Looking good for Merc, not so good for the fans Still early so lets hope that there are some surprises to come.
Another reason it could be even worse for the fans is that, whilst Bottas is decent, do we think he'll have he balls to go toe to toe with Hamilton? Say what you want about Rosberg, but at least he got his elbows out every now and then! Bottas, new to the team, Hamilton the defacto #1 no chance he does anything silly that could cause an accident. Please for the love of all things buttered and high in cholesterol, can the rest of the teams give Merc a fight this year!!
Adrian summed it up nicely on Ted's notebook that 1 point of aero/drag is equivalent to 1/10th +\- of a second. The cars are expected to achieve 30+ points of downforce so it's likely that ultimate top speeds will be affected, how much who knows? Sainz said he couldn't tell the difference between the old Ferrari engine and the new Renault because of the additional downforce/drag.
I saw that, superb bit of info from Newey.. Looking forward to Development corner on Thursdays edition.. Not so much to next weeks coverage of the Testing when its Ask Crofty week.. FFS!
Eric to Jenson later on this week: Jenson... err, you mind coming back, we can't find Fernando... he's gone AWOL, don't know why, you think it could be related to the 7 engine changes in the first week of testing...?
i found the comparision to last year interesting. cars all 3 second per hap fast but Hamilton just throws in one just because to show who is boss. Would we say about 0.8secons gap after quali in first race here? It looks like ferrari can at least say they are reliable at the outset though.
So, it wasn't a Stroll in the park for Lance in the Williams #Puntastic! Bet Massa will be pleased if he keeps binning the car and it effects the time he gets in the car the following day! First day but not the greatest of starts for the rookie!
3rd year and they keep making the same mistake its simply not acceptable. 1st year you can understand, 2nd year you'd expect progress, 3rd year you'd expect to be at the very least reliable and fuel efficient.. But by all accounts, they're not reliable, not very powerful and we'll never now if they're fuel efficient if it can't do more than 10 laps without going pop! I'm pissed off about the situation, I hate to be in Alonso's shoes! The guy doesn't need/want the money, he wants a car that will allow him to fight for a race win, he may NEVER get that with McLaren!
Surely Honda did their work on the dyno and would have known there were issue? They've had long enough to time to develop the engine and work out the problems, so they can't be new issues just because it's out on track?
Likely, but I still have hope. I think the outright pace of the new packages are still a couple of seconds up the road, so it will be interesting to see all the top contenders on the fastest compound. That said, until we know the deltas between compounds it's difficult to establish how close Ferrari are. Reports coming out of Italy are that Ferrari have "made a massive step" but it may "not be enough"? Read into that what you may!
Need to take the "reports coming out Italy" stuff with a pinch of salt.. But early indications are encouraging!
