Grosjean really made me chuckle in the conference... I don't think he could have been smiling much more.
Problem with those statistics are that unlike Mclaren in 2011, Red Bull dont look the second best team.
In terms of qualifying, they are as dominant, we all know last year that Red Bull were only best in qualifying too, they were if anything, slower than Mclaren in the race.
Mifune, you're right. That David Croft seems too loud and dramatic, similar when James Allen was lead commentator.
One qualifying session where they are 4/tenths quicker than the next fastest car is hardly what I would call dominant.
As much as I hope that McLaren have a Championship winning car, it's probably not a good idea to count your chickens before they've won said Championship!
Don't get carried away with this dominant car stuff. Vettel made a mistake on his last lap and Webber apparently had a KERS issue so the gap between RBR and Mclaren would have been reduced. The race is what counts and I still expect Red Bull to be strong.
the difference from redbull to mclaren (second fastest team) in qualifying last year in australia was around 7 tenths the difference from Mclaren to THE NEXT FASTEST TEAM (Lotus) team this year (from hamilton) is around 3 and a half tenths difference from redbull to the Third fastest team last year (ferrari) was around 1.3 seconds difference from mclaren to the third fastest team (Mercedes) was around 4 tenths clearly the Mclaren is not more dominant than red bul last season, but coincidentally the difference from webber to hamilton this year was around 7 tenths, but it doesn't make the mcalren more dominant, because the redbull is on the fourth row on the grid; if anything it proves that the teams as a whole are closer together because the difference from first to second is now from first to sixth. as for the 11 wins and 15 poles, even with a dominant car neitehr mclaren driver could do this because they are more evenly matched that vettel and webber last year.
It's way too close and early to count any poultry at this stage... One qualifying down and what looks like could be a very mixed up/close championship. This one is anybody's... except maybe Ferrari
I'll second that actually. As far as I could see, both of the McLaren drivers' laps were virtually faultless, suggesting that is their ultimate pace; whilst all others - apart from Grosjean (wow!) and Schumacher to some extent - made errors to a greater or lesser extent. The gap between cars is not big at all. The gap between drivers is probably biggerâ¦
Even if McLaren are dominant ( i dont think they are) , they're a team that doesn't favour a driver. So it doesn't mean another 2011 like season.
But you would have to consider if Hamilton holds his nerve at the start, eventually the likes of Lotus in particular and possibly Mercedes will start to slip away where as RBR would make up the time and go up the grid and Lewis could already have a 40-50 point gap to the likes of Seb come Bahrain. Seb didn't have it easy or really hard, as lets be honest Lewis was always up his backside for most of the GP's before the half way meltdown he suffered. Yeah you could say Lewis has it tougher if you only look at qualifying times, but the difference some of you are not seeing is that Seb is starting further back than Lewis did last year. 8 tenths last year gave 7 points gap from Seb to his likely rival. Where 7 tenths this year gives a possible gap of 17 points (if I'm correct getting 6th) over double to 2011 for Lewis' possible rival for this year
I think the Ferrari looks fast, just unbalanced. If they can make it more stable I think they'll have a very good car.
This. Alonso almost got it into Q3 with just one run at the start of the session, if he had not of gone into the gravel then he would of got into Q3. The Ferrari just looks like it has a tiny sweetspot and if you do not hit it then it will fight back violently.
Well I'm sure they don't slap a stallion on the front of the car unless it really was in fact a horse lol.
He has to go in my opinion. He's been incredibly ****e for a couple of years and it looks like he's getting worse.