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  1. #21
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    Despite Mercedes running away with 1-2, I found parts of this race entertaining.

    First discovery was that Vettel neither could overtake his teammate without the team order, nor he could break away from Leclerc after this order. Botched pit strategy then made Leclerc lose his 4th position in Verstappen.

    Two, Raikkonen shows good class by scoring good points for Sauber, I mean Alfa, in all three races so far.

    Three, Gasly can't keep up with Verstappen, not even close.

    Four, Renault is still hopeless. A massive gap to Red Bull.

    Finally, Williams, are they trying to set some kind of a new anti-record this year?

  2. Likes: Duncan (15th April 2019),N. Jones (15th April 2019),The Black Knight (14th April 2019),truefan72 (14th April 2019)
  3. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zico View Post
    I might be wrong but suspect the Ferrari's will thrive again where its warmer. Not sure what the track temps were in China today but they looked really quick in testing in Spain... and again in Bahrain. On that subject... How many 'hot' races are in the F1 callender?
    Oz was hot enough so I am not sure that will really make a difference. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when we reach Spain but it looks like Mercedes have built the better package. 7 kmph Straight line speed advantage isn’t enough if you lose all you’ve gained in the corners.

  4. #23
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    Here we saw the huge difference between Merc and Ferrari. Not so much in pace, as I think the race would have easily been similar had Ferrari managed to qualify on top. But in strategy, both teams had the same start, with the lesser of the qualifiers getting ahead with a better start. But Ferrari immediately look at swapping drivers, do so, and find out Seb had nothing over Charles. Then later in the race when RB pits Max, they cover with Seb and then keep Leclerc out on track to try to give Seb a better push towards second. And in doing so lost the 4th place that they should have had. Merc on the other hand double stacked the cars to cover all possibilities.

    It's a shame we didn't get to see Max and Charles battle at the end. That could have been a good on track fight.

    As per usual this year, more real action in the midfield. A better race for Gasly, but even knowing how good Max is he has yet to have shown that he belongs in that seat IMO. Ricciardo had Hulks number, as well as Grosjean beating KMag, both seeming a bit lost this race in pace. Kimi once again lofts the Alfa up into the points, and some good battles along the way.

    At this point Williams seem just hopeless. Getting put two laps down can't be part of the strategy?

  5. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by airshifter View Post
    Here we saw the huge difference between Merc and Ferrari. Not so much in pace, as I think the race would have easily been similar had Ferrari managed to qualify on top. But in strategy, both teams had the same start, with the lesser of the qualifiers getting ahead with a better start. But Ferrari immediately look at swapping drivers, do so, and find out Seb had nothing over Charles. Then later in the race when RB pits Max, they cover with Seb and then keep Leclerc out on track to try to give Seb a better push towards second. And in doing so lost the 4th place that they should have had. Merc on the other hand double stacked the cars to cover all possibilities.

    It's a shame we didn't get to see Max and Charles battle at the end. That could have been a good on track fight.

    As per usual this year, more real action in the midfield. A better race for Gasly, but even knowing how good Max is he has yet to have shown that he belongs in that seat IMO. Ricciardo had Hulks number, as well as Grosjean beating KMag, both seeming a bit lost this race in pace. Kimi once again lofts the Alfa up into the points, and some good battles along the way.

    At this point Williams seem just hopeless. Getting put two laps down can't be part of the strategy?
    This season, the Mercedes race strategist has been on top of his game. We normally criticize Mercedes for having the worst strategist in the paddock, hence credit where credit is due. Ferrari on the other hand seem to have a 2nd rate strategist. Attempting to back up Bottas to Vettel was never going to work. It was a wasteful use of Leclerc, l think. They should have pitted Leclerc on the lap following that of Vettel's to keep Leclerc ahead or immediately behind Verstapenn. Leclerc has the right to be unhappy with the Ferrari pitwall.

    On vettel; it was clear after three laps of Vettel coming out of the pits behind Leclerc that he was faster than Leclerc. I think Ferrari gave Leclerc a fair chance to pull away or match Vettel's pace which he couldn't. Meanwhile, Vettels tyres were being chewed up behind Leclerc. Most of the edge of Vettel's tyres were wasted behind Leclerc. When he was finally allowed to pass Leclerc, most of the pace advantage had been used up giving Leclerc a chance to keep his position.

    The closer racing aspect of the new regulation is not as effective as was proclaimed by the race promoters and the FIA. This is the reason Bottas drifted back to 5 sec plus. And the reason Vettel was unable to overtake Leclerc in thick of the race.

    On Gasly, he is still not comfortable in that car. I think he would come good when he gets the car he wants under him. He did give Verstapenn a small fright at the start of the race as he almost took 5th but thought better of it when he was pushed wide by Verstapenn.

    Renault is far from being the best of the rest at the moment. They seem to have drifted backwards from their pre-season testing pace. Haas also seemed abit lost at this race. Williams were simply embarrassing in the face of their achievement in the 1000 races history statistics.

    This race exposed Mclaren's real pace. They have work to do.
    Last edited by Nitrodaze; 14th April 2019 at 22:48.
    Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.
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  6. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nitrodaze View Post
    This race exposed Mclaren's real pace. They have work to do.
    They may have work to do, but Sainz was matching Ricciardo's pace even though he was on older tyres. It's a shame that things have been going south for McLaren at any given chance, either by reliability issues or by Kyvat playing bowling on their cars, but pace-wise I doubt there's much grounds to criticize them. The car may well be the best of the rest, and was quick enough to get a shot for the podium in Bahrain after the Ferraris self-destroyed and Sainz was clearly faster than Verstappen, who finished P4.

  7. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by N4D13 View Post
    They may have work to do, but Sainz was matching Ricciardo's pace even though he was on older tyres. It's a shame that things have been going south for McLaren at any given chance, either by reliability issues or by Kyvat playing bowling on their cars, but pace-wise I doubt there's much grounds to criticize them. The car may well be the best of the rest, and was quick enough to get a shot for the podium in Bahrain after the Ferraris self-destroyed and Sainz was clearly faster than Verstappen, who finished P4.
    Fair point. Renault were not blisteringly fast either. The Mclaren seem on the verge to break through to a new plateau of performance but is hindered by reliability and an inconsistent qualifying pace. They both should be comfortably ahead of the Torro Rosso of Kyvat in the first place. You cannot use a moment in the race to speculate the outcome at the end of the race. There were hints of good speed but unlikely to be fast enough to be ahead of the Redbull. I would have enjoyed seeing Sainz give Ricciado a good fight for 7th but that was not to be.

    They have work to do, as their goals should be to catchup to Redbull and pass them. As it is, they are not anywhere near that at the moment. That said, Mclaren is exciting to watch recently. There is so much promise and goodwill for them to do well this year. I hope they fully turn the corner and start to hassle the Redbulls and Renaults.
    Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.
    William Shakespeare

  8. Likes: truefan72 (18th April 2019)
  9. #27
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    Someone somewhere said that Kubica is only at Williams because they need a good tester. I hope so because he is way off pace. Gasly is showing better so high hopes for him. I think LeClerc is getting jerked around at Ferrari.
    " Lady - I'm in an awful dilemma.
    Moe - Yeah, I never cared much for these foreign cars either."

  10. Likes: truefan72 (18th April 2019)
  11. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nitrodaze View Post
    This season, the Mercedes race strategist has been on top of his game. We normally criticize Mercedes for having the worst strategist in the paddock, hence credit where credit is due. Ferrari on the other hand seem to have a 2nd rate strategist. Attempting to back up Bottas to Vettel was never going to work. It was a wasteful use of Leclerc, l think. They should have pitted Leclerc on the lap following that of Vettel's to keep Leclerc ahead or immediately behind Verstapenn. Leclerc has the right to be unhappy with the Ferrari pitwall.

    On vettel; it was clear after three laps of Vettel coming out of the pits behind Leclerc that he was faster than Leclerc. I think Ferrari gave Leclerc a fair chance to pull away or match Vettel's pace which he couldn't. Meanwhile, Vettels tyres were being chewed up behind Leclerc. Most of the edge of Vettel's tyres were wasted behind Leclerc. When he was finally allowed to pass Leclerc, most of the pace advantage had been used up giving Leclerc a chance to keep his position.

    The closer racing aspect of the new regulation is not as effective as was proclaimed by the race promoters and the FIA. This is the reason Bottas drifted back to 5 sec plus. And the reason Vettel was unable to overtake Leclerc in thick of the race.

    On Gasly, he is still not comfortable in that car. I think he would come good when he gets the car he wants under him. He did give Verstapenn a small fright at the start of the race as he almost took 5th but thought better of it when he was pushed wide by Verstapenn.

    Renault is far from being the best of the rest at the moment. They seem to have drifted backwards from their pre-season testing pace. Haas also seemed abit lost at this race. Williams were simply embarrassing in the face of their achievement in the 1000 races history statistics.

    This race exposed Mclaren's real pace. They have work to do.
    Completely agree on how things worked out with Ferrari. Once the swap was made, they should have been more on top of strategy once it was obvious Seb didn't have the extra pace. But instead they then further screwed Leclerc's race by leaving him out too long.

    As for the closer racing, I think the new regs have helped some. It's just that at the front of the field the quickest cars don't have much to challenge each other in pure race pace.

  12. #29
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    I had a look at the Kyvat, Norris and Sainz incident again. I have to say, the stewards did not do much of an investigation there , did they. The penalty was a product of raw prejudice. Even Norris who was in the incident says it was a racing incident. That was a very poor showing by the stewards, very lazy poor work.
    Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.
    William Shakespeare

  13. Likes: truefan72 (21st April 2019)

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