challenge of designing a better racer with less wind tunnel time.

[Fulcrum]

How does David Croft get his contract renewed every year? He's atrocious.

[fouad1979]

Ok, let's jump to conclusions

Maybe Mr. Alonso will be in for a long year. I don't understand why Alpine are so slow. Perhaps Ricciardo did the right thing going to McLaren, and Renault's improvements in 2020 were typical Renault flattering to deceive.

We need to wait for thd qualy but fernando or Alpine lose almost 1s to max in S2 and 8 thents to Norris its huge !

[the EDGE]

These new practice sessions are way too short

I feel so cheated

I thought it was far superior and an excellent regulation. Much better than watching Williams and Haas going around for 30 minutes!

It’s a fair point to say there was plenty of action today, but to say that was down to having 30 minutes less time I believe is inaccurate

For a start, practice sessions were always tyre limited. Give the teams more rubber and they would’ve spent more time on the track

Also, Teams only had three days in testing, they were always going to be spending a lot of time on track today regardless

[El Scorchio]

They’re borderline carnival barkers.

They have a product to sell. They do it with all the sports they cover.

Ruin it once they have the rights?

If that's the way you choose to interpret it. They are the ultimate hype men. Just look at what they did for darts.

[JordanMugen]

The braking zones for both McLaren's need to be improved. Are they sandbagging

If FOM have speed (and throttle and brake) telemetry, why don't they show comparison overlays of the whole lap?

[tangodjango]

Ok, let's jump to conclusions

Maybe Mr. Alonso will be in for a long year. I don't understand why Alpine are so slow. Perhaps Ricciardo did the right thing going to McLaren, and Renault's improvements in 2020 were typical Renault flattering to deceive.

We need to wait for thd qualy but fernando or Alpine lose almost 1s to max in S2 and 8 thents to Norris its huge !

The pecking order won't be clear until 3-4 races in. It could well be track specific.