Posts by stormybadger8

jadeseal7 said:I have no clue what the hell they're waiting for. They've already done a million laps, and it's the last day of testing.

They just don't want to be responsible for giving Sergio a heart attack...

None of this matters as long as Mercedes doesn't actually step on the gas...
Then we'll see if Mercedes can actually clock a 1:20.xxx at Austin...

Only Hulk actually called it what it is—a total mess. He basically said NASCAR isn't for the weak. 😁
And honestly, Lujo was telling the truth here...http://www.crash.net/f1/news/228152/...o-canopy.html?
It’s pretty obvious this whole thing is just a complete disaster...

There was also some meeting about those qualifying rule changes where drivers were losing their minds because the rules were absolute garbage. Rosberg was even waving his arms around all pissed off. 🤣
But the funny thing is (at least according to Ted) the only ones missing from that meeting were Ric, Kvijat, and Lujo... god knows why. 🤷

copperdrifter26 said:We'll see Vettel on the Medium tomorrow, don't sweat it. As for Williams, they won't even be in the conversation; Red Bull is faster in Melbourne.

Yeah, right... as if...
Ferrari is going to have serious issues with Williams, and honestly, they'll probably struggle against Red Bull on certain tracks too—not to mention FI popping up at two or three races throughout the season...
The Medium tire fits Mercedes like a glove. Honestly, they should just rename the tire "Mercedes" instead of "Medium"...
And since that's the most used tire of the season, Ferrari is unfortunately looking absolutely terrible here. 😢

Looking at everything we've seen so far, Ferrari made a decent chassis and PU update, but it's only enough to catch up to last year's Mercedes... they might catch them, but they aren't passing them.
I'm not even sure they could win a championship with this car against last year's Mercedes, because it just looks unreliable...

The real kicker is that Mercedes seems to have pulled off a better chassis and PU update than Ferrari. Plus, they're way more reliable than their own previous package, let alone Ferrari's...
So, Mercedes' dominance is only going to grow, even if Williams, Red Bull, and FI end up being noticeably closer than last year and constantly fighting with Ferkan.

Besides, I highly doubt those guys at Williams are just talking nonsense when they say they'll be better than Ferrari...http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/123092
Plus, you don't see much optimism on Vettel's face in his interviews. He isn't just rambling about needing more time and whatnot...
It's crystal clear he isn't happy. He knows there's likely zero chance of a serious fight with Mercedes...

Anyway, Lewis Hamilton said this yesterday:
“It’s been really great splitting the days over testing because it feels like we’re testing on eight days rather than just four with how it’s worked out. The team has done a fantastic job with the car and we feel that we’re probably in a stronger position than last year, especially after the mileage we’ve done. We’ve still not pushed the car to the limit though, to really find how to balance it on the knife edge on the timed lap, but personally I feel comfortable right now. It’s kind of like building a pyramid, where the single-lap performance is the very pinnacle of the whole thing. At the moment we are building the base with our long running during testing – and the bigger the base, the higher you can ultimately go.”

graniteharbor502 said:I’m expecting Ford to be right up there in Melbourne

As if...
Ford might even look faster than the Bear in the race sim (which clearly doesn't matter), because they don't stand a chance in qualifying since the Bear is just untouchable there.

Last year, they spent a ton of FP sessions looking fast in the race sim, only for the Bear to absolutely smoke them in qualifying...
It even looked like they might actually have a shot at staying ahead of the Bear, but the real issue was figuring out how to get past them in the first place...
At the end of the day, the Bear didn't even rack up 6 FLs last year, and it still didn't stop them from winning races where they weren't even setting the fastest lap...

All these times in the US, on SS, or S—it's all just smoke and mirrors to fool the competition...
The Bear, and honestly even Williams, still haven't shown what they can actually do. Maybe FI can actually go faster, but even that's a huge question mark...
And don't even get me started on the fact that they obviously haven't used the qualifying mode on the PU, which they clearly have, given how many times they showed it last season.
Every single time during FP, Ford was close or even faster, and then boom—the Bear hits Q3 with a gap of over half a second...

You have to look at the medium times, and that's where Ford totally fails.
Rosberg 1:24.1 vs Vettel 1:24.6... so we're talking at least a half-second deficit in qualifying.
Sure, maybe by some miracle Ford could be better than the Bear on soft tires (though I’d have guessed the opposite), but there's no way they're better by half a second...
In fact, you'd expect the actual difference on softs to be somewhere around +/- 0.1 to maybe 0.2 compared to the mediums, but nothing more than that...

Regarding this Halo thing...
How does this actually protect anyone from the kinds of accidents we've seen lately that ended in tragedy?

It definitely wouldn't have saved Jules Bianchi. Honestly, even a fully enclosed cockpit probably wouldn't have done the trick—it might have actually made things worse if that contraption had been on his car.
Same story with Julián de Villota.
As for Felipe Massa, maybe a closed cockpit would have helped him, but the Halo? Almost certainly not.

And think about those close calls where drivers walked away fine. They could’ve been totally screwed if that Halo snapped and a piece ended up flying into their helmet—like when Fernando Alonso was at Spa, or when Michael Schumacher had Adrian Sutil end up on top of his car.
There's also the chance it could just be useless junk during a barrier impact, like with little Carlos Sainz, or during a spin like when Gutiérrez got slammed by Pastor Maldonado.
To me, the Halo looks like decent protection only if a tire or a wheel comes flying toward the driver's head. For anything else, it doesn't feel like a particularly solid or high-quality solution.🤔

swiftmaker12 said:American followers—and especially you guys on this forum—are the one exception.

Look, between the massive frustrations, the ruined past, the bleak present, and a future that's completely trashed, 99% of you guys—basically everyone except me—are losing it.
They don't even care about specific teams or drivers anymore. It’s just pure, unadulterated hatred for everyone else.

I can't believe this... honestly.

I think you're missing the mark by a mile. Honestly, I’d say you couldn't possibly screw this up more if you actually tried.🤣

Honestly, I’ve never seen a group of Formula 1 fans more chill. It feels like nobody actually hates any of the drivers. And trust me, I’ve been pulling for Sebastian Vettel since 2007, so I know how much passion is usually involved. 😁
I never really got why people trash Sebastian Vettel. It wasn't even about hating him; it was just pure, unfiltered trolling aimed directly at his fanboys.
It’s not even that malicious. It isn't even hate, let alone toward the fans, much less the driver... it's just standard trolling and nothing more.

jadeseal7 said:Maybe on a track like this, those ultrasofts just don't mean anything because they fall apart way too fast. Ever thought about that?

That’s not really why Sebastian Vettel ran a 7-lap stint on the ultrasoft during the last test.😉
So saying the tires are just disintegrating randomly doesn't make sense.

The only thing I don't know for sure is whether he set that fastest lap on that exact same set or if it was a different set of rubber.🤷

Is this actually legit...
It feels a little weird that Kimi clocks a 1:23.009 on the softs and then jumps to a 1:22.785 on the ultrasofts 🤔
I don't see much logic in having an ultrasoft that's a full 0.200 faster per lap than the soft compound just to blow everyone away...

Because if that's the case, there’s zero point in even having a super soft, let alone an ultra soft...
What kind of kid designed this? Having two different tires softer than the soft, where each one only shaves off another 0.100 per lap 🤦

copperdrifter26 said:Kimi clocked a 1:23 on softs. That’s his fastest test time on those tires. 🙏

Where on earth are you getting this misinformation?
Super softs for Kimi...

Meanwhile, Rosberg hit the same time on softs.

Plus, Rosberg did a 1:24.1 on mediums.

EDIT:
Wait, Twitter is telling a different story now...
https://twitter.com/goodyearsport/sta...302528/photo/1

What the hell was that actually?
Was that 1:23.009 on softs or supersofts? 😕

Martin Brundle says regarding those first shots of the Halo: "That looks even worse than I feared, in several respects."
I mean, he's not wrong...
What an absolute eyesore. 🙂

copperdrifter26 said:As far as I know, no. But Lewis mentioned there's something between the softs. Also, temps should be a bit slower this year since Amazon says Goodyear requested higher tire pressures.

Nico Rosberg ran a full race simulation yesterday with three pit stops...
Just to end up pulling a Ferrari that's somehow 2 seconds😲 faster than last year's Ferrari during the race...
So yeah, it's obvious the tires are way faster. I just refuse to believe Bear found 2 seconds in the Mercedes-AMG engine or the chassis compared to last season.

Williams is either hiding serious pace or they’ve got some freakish, massive issue with their Pirelli tires🤔

Williams' fastest laps:
Bottas - Ultra Soft - 1:23.229
Bottas - super Soft - 1:23.261
Bottas - Soft - 1:23.572

It looks incredibly sketchy that the gaps are this tiny just for them, while everyone else has huge jumps...

jadeseal7 said:Tibi, you’re having panic attacks for no reason.

I had absolute panic attacks watching Vettelov's cars back in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013...
didn't have them much in 2014 or 2015, so here I am, forced to start panicking all over again.😬

copperdrifter26 said:Last week's photo, Ferrari wasn't even running softs this week.😛

BTW, it's probably just an exhaust pipe touching the bodywork. Nothing special.

What soft tires are you talking about?
That's clearly a hard tire in the picture, and Kimi was running those exact ones yesterday...

Looks like Ferrari is dealing with some massive issues regarding their new PU 🤔

They've already stalled a few times, and now Haas and Sauber just blew up today... I guess Sauber is also running that new Ferrari PU 🤔
Basically, the only Ferrari-powered team running without a hitch is STR 👋 because they're still using last year's engine. Turns out not having the new tech might actually be an advantage for them 🤣


Fuck 🙂
This is giving me major 2014 Red Bull vibes. Vettel is probably having nightmares right about now 😬

copperdrifter26 said:Sebastian Vettel hit a 1:24.6 on mediums during a 10-lap stint. Where are you even getting this from?

Did he set that time on the first lap or the last?
And how are you so sure that stint was actually 10 laps long??? Where did you find that info? 🤷

All I see is a 1:24.611...
EDIT:
Sebastian Vettel: out-lap - 1: 24.6 - 1: 26.2 - 1: 26.6 - 1: 26.8 - 1: 33.3 min - Inlap..
So it wasn't even 10 laps, but hey, those five weren't bad at all, actually 👍...though that last 1:33 is kind of weird. 🤔

Alright, here’s the lowdown on why this whole McLaren-Honda reincarnation is such a disaster 🤔

Back in the day, we had the "Marlboro McLaren-Honda," but now it’s just "McLaren-Honda"...
Obviously, they're missing Marlboro as a partner to handle the heavy smoking, so these new guys are basically trying to smoke during the race themselves instead. 🤣

Basically, McLaren-Honda needs to find a sponsor whose sole job is to smoke, rather than trying to do the smoking themselves. 😬🤣

What exactly are you basing all this optimism about the competition winning more races on?

So far, Mercedes-Benz has proven they're at least 0.5 seconds faster than everyone else on mediums—which is what we'll be running most of the season—and they're sitting at least 0.7 seconds ahead on softs...
I’m honestly terrified thinking about what they might pull off during the supersoft or US sessions. It wouldn't even surprise me if Nico Rosberg clocks something in the 1:20 to 1:21 range at the US Grand Prix...

The only tiny shred of hope I have left is those seven laps Sebastian Vettel put down on ultrasofts during one of the tests. That’s literally our only prayer: that Ferrari is way gentler on their tires compared to Mercedes-Benz...
If the Bear completely destroys its US and SS tires within just one or two laps, then maybe Ferrari or the rest of the field could stand a chance if they can stretch those same tires for ten laps. Otherwise, just forget about it...

Haven't tuned in for a bit...
Did Kimi and the crew head out for an early lunch the second they saw Rosberg's lap time, or what the hell is going on? 🤷