Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix (Los Angeles - Central Park) 03.20.2016.

stormybadger8 said:Ferrari is doing okay, but I don't see any massive leaps forward... at this rate, they might have actually challenged Mercedes for the title back in 2019 or 2020...

And that’s the reality of how Vettel develops a car.
The current gap between Lewis and Vettel comes down to the engine, much like how Newey once created that gap between Vettel and Fernando, and later between Vettel and Lewis.
It just goes to show how easily elite drivers clinch championships when they finally get a car that actually works. 🙂.
We all predicted Lewis would settle for a single title, yet here he is with a dominant car and consecutive championships under his belt.
It was the same story with Vettel, it would have been the same with Fernando, and probably even Ricciardo—talent-wise, he's right up there with them.

Ferrari always seems to find their stride during the race, though Mercedes is looking formidable and Hamilton just put in an absolutely brutal lap...
I think Vettel might actually have a shot tomorrow because Los Angeles is such a unique circuit, and I really believe Ferrari has the raw pace. Catching Hamilton will be a massive uphill battle, but he might just reel in Rosberg....🙂
If I had to guess, I'd say we'll see him trailing Hamilton by about 0.3s per lap during the race tomorrow..

Raymond Anderson4 said:And that’s pretty much the long and short of how Vettel's car development went.
The current gap between Lewis and Vettel really comes down to the engine—just like how Newey used to be the deciding factor between Vettel and Fernando when it came to Lewis.
It just goes to show how easily the elite drivers can snatch up championships once you finally get the car sorted out.🙂.
We all used to say Lewis might just settle for one title, but then he gets this incredible machine and boom—back-to-back championships.
It was the exact same story with Vettel, it would've been the same for Fernando, and honestly probably for Ricciardo too (purely in terms of raw talent, they're all on that level).

I wouldn't say it's just the engine, though; the power unit only accounts for about a third of that deficit. The chassis and aero on the Mercedes are lightyears ahead of anything else on the grid right now. It looks like a spacecraft compared to the rest of them. They seem to bring meaningful upgrades almost every other race weekend—after those tests in Barcelona, they really leveled up everything.

Hamilton seemed to be operating on an entirely different plane of existence today, even compared to his own teammate. It’s going to be incredibly difficult for him to lose tomorrow; something truly catastrophic would have to occur—heavy rain, a Safety Car, or some other chaos.

I anticipate seeing Vettel battling with Rosberg's car. I also expect Kimi to be right there in the mix with them.

I placed a little wager myself: Hamilton to win, a gap of over six seconds, and Alonso finishing the race. 🙂 Hopefully, it brings in enough extra cash for a decent cup of coffee or something.

By the way, this is actually Ferrari's smallest deficit in Los Angeles over the last five years—if you don't count the possibility of them putting together a faster second lap. Honestly, it’s a total mystery what those guys were even doing back between 2011 and 2015...

jadeseal7 said:Anything other than one or two Bear surprises will be a shock.

Unless there are one or two very convincing Bear surprises, I'd say everything else will be a surprise.

He only really stands a chance at the start of the race, provided they can get ahead of the Mercedes and hold them off for a bit, but I have my doubts. The Mercedes cars are just too fast, especially since they tend to improve as the race goes on. If the tires were anything like they were back in 2013, maybe there'd be a shot, but not with these. Even if the Mercedes end up behind Ferrari, they'll stay right on their tail without any trouble, and if they can't pass on the track, I'm certain they'll just outpace them in the pits—something I wouldn't count on Ferrari doing. Personally, I think the last truly great season for Ferrari was 2008 when they had a genuinely stellar car. Everything since then has felt like a series of lucky breaks, and honestly, I don't even know how Alonso managed to fight for the title so many times. We've been waiting far too long for a championship, and every year we fall for the same old hype about how close they are.

Raymond Anderson4 said:So much for Vettel’s car development.
The current gap between Lewis and Vettel comes down to the engine, just like how Newey used to be the difference between Vettel and Fernando, making him Lewis.
You see how easily top drivers snag titles once they actually have a decent car.🙂.
We all said Lewis would settle for one title, then boom—great car, back-to-back championships.
It was the same deal with Vettel, it would've been the same for Fernando, and probably Ricciardo too (talent-wise, he's right up there with them).

Completely incomparable...
You can't just tweak an engine enough to catch Bear, because they'll always be at least two or three steps ahead...
And let's be real, the FIA is never going to ban the Mercedes engine.🙂
They went after Red Bull for every little thing, looking for any excuse to screw them over, while they were turning a blind eye to Mercedes regarding illegal testing and tire pressures.

But hey, no rules stopped the rest of the grid from copying Red Bull to try and catch up, yet under the current regs, nobody can touch Mercedes.

As for Vettel and his stint at Ferrari, just think about what Ferrari even looked like before he showed up.🙂
Besides, even last year he racked up more podiums than Alonso managed in any of his five seasons...

mellowtiger83 said:Lewis was in another dimension today, even compared to his own teammate. It’s going to be damn hard for him to lose tomorrow. Something catastrophic would have to happen—rain, a Safety Car, you name it.

I'm expecting Sebastian Vettel to be fighting Rosberg. Expecting some chaos near them too.

I even put a parlay together: Hamilton wins, lead by more than 6 seconds, and Fernando Alonso finishes the race 🙂. Hopefully, I'll win enough for a decent coffee run.

I placed one on an Alonso win and one on a Jenson Button win 🤣.
Zero chance, really, but the payout was too good to pass up. 😬

If the weather holds up tomorrow and we find ourselves looking at a gap of more than thirty seconds between Ferrari and the leaders, then I suppose we might have to accept the grim reality that this entire season belongs to Mercedes.

If the Mercedes cars bolt during the first lap, I’m done watching the race and heading straight back to bed. 😬

graniteharbor502 said:If we get some warmer weather tomorrow and Ferrari ends up trailing by more than half a minute, we might just have to admit this season belongs to Mercedes once again.

Last year, Sebastian Vettel was lagging behind the Luxury cars by about 35 seconds—so, if things play out that way, maybe we can look forward to a couple of wins for Ferrari down the road once everything finally clicks into place? Anything else is pure Sci Fi, I suppose.

graniteharbor502 said:If it’s warm tomorrow and Ferrari finishes more than half a minute behind, we can officially call this season Mercedes' too.

Mercedes owns this season even if they're lagging by less than 5 seconds at the finish line...
What good is decent race pace when there's zero chance they'll actually start ahead of them or overtake them on track? Maybe they'll snag one of them in the pits—yeah, right, maybe Nico Rosberg—and that's it.
Expecting Mercedes to struggle after those tests is just plain delusional...
Bottom line: it's already obvious this whole thing is a bust.

The only hope is that the gap shrinks and keeps getting smaller as the season goes on.
Maybe they'll have a shot in 2017, but this season is dead in the water. Qualifying today made that crystal clear.😉
All you had to do was look at Maurizio Arrivabene's face after that first real fast lap from the Mercedes, and everything was painfully obvious...

Why so fatalistic? It’s not like the Mercedes just suddenly lost their pace out of nowhere. One of their top engineers—Michael Schumacher—spent a few seasons constantly tweaking the car race after race, and now we're seeing the fallout. They're still the best, though. They earned their spot at the top.

Sure, dominance gets boring after a while, but this actually makes watching F1 more enjoyable. It’s chill—no stress over who’s going to take the trophy. I’m genuinely curious to see how Jolyon Palmer and Kevin Magnussen handle themselves, how Honda manages the race strategy, and how young Max Verstappen steps up.

And eventually, the regulations will change again, resetting the playing field. We might get one of those wild, incredible seasons, or maybe a repeat of 2009.

All in all, I can't wait for those red lights to go out tomorrow morning so I can sit down with my son and kick off another F1 season.

And of course...

It feels like F1 really started its downward slide back in 2009.

I mean, whenever I look back at those wild races in VN Brazil during 2007 and 2008—man, what a ride that was.

Check out how far behind Ferrari has been from pole position over the last six seasons. Honestly, looking at today, if they had managed one more blistering lap, we’d probably be looking at a gap of about 0.5 to 0.6 seconds. All things considered, it’s actually not bad at all.
If the track manages to heat up to around 91-95 degrees Fahrenheit, I really think Sebastian Vettel could pull off finishing ahead of Nico Rosberg, though he'll likely still be trailing Lewis Hamilton by about ten seconds.

2011 Fernando Alonso 5th - 1.5s
2012 Fernando Alonso 12th 1.5s
2013 Felipe Massa 4th - 1.1s
2014 Fernando Alonso 5th -1.588s
2015 Sebastian Vettel 4th - 1.430s
2016 Sebastian Vettel 3rd - 0.838s

Comparing last year's gaps at the US Grand Prix doesn't really make sense, I guess, because Ferrari was running an engine and aero package from testing that was significantly slower than what they brought to the very next race.

It’s all well and good, truly, but we are still stuck with the same old problem: nothing actually improves. Unless there are some radical shifts in the regulations, Mercedes-Benz is going to be dominating this sport for a very long time.

Let’s look at this from a different angle for a moment.

Mercedes had a massive head start compared to everyone else. They spent three full years developing and testing while everyone else was left in the dust. Then, once the rules changed, nobody else was allowed to develop anything for two whole seasons. By my math, Mercedes is five years ahead of the field.

McLaren was dominant back in the late 80s and early 90s, sure, but they only held that level of dominance for a single season.

Red Bull took four consecutive titles, but let’s not pretend those wins were handed to them on a silver platter. Red Bull never had a 1.5-second advantage per lap. Why? Because the rules actually allowed the other teams to develop their cars and catch up to Red Bull.

Since 2014, development has been essentially frozen. Honestly, it’s unrealistic to expect anyone to catch or pass Mercedes at this point. And now we have these half-baked ideas regarding qualifying. This current format just plays right into Mercedes-Benz's hands. Five minutes left in Q3, three cars on track—plenty of empty space to set an ultra-fast lap without any interference.

That explains why Mercedes even requested to be placed in the last garage in the pits, just so they could be the first ones out of the pit box.

Make no mistake, I love motorsports. I’ve been following Formula 1 since I can remember. I’ve attended over 50 races in the last decade alone, mostly thanks to my brother, who has been deep in the Formula 1 world for fifteen years now.

I don’t root for any specific team, but I would love to see—as I suspect most fans would—a bit more actual competition. We don't need twenty different winners across twenty races, but what we have right now is a disaster for those of us watching.

Then again, looking at it from a family standpoint, I really should be pulling for Mercedes-Benz. But I’d rather pull for the return of competitive Formula 1, though I highly doubt we’ll see it anytime soon. Perhaps one day, when someone else finally takes over this entire machine and Bernie Ecclestone finally moves on.

But I fear we’ll be waiting a long time.

Looking at the race in Barcelona, it seems McLaren Honda has actually managed to edge out Ferrari...

Jerry Moore61 said:That’s all well and good, I guess, but the real issue is that nothing actually seems to be getting better. If we don't see some pretty radical rule changes soon, Mercedes-Benz is just going to keep dominating forever.

I mean, if you look at it from this angle...

Mercedes basically got a massive head start compared to everyone else. They spent three whole years developing and testing while nobody else was even close. Then, once the rules changed, no one else was allowed to develop anything for two full seasons. So, when you do the math, Mercedes is effectively five years ahead of the rest of the field.

I remember how McLaren was dominant back in the late 80s and early 90s, but they were only truly untouchable for maybe one season at that level.

And sure, Red Bull took four titles in a row, but those weren't exactly easy wins. Red Bull never had a situation where they were pulling a 1.5-second advantage per lap. That’s because the regulations actually let other teams develop their cars enough to catch up to Red Bull.

But since 2014, development has been basically frozen. I mean, honestly, it’s kind of hard to expect anyone to actually catch or pass Mercedes at this point. And then you have these weird qualifying formats being floated around. This current setup just plays right into Mercedes' hands. You get down to five minutes left in Q3, there are only three cars on track, and suddenly there’s all this empty space on the circuit to set an ultra-fast lap.

It’s probably why Mercedes asked to be placed in the last garage in the pits, just so they could be the first ones out of the pit box.

Don't get me wrong, I love motorsports; I've been following Formula 1 for as long as I can remember. I’ve actually made it to over 50 races in the last decade or so, mostly thanks to my brother who’s been deep into F1 for 15 years now.

I don't really root for any specific team, but I think most people—myself included—would love to see a bit more actual competition. It doesn't mean we need twenty different winners in twenty different races, but what we have right now is just a disaster for those of us watching.

Though, if I'm looking at it from a family standpoint, I probably should be rooting for Mercedes. But I’d rather root for Formula 1 to actually feel like racing again, though I highly doubt that’s happening anytime soon. Maybe one day, when someone else finally takes over the whole machine and Bernie Ecclestone finally moves on.

But yeah, I'm afraid we might be waiting a long time.

Bernie Ecclestone’s freedom comes at a price. And it costs even more if things were compromised about ten years ago over in Germany.
So, if the idea is that Formula 1 equals Bernie Ecclestone, and there are hidden variables involving millions of dollars and German business interests, you eventually realize the wolf is well-fed while the sheep are just being counted.
Let's just relax and try to enjoy the uncertainty of this new season.
😬