I would have to agree with this - I have said many times that I think that Lewis and Jenson would struggle to win a WDC as team mates. However, based on todays evidence it would seem that they have the right foundation to mount a serious challenge between them. Personally I'm glad that RB are not out front as I think the sport needed a change (just a personal opinion) but in relation to dominance i dont think all had been revieled yet. The RB was very strong at tracks not best suited to its atributes last season and still showed a clean pair of heels to other cars which were expected to close the gap at certain circuits - that for me showed how dominant RB we last season. I agree with others that we will only get a true reflection on some of the more fluent tracks that highlight strengths and flaws in the cars.
Very true spurs guru, but I believe Romain is better than what most people give him credit for and this will only get worse for us Seb fans if the likes of Kimi can get his car sorted to his liking and Nico is able to sort his head out when under pressure could drop Seb to 8th if the team don't get to grips sooner than later. Also Let's not kid ourselves, McLaren have used team orders in the past, maybe not so in 2011 as Seb was all by himself in the WDC so team orders weren't needed. If Lewis got a 70 point gap halfway through the season, McLaren would be very unwise to not protect that gap very early on.
"Hopefully the car has good race pace though! Quali would suggest they can get ahead of the Marussia and HRT's quite easily, and Kovalainen was usually a fast starter last season, so hopefully he can make some good positions early on and have the pace to hold onto them." --------------- Apparently it's good on it's tires, so may be it struggled to get 1lap performance. I don't think sauber style runs are out of the question just yet
He was down in both sectors but I don't know by how much. This. Red Bull were well out in front in Oz last season, Malaysia was fairly evenly matched between McLaren and RBR, and then Red Bull had a big advantage again in China. In the races Vettel dominated Malaysia when the cars were closely matched and then Lewis won China with a car that was comfortably second fastest. Lotus also scored podiums in the first two races. It's impossible to read too much into this session, McLaren, Lotus and Mercedes have clearly made advances while Red Bull have slipped, and at the moment the Ferrari's a dog, but things change quickly and things will probably look completely different when we get to Europe.
Well that was exciting. My conclusions! - Mercedes have some real work to do seeing as their big concept isn't giving them the sort of pace they need even over 1 lap - Red Bull have lost their qualifying pace without the blown diffuser, remains to be seen whether it will be more stable on a full tank - The Williams has good single-lap pace, as does the Sauber - Lotus are looking pretty good - this year's BMW possibly - Caterham still have a lot of work to do to get into Q2 - Massa is running the risk of being replaced - Karthikeyan is running the risk of having his superlicence revoked - Don't like David Croft much
To be fair I know nothing of Romain bar his mediocre performances previously. I don't think RB are done just yet, however I do believe if you are a Seb fan, he could improve his rep without winning. If he can prove to be competitive, maybe even out perform his car alonso/senna style and pull off some great overtakes like button in brazil (or lewis brazil gp2 ((watch it on youtube if you have not seen it!!)) then people will look at him differntly. At the moment I see him as lightening quick if put in a well balanced, tidy car, but maybe not so good in a car that bites back, or when he has even competition around him. (last year he pulled out some brilliant overtakes, but often it was only significant because the car he was overtaking had the potential to hold him up, say after a pit, and not because it was say, going from 2nd to first in spain I hope if it's not to be a VMM WDC/WCC win, that RB, Merc and Lotus all stay competitive till the end. Ferrari I could not give a toss about to be frank. Can't stand them.
Well as a Seb fan personally, is that the start of the season is very important to Seb to win the WDC. In my opinion he starts to fade away slightly mid season and then starts to come back and improve towards the end of the European tour and I feel, deals with the end pressure better than most of the front runners. So Seb needs to bag as many points at the start before the start of the European tour or he will have a big task at the end stint.
1. Agreed, especialy if they chew their tires 2. true, though they may gain time if they sort out the Kers...big if though as it's been a thorn for some time. 3. brilliant from Pastor, Williams could score more points in this one race than they did all last year. 4. More confident in Lotus to have race pace for the full race than Merc. 5. I cant see them making the jump to q2 anytime soon, however nicking a point or 2 over the season is probs their biggest aim? 6. Why do they persist? Kubica (if all goes well) and Alonso could be a very solid pairing. 7. no comment! 8. Why all the Crofty hating? maybe i'm just used to him from the FP's over the years, but I like him. No qualms over him replacing DC, and was over the moon when they finally got rid or legard who was not only a crap commentator, but knew very litle of the sport. edit - perhaps Ferrari remember how shocking bad their reserve and Liuzzi were when Massa took a blow to the head a few years ago!!
He A) will not shut up and B) has Legard syndrome. Most notably when Rosberg locked up going into turn 3: "And-he's-locked-up-already-pressure-already-beginning-to-tell-how-much-damage-has-he-done-to-those-tyres-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah!". After which Brundle calmly pointed out "He still made the apex" Sky made a big mistake demoting Brundle again. Ferrari don't have that many options in fairness. Kubica's probably still contracted to Lotus, even then that makes the assumption that Alonso would be prepared to have him as a team-mate. I foresee a potential Massa/Perez swap mid-season, can't see Ferrari ditching Massa completely, very good feedback driver.
I can understand with the rep thing but personally I have seen him already do it in the past going through the field. During his F3 days the grid would be reveresed for the second race if you were in the top 10, so he has experienced going through the field more often than Lewis did in F3 as he left for GP2 before the rule changing. He also started from the last row at one of the races and finished pretty high up while it was wet, was a great race, but never published like Lewis' stunning recovery on GP2 over youtube. He also got 4th at China in his rookie, "rookie half year" from 18th place in 2007, If I'm correct which stunned a lot of people though hugely ignored as because of the WDC happening. Also Lewis wasn't the only person who had a great race on a wet Monaco in 2008, Seb made up a ton of places that day and would of challenged Lewis for driver of the day. And the last time he really needed to carve up the field was in 2009 and he almost overtook as many cars as Lewis did that day and without Kers assisting him. Ok maybe he hasn't had to do it for a while but he has done some great recoverers, just not under the media spotlight. I'm not stating anything other than that he has already done it in the past when it was required. But this is a older and more experienced Seb who will need to wipe the cobwebs off in this situation.
I did wonder why he didn't go out in Q2. Provides us with a good chance to test the Caterham's race pace I suppose.
