They can't be that bad surely. From what I've seen the car didn't look bad on track. Unless they are intending to keep those rakes on...
so.... we still have 3 possibilities. 1. Mercedes fast in quali ferrari faster in race. 2. both very close and trading punches 3. Mercedes not lying for the first time in their existence... 0.5seconds oh Lewis you tell such pokies. what we can say is that both cars should be rock solid reliability wise... ferrari uncovered a few items to work on but nothing major. the midfield.should be a bit more fun this season but who knows which will rise to top.
The main questions to answer for me are: 1. Lewis vs Seb 2. Seb vs Charles 3. Daniel vs Max(The Boy) 4. Sorry Valtteri, it is You vs Your inner self 5. Carlo vs Nico 6. Mclaren vs Pierre 7. Williams vs Torro Rosso 8. Sauber vs Haas Not necessarily in that order, it is order of questions but not placings.
If the aero rules have done their job there could be some nice tussles @ no.8 with 2 teams having, theorhetically, almost identical cars. but what happens if Alfa threaten Ferrari? What will Fiat do? Will we have Inter-team orders?
"Kimi, Seb is faster than you, do you understand" "Yes, and?" "Kimi, you have to slow to save tyres" "why? We only just changed them and there's only 2 laps left!" "ok Kimi, undertood, but we have a triple choc Magnum Ice cream in the pitlane for you" "I'll have it when I've come in at the end of the race, in 2 laps" "Negative, if you want it, come in now, or Romain said he'll eat it, if you want it box box box." "@*#%, ok , coming in"
i reckon there's no ferrari or Mercedes engine outside their own team with the ultimate power settings.
Romain Grosjean at Lotus-Mercedes spoke of being told mid-race by the Mercedes engineer to press a particular combination on the dash he'd never used before. Described it as being like a rocket ship, far more power than they'd ever had access to before. Only time he ever got to use it, and that was only because he had a chance to help Mercedes own team in the race. I'm sure the engines are identical, the software is identical - but the manuals probably aren't!
well... if you got the code you'd have the radio recording for me the teams pay more than enough to be given fair play but i understand holding a half second or so back for youself.
RP & WIlliams need to kidnap, hypnotise and regress him to find out L2 L2 R1square sqaure triangle start
Does anyone think the midfield has closed or do you think when we get to the opening races the front three teams will just put on the afterburners? On the face of it, the jaws of performance between the fastest and the midfield teams looks smaller than it has for a while?
I don;t think RBR will be on their own in 3rd this season, but wheteher they are closer to Merc Ferrari, only time will tell. I'm just hoping the aero rules have done what they set out to do, could be some good dicing down the field.
Anyone else notice that Torro Rosso where consistently posting faster times than Red Bull? Alexander Albon [Toro Rosso] 1:16.882 (C5, Test 2 Day 3) 489 laps Daniil Kvyat [Toro Rosso] 1:16.898 (C5, Test 2 Day 4) 446 laps vs Pierre Gasly [Red Bull] 1:17.091 (C5, Test 2 Day 3) 439 laps Max Verstappen [Red Bull] 1:17.709 (Test 2 Day 4) 394 laps Data from gpfans.com. They both have the Honda PU but differing aero. I can't believe Red Bull are significantly slower so I guess they are using TR as test mules and they know how much the Red Bull aero package is worth over TR as they can see all data!!!! I wonder if Red Bull will truly challenge the front this year? With so many variables it's all guess work as we don't know fuel loads, PU settings, Aero load, etc....... Wouldn't it be great to see Gasly getting more out of the Red Bull than Max Can't wait for the season to get under way.
You wouldn’t happen to have that interview link would you? I’ve always felt this was the case with Mercedes customers and I believe it is why Ron Dennis was brave enough to move to Honda (he talked about needing the “source code”). We now know what he meant. How pathetic is it that a supplier would effectively render their customers obsolete, whilst getting paid millions in the process.
Pathetic, unfair, but not stupid, it makes sense that they would give themsleves an unfair advantage, burying the power boost so everything is the same, but with-holding the information wouldn't be against the rules, per se, just the spirit of them, which no one gives a **** about really unless 2 of the teams are on the other end of them.
I believe that PU manufacturers have to provide same spec units and same software but as you say I don't think anyone has ever said that the PU manufacturers have to tell the customers all the magic codes to get best out of the PU. I believe the software has to go to FIA but trying to find all possible switch combos and what they do within the software would be a nightmare. Plus I think the teams can tweek the software as they may use different fuels. I think that McLaren make the standard ECU so at a guess Ron knew how easy it was to 'hobble' the customer teams!!!!
Thanks so much for that mate- fascinating. So you actually get Mercedes engineers install the engine into your car and take it out. Amazing that there was a guy who just dialled them into a new engine mode to get the Ferrari at Spa. It’s just ridiculous that they would not show customers all of this so they could use at free will themselves. Surely Merc would still have the measure of the likes of Racing Point and Williams? I’ve always felt Renault would probably be the fairest customer engine supplier, given that Red Bull were able to win titles with Renault still running a works team, and in the hybrid era be able to win races. Hoping very much that they and McLaren work together to catch the leaders, as opposed to the french manufacturer hiding engine modes in a bid to beat their customer. Time will tell I guess.
