AG: for the sake of brevity, please forgive me trimming your excellent post. You've made some good points. Yes, it is Alonso's preference for understeer which underpins his steering technique (and the high ratio he uses for it) because he's continually exploring the limit of grip, feeling his way around with slip-angles regularly in excess of 10% at the front. By contrast, he doesn't enjoy the rear to be too lively. (…anticipates another Bando joke!). It'll be interesting to see how Pirelli's new rubber works (… please: one joke is enough), and Alonso will be very happy if it doesn't grain too much, or unpredictably. (oh crikey, I give up…. You also make reference to Räikkönen's technique, and I agree with you that it has become gentler, smoother and easier since his rallying. The contrast between Ferrari's drivers* this season is substantial and will require a very well-balanced chassis if they are each to succeed without detriment to the other. See below. Yes, Han; they'll let Rosberg win! No doubt about it. Rosberg is maturing into a thoroughly serious contender to become a world champion, well capable of pushing Hamilton very hard. He has ridden himself of the 'enigma' status I labelled him with years ago, both in his early F1 days, and of course whilst under the humid atmosphere surrounding Schumacher. (You may be new to this forum but many established members graduated from the BBC606 F1 forum; one of several where I made this point). - - -o0o- - - *Between team-mates, the contrasting styles of Alonso and Hamilton were even bigger and I'm sure most will remember McLaren's headaches that year, with ultimately disastrous fallout. But although I don't expect fireworks (if they happen) to be so dramatic at Maranello, Alonso's unrelenting clamour for attention could lead to pram toys on pavements if Räikkönen puts him under early pressure, or if he senses the car favouring his opponent's style more than his own.
I feel that if this was the mid naughties Raikkonen then it would be very close, but I can't help but think he's massively under performed in the last two years, he's had a pretty much equal car to Alonso and couldn't get close to him in the championship either time. I can only see one winner here. ..And not to mention Massa was easily better than Raikkonen at the time they were team mates (yes even in 07 imo, just Massa couldnt handle the pressure) and Alonso has easily beaten him.
To quote..... FERRARI IS BETTER THAN EXPECTED Kevin Turner please log in to view this image It was always likely one of the engine manufacturers was going to run into trouble with the complicated new systems. Ferrari was the most conservative when it came to lobbying for various powerplant rules over the winter so there was an assumption it was already on the back foot, that 2014 would be Mercedes versus Renault. The Jerez running indicates otherwise. Mercedes has grabbed the headlines, accounting for 60 per cent of the total number of laps completed, but Ferrari has been quietly impressive too. If you take the number of laps completed per car, Ferrari has 148 against the 219 of Mercedes (and 50 of Renault). Then throw in the fact that Marussia didn't get its Ferrari-powered MR03 onto the track until day three and the tally looks good. It's hard to argue Mercedes is not currently ahead in the engine war, but Ferrari is in the ballpark.
So it begins... *gust of wind in background* Anyway I expect Rosberg to go up another notch like Hamilton who is now used to the team after a year in. Rosberg has the respect and self confidence in taking on one of the best 3 drivers on the grid after only finishing 18pts away from him. This with just a bit more bad luck than which Lewis endured IMO last year, but not by much. In respect they're both close in ability, Hamilton is more consistent in Qualifying, starts and race and is WDC experienced unlike Rosberg. But Nico is more mentally stable and seems better able to adapt around new parts as proven with Schumacher when the car was made to suit him more and for Hamilton last year with brakes, Nico seems to be be able to work well with anything given to him. He also seems yet to hit his peak as well which is interesting as I believe Lewis had already hit it years ago, Nico just improves year after year and has a Vettel-esque improvement within F1 and slowly ironing out those issues he had the previous year. I do believe nothing will separate them much, I'm talking like single figure close and that isn't for hype for the season, bar any major bad luck this will be the title decider right here IMO and I bet they both know it. Also I expect Nico to go 101% I reckon he knows this will be his only chance to take the WDC as I do expect Vettel to come in to replace him if the Renault engine is looking that bad from 2014 onwards. Mercedes I know never really! considered Nico for the long run until he beat Schumacher as they themselves didn't openly rate Nico a top 5 driver at the time which was (Alonso, Button, Vettel, Hamilton, Kubica, Webber), Nico has had to work hard to prove us all wrong. Nico was the best driver available yes in 2009 though Vettel at the time was the more highly rated and wanted German, but Nico was never really a long term option when he first joined Mercedes back in 2010. I truly believe Mercedes always wanted Vettel to lead the team as do Ferrari when Alonso either retires or gets fired. So IMO, Nico doesn't have much choice, he has to win this WDC to secure his seat for the long term or very likely lose it come 2015 if they win nothing, plus the Mercedes board have been getting rid of old personnel in the Huag era since last year, and Nico would be one of them... Hamilton is calmer mentally, I believe he has got past some issues with his father which is good to see. Niki and Toto seem to be protecting him well with his performances and giving him the kick up the backside when he doesn't perform well which does encourage him to do better rather than sulk 2011 style. If Hamilton can just hold is emotions for the whole year like Vettel and Alonso can do he is within a great shout of the WDC. He must not fade like he usually does, he cant because Nico will take him out there and then IMO.
I'm beginning to wonder if I should have begun this comparison of Ferrari's drivers in the thread concerning their F14T. Apologies to moderators if they see a need to transplant the recent part of this thread. I agree Fred, that Alonso has always tended to have the edge on Räikkönen, who in my opinion was extremely fortunate to win his World Championship whilst its 'real' contenders continued to squabble and trip each other in a camp which had lost command, not least to Alonso's formidable ego. However, I think that for all concerned, things have evolved. You mention Massa. Well, I would say that this is a very significant part of the equation, since there can be little doubt Alonso felt very comfortable about dominating him, and would have been more than happy to have him as a floor-scrubbing team-mate forever! Massa had always been Schumacher's lackey and he (Alonso) had despatched Schumacher; not once, but twice. Back to back. This effectively ended Schumacher's elevated status and put his nose so much out of joint that with reservation, he called it a day. Massa witnessed David slay not just his Goliath, but someone he saw as a virtually deity. Having been attached to his idol's coat-tails for almost his entire F1 career, Massa was, for Alonso, already well and truly cooked; especially since Alonso demanded and was granted an equally god-like, number one status when he gate-crashed the party for an apologetically loyal, thoroughly dejected number two. Coming back to the present, Alonso is no longer in the comfort zone he's always enjoyed; after all, going even further back, he was always psychologically far stronger than the equally quick Jarno Trulli. On top of that, as discussed already, Räikkönen has become more refined, and in my opinion, an altogether better driver than before. â And I think Alonso senses this. Perhaps then, if Ferrari has not produced a car which gives Alonso a better chance of landing the first blow, they may be sitting on a time-bomb. As alluded to previously, if there is any substance to what is nothing more than a gut feeling at this stage, we may get a clearer picture in the heat haze of a Bahraini sand-stormâ¦
Another joke on Red Bull which I'm sure people will laugh at http://forums.autosport.com/topic/191766-renault-problems-are-catastrophic/?p=6573411
From Gary Anderson's test round up on Autosport: "Bahrain will be interesting, because we will start to see more race-distance runs. Melbourne is a high fuel-use circuit so you might have to do your sims on 90kg instead as that would be equivalent to 100kg in Australia." What's he on about? Does Australia have different gravity to everywhere else? I may well have missed his point. Any ideas?
Bahrain is lower fuel use so for the same distance you'd need less fuel, so it helps you practice with the same limited amount of fuel? Surely teams would just go a longer distance...
It's probably just track specific, more so than environment. It's further explained here on each of the tracks: http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/f1-information/going-to-a-race/ Things like the amount of gear changes and amount of time spent on full throttle, this over a span of almost 2hrs will drain the tank a bit more overtime.
Also another interesting thing I will be watching this year will be how Lewis does with this new braking system, 'brake by wire' as his biggest strong point as a driver are the use of his brakes historically. If not ideal for Lewis he seemed a bit flustered against Nico and Jenson when he isn't happy with them, a bit like Vettel was when the rear end was not consistent into corners.
Next tests: 19th-22nd Feb 27th Feb - 2nd Mar Both in Bahrain and 4 days each 16 days to fix any issues now, realistically less as the cars need to get there and be built.
I think Ted said that they would have about 10 days after the 1st test before they would ship out to the next text, after the logistics of travelling we're taken into account.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/112403 Apparently the new cars too slow. Hmmm... they are driving the cars well below their maximum revs at this stage to focus on reliability and gather data, and many of them haven't even started sticking the proper aero bits on yet. So what's the point in an article saying the cars are slower? Come time to race and as the test progress they will have more straight line and cornering speed than they have now. With the total horsepower being not dissimilar to last year's cars I would expect straight line speed to be similar (with less drag perhaps with bits of wing no longer there, although maybe not in McLaren's case), cornering will be slower but few of these cars are in proper trim yet, so that should help. Seems a bit of a nonsense for drivers to complain the cars are slow at this stage. And as Alonso pointed out overall lap time is irrelevant really, what we are looking for is competition and exciting racing not lap time for its own sake.
Don't know if a video of Hamiltons crash was shown here.. [video=youtube;guc2-x7dGnA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guc2-x7dGnA&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/video] Looks like Hamilton went wide over the kerb before the wing came off
