You say a second, but 🙂 STR is actually less than half a second behind Kimi, and that's just from them running a single flyer right at the start...
As for power, the Bear has seriously cranked up their PU output; I wouldn't be surprised if the gap is over 100 HP compared to Renault and Honda... At the end of the day, I think Ferrari is lagging by at least 50 HP too—maybe even more than they were at the end of last season. The only difference is they have a better chassis this year...
🤣🤣
So, according to your logic, is Ferrari only about three-hundredths of a second behind Mercedes? I mean, if Vettel had put down a second flying lap just 0.02 or 0.03 seconds faster, would that be his total deficit to Rosberg? Because by that reasoning, you're comparing one team's fastest driver against the other team's slowest one. 🤦
Max is 0.08 behind Ferrari, and that's really all there is to it. No need to overthink it—they have a slower car and a weaker engine. Red Bull themselves mentioned that STR gained 0.08 thanks to the engine alone, and both Renault and Red Bull confirmed the new Renault is half a second faster than last year's. That implies the STR and RB chassis are somewhere in the mix, but definitely inferior to Ferrari's.
Regarding horsepower, looking at top speeds and sector times, I'd say Ferrari's engine is about 20hp weaker than Mercedes's. Maybe Renault's is 80hp down.
The RB chassis isn't even close to being as good as this year's Bear chassis, and that's just a fact.
stormybadger8 said:After those qualifying sessions...
STR 🙏 were expected to be up there, but honestly, they aren't quite on the level of Ferrari itself just yet. 👍 I wouldn't even be surprised if they managed to snatch up a podium or two this season...
Red Bull 👍 Newey has built an absolute beast of a car. I have a feeling that even with last year's Ferrari engine, Ricciardo and Kvyat would be fighting for the title—but with Bear's power unit? They'd own the field, guaranteed...
McHonda — the progress here is just impossible to ignore. 👍 I'm expecting Button and Alonso to be scoring points pretty much every single race... This is going to be a massive, full-package upgrade season for McLaren.
Williams 👎 have taken a huge step backward compared to the rest of the pack... Either everyone else has found a massive jump in pace while they stayed stagnant, or they’ve completely messed things up and ended up slower than they were last year...
FI — pretty disappointing, to be honest. I was expecting more from them.
Bear — better than anyone expected!
Ferrari — solid, but no massive leap forward... At this rate, they might challenge Mercedes for the throne somewhere around 2019 or 2020...
The rest — predictably bad... The real question is who will crack first: Manor, Sauber, or will Renault just decide to pack it all in and leave Formula 1 altogether? Haas looks decent for a start... nothing spectacular, but perfectly fine...
Tibi, what are you even talking about? STR is a full second behind Ferrari; they aren't anywhere near the level you're suggesting.
Red Bull definitely isn't as good regarding chassis compared to Bear; they aren't even close. Look, they're 1.8 seconds off the lead... There is no way they have a deficit of more than 150 horsepower. In my opinion, the Red Bull chassis is sitting somewhere down with Ferkan...
McLaren already beat them pretty badly back in Los Angeles 2012, so this isn't exactly a shocker.
Sebastian Vettel could have easily shaved off more than eight-hundredths of a second, but he mentioned there was just no point burning through another set of tires when they wouldn't have gained enough ground anyway. Ferrari looks solid, though—at least it's their smallest gap in Los Angeles compared to the last four years. They're actually running at least 2.5 seconds faster than they were at this same track last year, if you factor in the softs. Honestly, Germany is just on another level...
That said, I really think Ferrari nailed the chassis design this time around. I mean, look, they're only trailing Red Bull by 1.8 seconds 😳 There is absolutely no way that's all down to the engine; there’s no way the power deficit is over a full second. That would imply a gap of about 80 horsepower...
Lewis Hamilton put down an absolute monster of a lap, clocking in just three-hundredths slower than his pole position time back in 2011.
Hmm, Sebastian was only 0.02 seconds behind Lewis, even after that massive lock-up in the third sector. He actually clocked the fastest time in the second sector, and he managed to pull that off during a 12-lap stint. I've got a feeling qualifying is going to be tight—Ferrari will likely be within 0.03 seconds of the top.
William Bennett53 said:I didn't catch the practice sessions... 😢 The McLaren-Honda cars look pretty solid on this timing scale. 🙏 Does that mean they actually found some pace, or are we just seeing two elite drivers fighting through miserable track conditions?
The practice was a total disaster... Honestly, you were better off not watching. I was stuck grinding away at work, and there wasn't even five laps of decent running. Just as it looks like the track might finally start drying out, everyone spins off, and then you see the rain starting to hit Turn 5.😁
When Lewis was out there on track, he managed to pull it off right as the surface was basically drying out. As soon as he pulled back into the pits, everyone else scrambled out and—bam!—the rain starts pouring again haha. Honestly, that was one of the most ridiculous Practice sessions I've ever seen...
So, Tibi, when exactly did STR beat Kimi last year? I’m trying to follow the logic here. How is STR going to be anywhere near Ferrari's pace using last year's engine that's down by at least 30 horsepower? That deficit alone accounts for about half a second back in Los Angeles! And let's talk about the car itself—STR basically rushed a makeshift chassis together for testing because they ran out of time to build it properly. Meanwhile, Ferrari spent the entire last season putting their car through the wind tunnel via Haas. You're talking nonsense. STR is going to be trailing Ferrari by at least seven-hundredths of a second in Melbourne.
I won't even touch your second point; we'll just have to wait and see, and honestly, none of us can predict how big that gap will actually be. It's pretty obvious Sebastian saw a reason to jump ship from Red Bull + Brawn to join Ferrari. As for the idea that every talented engineer wouldn't want to help Ferrari... well, that's not an engineering issue. The real problem was the leadership, which functioned more like a political party than a racing team. The issue was Fry and Tombazis; even Newey gave them a "strange..." look when reporters asked him why those two specifically landed the most vital roles at Ferrari while Aldo Costa was basically left out in the cold.
It is pretty wild to think that that same Aldo Costa ended up over at Mercedes, serving as the lead designer for the most dominant cars in NASCAR history.
Anyway, we'll find out if Vettel made the move to Ferrari because he was tired of being schooled by his teammate, or if it's because this Ferrari actually has a fighting chance against Merk this season.
Regarding Vettel, he made it very clear in yesterday's interview with Rai that the car is a massive step forward in every single department. He's expecting at least a podium in Australia, maybe even a win, and then a shot at the title. I love the confidence, really I do, but there is absolutely no way he beats Lewis if the cars are performing on equal footing. Let's just hang tight for another ten days and see what happens...
stormybadger8 said:haha, there’s absolutely zero difference between the ultrasoft and the medium... And if one car is consistently half a second slower than the other on mediums, then sure, it’ll definitely be faster on the S-u, SS, or US because, hey, there’s no difference between tires, right? 🙂🤣
That bolded part is the kicker... that’s basically the absolute ceiling for Ferrari. As for the chances of Lewis Hamilton finding himself at the tail end of the pack behind Kimi Räikkönen or Sebastian Vettel? Honestly, they're practically non-existent...
I actually jumped on to see what the betting shops are saying... And you can see that they're giving Kimi Räikkönen equal or even lower odds for the title than Fernando Alonso, which really tells you everything you need to know. 😉
So, STR clocked a 1:24.8 (Kimi Räikkönen's time) on medium tires, which probably means STR using that old Ferrari engine is just as fast as the brand new Ferrari. 😲 Or you could try twisting the logic to suggest that if Sebastian Vettel ends up being a full second slower this year, it's somehow the car's fault. 🍿
The betting shops say... Well, last year the betting shops gave Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso better odds than the Ferrari duo, so we ended up watching a completely different race altogether.
Just chill out and relax, we still have 10 days to go.🎉
Honestly, some of the nonsense being said here is just pure chaos. 😁 It feels like Ferrari hasn't been driving "glory laps" ever since Ariverbene lost his cool and told them they need to run heavier fuel loads if necessary. He basically called out the habit of faking pace during testing just to disappear come Saturday and Sunday.
And then there’s all this talk about having to please the head of SM... Well, he isn't Montezemolo. That guy wasn't afraid to hand out pink slips to the old crew the second he realized they were just playing games. His mandate was clear: he wants Ferrari sitting at the top of the podium in Australia. Not during testing, but in Australia. Do they actually have the pace to take first place? Not quite, at least not on the Barcelona circuit. But they're getting close, and remember, Barcelona is a track where Mercedes used to absolutely dominate, even before the era of these V6 engines.
Anyway, a few different analyses have concluded that Ferrari's race pace during testing was only 0.02 seconds behind Mercedes. Last year, that gap was a full second. I'll let you guys draw your own conclusions from that.
To build on what my colleague was saying, Lewis Hamilton put in an incredible race simulation, especially during that final stint, but Kimi Räikkönen was actually the one posting the best times leading up to it. Also, Sebastian Vettel gave an interview to Rai yesterday, and I have to say, I've never seen him look quite so optimistic. Only 10 days left until the first practice session! 🎉
Man, Sebastian Vettel was definitely out there on those Super Softs during the qualifying simulations, just like Tibi mentioned. It looks like he was really pushing the limits, at least according to what the "speed trap" data shows 😁
Anyway, now that testing is officially wrapped up, I wanted to throw my two cents in. Here is how I see the pecking order looking
1. Mercedes ~0.2 sec (averaging qualifying and race pace) 2. Ferrari ~0.3 sec 3. Williams ~0.2 sec 3. Red Bull ~0.2 sec 4. STR/Force India ~0.3 sec 5. Sauber/Haas ~0.3 sec 6. Lotus/McLaren ~0.6 sec 7. Manor
Feel free to come and eat your words when we get to Melbourne ☕
stormybadger8 said:Oh, come on now... Ferrari might even look faster than Mercedes in the race simulations (which obviously isn't the case), but that doesn't mean a thing because they don't stand a chance in qualifying since Mercedes is just untouchable there.
At the end of the day, last year they were showing all this speed in the race sims during those endless FP sessions, only for Mercedes to absolutely smoke them in qualifying... It even seemed pretty clear they had a shot at staying ahead of Mercedes, but the massive headache was figuring out how to actually get past them in the first place... And let's be real, Mercedes didn't even pick up 6 FL-s last year, so that didn't stop them from winning races where they weren't even setting the fastest laps...
All these times we're seeing in the US, on the SS, or the S—it’s all just smoke and mirrors to throw the competition off... Mercedes, and honestly even Williams, still haven't shown what they're truly capable of. Maybe FI can actually go faster, but even that's up in the air... Not to mention, I'm pretty sure they aren't even using the qualifying mode on the PU, which they clearly have, as we saw plenty of times last season. Every single time during the FP Ferrari sessions, they'd be close to or even faster than the others, even in Q1 and Q2, and then suddenly, boom—Mercedes pulls into Q3 with over half a second advantage...
You really have to look at the medium times, and that's where Ferrari is seriously struggling. Nico Rosberg 1:24.1 vs Sebastian Vettel 1:24.6... so we're talking at least a half-second deficit in qualifying... Okay, maybe by some miracle Ferrari could be better than Mercedes on soft tires (though I'd have thought the opposite before), but there's no way they're better by half a second... Actually, you'd expect the real gap on softs to be somewhere around +/- 0.1 to maybe 0.2 compared to the medium, but nothing more than that...
We'll see Vettel on the medium tomorrow, don't you worry. As for Williams, they won't be anywhere near the front; the RB is faster in Melbourne.
crimsonstag84 said:Hmm, I don't know about that... on the second day of testing, Nico Rosberg managed to pull off 18 laps on the Medium tires with an average time of 26.8.
swiftmaker12 said:Ferrari is sticking strictly to softer tire compounds just to make sure they look like one of the top two teams by the end of the testing day, basically just sandbagging so they can show off to Sergio Marchionne and keep everyone happy at home...
Mercedes is going to absolutely smoke Ferrari this year, and it won't even be close.......
Ferrari might manage one win this season, and even then, only if Bernie pulls some strings.....
What are you even talking about? Is there something in the water over there? 😁
Ferrari was running their race simulation on the S-M-M-H combo, while the Mercedes duo didn't touch the hard tires at all.
I'm 100% sure about this. Both Hulk and Max Verstappen barely made any progress—we're talking less than .2 seconds—on those US tires. Word is they completely fall off the pace by the third sector.
As for Kimi Räikkönen's 1:23.0 lap, I’m certain he was on the softs; every major news outlet reported it that way during the live coverage.
Where am I getting this from? Just listening to the live trackside commentary. It looks like Goodyear messed up the call because Kimi ran that lap on softs instead of the SS. They've corrected it now, though.
After that, he switched over to the SS, but even after clocking two killer sectors, he got caught in traffic and ended up with a 1:23.050. Nico Rosberg put down a 1:24.2 on mediums during qualifying practice a few days ago, followed by a 1:23.0 on the softs. My guess? Just like last year, the delta between those two tire compounds for Mercedes is tighter than everyone else's.
As far as I know, the answer is no, though Lewis mentioned there might be something in between the softs. On a side note, I'm expecting this year's pace to be a bit slower than last season because, according to Mercedes, Goodyear requested higher tire pressures.
