They are the teams to beat in my opinion. It's only the first race but Ferrari looked poor throughout the session and were lucky Massa did not drop out of Q1. He mad an error coming out the pit lane at slow speed which seems like a very hard mistake to make and because of this mistake he cost other drivers losing out on a flying lap and this was in Q3 ( I think) Red Bull look beatable when Webber is in the car but Vettel was immense and considering he did a 1.23.5 without using KERS shows he is the man to beat this season. His team mate Mark Webber was 8 tenths off Vettel's flyer and now starts in 3rd. As a Mclaren and Lewis Hamilton fan I am very pleased with him starting in second and he has the pace of Mclaren and he has the experience of using KERS to fight Vettel at the start and I hope he can get the jump as I would love to see him win. Jenson Button I think can easily jump Webber as I think Webber is a poor starter but I can't wait for tommorow as excitement is guarenteed.
Just you wait, Ferrari will be back. In the summer they will be very good in the hands of Alonso. Just these miserable cold days will hurt them. Alot. Red Bull (Vettel) should win pretty easily as they were better on long runs. I think now it will be 1. Vettel 2. Hamilton 3. Alonso I think Alonso will jump both Button and Webber then just stick with H and V. Maybe get H if the harder run is better and he has the wing.
Hamilton did a fantastic job with that car. Actually so did Button in my opinion. The McLaren still doesn't have the downforce of Ferrari or Mercedes but is almost certainly working its tyres better - certainly than the Mercedes drivers are managing. But the Red Bull is in a different league and I know Mark well enough to know that he's pulling his hair out in disbelief of what Vettel did with it! Two guys stand above the rest at the moment: Vettel and Hamilton. Failing some unseen disaster, Vettel appears to have an advantage of about 30 seconds tomorrow… (No doubt he willl back off when it becomes obvious that he is unbeatable).
I think the cars behind Massa were out of the pits too? Not sure though. Webber will not be that far off in the next Q3. But I cannot explain the difference, what was DC on about when he referred to the difference between team-mates? I don't think RB will be beatable in Qualy for a while this season, if ever, but the race, with the tyre issues will throw everything up in the air. Hopefully including FA, with his face hitting the moon.
I think Webber will finish second barring some unforeseen catastrophe. He has a superior car to Hamilton and the many pitstops should provide him with plenty of clean air to make the most of it. Horner said Webber was losing a lot of time in sector 3, I'd guess a chunk of this was in turn 13 where Vettel was particularly impressive, he was on the power before he was even close to the reaching the apex. Webber will probably see where he's losing time and crank it up in the race. About the big gaps between teammates, has anyone noticed the trend of the younger teammate dominating? Vettel>Webber, Hamilton>Button, Petrov>Heidfeld, Rosberg>Schumacher. It could be that the younger drivers have better capacity for using all the new toys, although with the exception of Petrov I expected the others to be on top anyway.
I think when both Hamilton and Webber pit (If they have not retired early on) Hamilton will have an advantage because Hamilton's hard tyres seem to provide better grip and speed. However I just want to see a great race.
