I cant see that they are the 5th fastest team myself behind RB, Williams, Ferrari & Merc. The TR looked very handy and with the Ferrari unit grunt in comparison to McLaren shouldn't be an issue, the FI with the Merc is going to knock spots of them. That leaves them as the 7th best team assuming the Renault is poor - but I don't think that's a given. I'm a McLaren fan but I have to be honest with myself, they haven't managed to extract massive on track PU gains which should have been a night and day difference given the design flaws in the old unit - and be clearly visible on track. I've never been convinced by the chassis for several reasons: Its never been run at the limit of the other chassis because they were so slow, so at best its unproven and not understood and at worst its simply not good enough. Its never been soft on its tyres - even at the pace deficit they have. Its never truly shone in the wet/damp I don't think the aero was particularly good - it lacked down force and relied on mechanical grip which carried over from the previous year.
Mclaren haven't run with a full engine upgrade yet from testing so still hope. I think they will be in the points. Behind Williams and RB
McLaren is the great unknown, I think we've nailed on everyone's relative position within a place or two, but McHRT could be anywhere from Q1 - Q3, if they've got the recovery systems working it'll have a knock on effect to their total race pace ways beyond the immediately obvious, they were incredibly thirsty last season for a start so they'll be lighter fueled.
I think McLaren making reference (vague as it has been) to not running their full 2016 engine is dubious. They had all last season and all off season to redesign and run the updated unit - allegedly turning up with it at the first race with no mileage under it is amateurish to say the least! I agree with Big Ern that the recovery system will likely offer the bigger returns with race pace, but the outright pace of that car is simply not there to be competitively in the top 10 - hope I'm wrong.
Kimi does have a strong history around here, kicks off the season very well usually. I have a positive feeling this season is going to be a titanic battle between Ferrari and Mercedes. An opportunity for so many twists and turns and forced alliances and unlikely enemies as there are many GP's on the calender. I think Hamilton should be confident though, if the heavens open then who knows! - I will wait till later to vote. As for Mclaren, I reckon they will be quicker than testing showed us. Haas will be way behind, and Manor will just be a few tenths of Mclaren. Then a big gap to midfield, which they will probably close up throughout the season, how? That will be down to the inexperienced line-ups in some of the midfield teams. Expect Jenson and Nando to swerve around the trouble as the chaos ensues. I don't doubt Mclarens technical capabilities, only a fool would. So it is best to sit back and let the working progress play out in front of us. I think we were just expecting too much in 2015.
I know but at least Hamilton might not be able to have a hot dog with sauce and a diet coke during his pit stops if they've closed up to two tenths.
It means going wide in corners and having other knocks and bumps in races will be more damaging I suppose.
Didn't Lauda say something similar last year.. "oh, they're only half a second off us now.." Then they proceeded to still maintain a healthy advantage. I'll await the results of FP1, 2 and 3 before getting too excited or depressed!
Was that last year? I think (and I hope I'm wrong) that Merc still have at least a .4+ sec advantage, maybe less in Race pace.. So, for the now, it will take the "right" conditions for anyone else to win or a Merc cock-up.. If they really let the drivers do their own thing this year, it could well bite them in the bottom in both the WDC and WCC, if so, there's only one person that will benefit from this!
He was making reference to the deficit last year in general - obviously it was different track to track. The inference is that deficit has been halved so we may even see Ferrari faster at specific tracks - I wouldn't take Aus as the benchmark for the season. I still think Ferrari's issue last year wasn't its outright pace, it was more to do with continuous deployment and efficiency through a race distance - which stemmed from the previous year where they had suffered similar problems to McLaren. If that is resolved fully in terms of both continuous deployment and efficiency then any outright pace disadvantage (if minimal) will be negligible come race day.
Driver Team Medium Soft Supersoft Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1 6 6 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 2 5 6 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 2 5 6 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 2 5 6 Anyone think hamilton has done so much testing on mediums that taking an extra soft tyre is interesting? does he think he can get that much more out of the one set of mediums?
I don't think it would in the WCC, but the WDC yes, and if they did lose the WDC by letting their drivers race I think it would actually be much better 'public relations'
So does that mean he feels he needs an extra set of those for the race? He's one set of mediums for the race so i'd presume he thinks they know exactly what the set up is for those after testing so will be going for supers and softs in practice and quali.
I think ferrari are behind by 0.3 seconds. I do think mercedes have been in evolution mode not revolution mode so i don't know that they have as much in the locker to come as ferrari might. Ferrari have changed the car to suit the dirvers on the suspension front as well so that all helps. I think last year ferrari looked kinder to tyres early in season too. i think this will be something thats in flux at the start this year with new tyres.
WCC depends on Kimi givng a f***.. If he turns up and the Ferrari is as good as we hope, then I can see them giving Merc a run for their money for that title too.. But.. on current form, the Merc is more reliable than the Ferrari (just) and that could be a factor!
