They are doing well. I thought it would be because of so much Ferrari involvement but they have made some rookie mistakes like the front wing pylons in testing and the kerb vibrations causing wing damage. So it does seem like they are actually learning how to build the car and not just getting an 'airfix kit' from Ferrari. Hope they do well.
Nico Rosberg, I salute you. It has taken the most epic lap time EVER on the Bahrain circuit to dislodge you from what most thought was a certain pole. Ferrari needs a driver of your natural speed to give them that extra few tenths, kudos to Allinson and the Ferrari team for pushing Mercedes.
If Lewis was not 4th after the first run would the top 4 have gone out? The qualifying rules got lucky
Yet it was still crap. Then they attempt to remove pole with a technicality. F1 just doesn't seem to want to learn from its errors. It's beyond a joke these days. Just see Bernie's latest ideas. If F1 were a beloved pet, I'd have had the poor thing put down by now.
Finally caught up on qualifying, what a farce. When your commentator can ticket off with 4mins30 to go "Perez can't get another lap in, Ericsson is in the pits so out of time, and Wehrlein can't get in and out again, so that's the session over", you know something's off. And the Williams trundling round for the hell of it at the end of Q2 was amusing, Hulk was the last proper lap with several minutes to go. So the new format clearly doesn't improve Q1 or Q2, and there's talk of introducing an extra set of tyres in Q3 so teams can put another lap in. It's rearranging the deckchairs on the titanic!
Lewis's lap was phenomenal! I have technical question in relation to the knockout situation. On the first runs in Q3 Lewis ran wide at the final turn and exceeded track limits. My initial thoughts were that he must have lost time but at this point he held the fastest S3 time? If this was correct then there must have been an advantage gained in which case should his 4th placed time have been removed?
I guess because the timing sectors we see are made of several smaller sectors, he may have improved in S3, whilst being slower in the "final, final" sector than previous laps. That could be used to show he didn't gain an advantage? That is another factor I think this new qualifying has overlooked though. If a driver exceeds track limits to set a track that keeps him in the session longer, the stewards need to do a super quick review if it isn't to disrupt the session. In Bahrain where 90 seconds isn't enough to do a lap, they need to be about 3min30 ahead of the knockout at all times if they aren't to disrupt teams choosing to run or not. That translates into being certain that the time for 10th (for example) is ok whilst 13th is trying to survive.
