Just watched Karun and Damon discuss a lap of the new layout. Looks like they have removed the slower corners and it's more high speed corners and a couple of hairpins. Maybe this is going to favour Mercs more than Red Bull but we shall see.
Could be very, very close. Wonder if Merc will roll the dice and go full on with the power unit all weekend.
True but I'm not sure if they will be able to take the loads for long enough. Plus high temps although it will cool as race goes on. Could be very interesting just hope it's a clean race and no need for courts to get involved to decide championship.
I read an article covering an interview with Horner. Horner says there is no oher driver like Max, who drives with his heart. The other driver he compares Max to is Nigel Mansell. He says put Max in the same car as Lewis, a Merc or a Redbull and Max would win. That might be true, over one race, just the two of them. Over a season with other competitors, less likely. I can't call this weekend although the track doesn't look very technical with two long straights with DRS enabled. In theory the Merc seems to have more power although I am not fully convinced that translates in the race based on the more recent performamnce. I suppose there are some similarities with Qatar and look at what we saw there. I don't want Max to win, at least not yet, his driving is not clean enough yet. Horner also played the "Merc have more resources than RBR", in the budget cap world I don't see that to be an argument.
You know, at the end of day what rankles with me is Red Bull's victim mentality. Whinging about how unfair everything is, how the stewards are so are horrible to them and how Mercedes have got so much more money than them and everything else. I think it's really backfiring on them, in the same way it did with Horner crying foul and laying it on too thick after Silverstone. With so many people wanting a change from Merc dominance they are still trying as hard as possible to make themselves unlikeable.
High speed corners = red bull. Long straights = mercedes Simple as imo. Unless Hamilton suffers a mechanical failure he is going to walk this. The red bull has no defense to the merc upgraded engine. Prepare for massive whining from red bull about illegal upgrades.
Not to mention that Red Bull themselves have the second largest budget, a second team who will jump out of the way, a works engine deal, corporate backing that isn't worried about motoring trends or looking environmentally friendly...
When are one of the pundits going to ask Horner wether it was unfair when Seb Vettel and RBR won 4 titles on the trot when RBR had the best all round car and no one could even get close to them This only changed when Merc sorted out the Hybrid cars better and quicker than any one else
Verstappen saying the stewards are against him is exactly like early career Hamilton if you think about it
Hell hamilton was whinging about stewards earlier this season and half drawing the card that shall not be mentioned. They remind me of Balotelli. "Why always me" Hell alonso was at the same stuff having run some off the track at Austin Competitive little so and sos the lot of them
Interesting vid from Karun here looking at Max and Lewis cornering battles: I hope Lewis watches this. If Max pushes anyone wide again, even he can use the above vid to say that the stewards haven't punished him for previous understeering push offs so why now!!!! For anyone who can't watch basically Max takes inside line, brakes too late, misses apex, then introduces understeer to run wide and push other driver off track. His defence, if questioned, will always be he had understeer and couldn't do anything about it whereas in reality he causes the understeer!! Lewis little tip: Don't let Max get anywhere near the inside on a corner!!!
And Grosjean, who got a race ban for the frequency of his incidents, said nothing, and his were accidental.
Whilst the new layout flows a lot better I'm still not convinced it'll lead to good racing. Kudos for at least trying though, will definitely lead to better racing with the new cars at least next season.
Totally disagree. If this happens all hamilton needs to do is back out and get on radio and the precedent is now firmly set that verstappen gets a penalty and must pull over. Massi has now created the "I decide who wins" rule by bypassing the stewards so all wolff has to do is storm down to massi and arrange for max to be shot at dawn.
