He was, but at times last year his predictions were completely off. I don't think Mercedes will be able to match Ferrari in dry race pace, nor do I think di Resta's pace will be close to Ferrari.
Aye, assuming they (Ferrari and Mercedes) both opt for a 3 stop race, I think if Mercedes finish within 20 seconds of Ferrari they'd be pretty pleased. If RB are eating up their tyres then I can only see one of Alonso or Kimi winning.
We are going on the assumption that it will be dry. Most people in KL are predicting a race with mixed weather conditions. Qualifying could be wet too which just throws it all up in the air. I think Mercedes will struggle but not to the extremes people are predicting, their long run pace in FP2 was actually pretty good.
Do Lotus have an unfair advantage? http://www.f1zone.net/news/rivals-suspect-lotus-has-unfair-tyre-advantage/18246/ Kimi certainly has one over his teammate - James Allison even admitted preferential treatment.
Looking into it, it seems Pirelli wanted a 2012 spec car, but the teams wouldn't allow it as it would give one team an unfair advantage. Apparently it took 18 months to decide they could have the 2010 Renault, and that unforeseen, fundamental aero differences between the 2010 and 2012 cars caused the small operating window teams experienced last year. The teams were keen to give nobody an advantage, which resulted in the below-optimal solution of a 2010 Renault. However, as the article points out, characteristics of the R30 will have continued into the 2013 car, so Lotus' challenger will most closely resemble the Pirelli test car the tyres were optimised for. Engineers from all teams were consulted, and must have been aware this was a possibility. They must realise that cars maintain some fundamental DNA, so this was short-sightedness from everyone except Renault, who presumably volunteered their 2010 car as part of a compromise. If the team were truly committed to giving nobody a tyre advantage, they should either have made a range of cars available to Pirelli so they could test how the tyres worked with different cars, or contributed money/expertise to Pirelli to allow them to properly update an older car to the 2013 regs, rather than the effort Pirelli appear to have been able to cobble together. There was talk Pirelli had bought a 2012 HRT, which may have been an improved solution, but better still would have been to get the 2013 HRT design (which presumably existed). Then they should have made the plans for the car available to all teams, so they knew what the tyres were being developed for, and delegated parts to each team to construct to evenly split the costs. Then the car would 'just' need assembling and running (and Pirelli have the personnel for at least the latter already),and there would have been a fair test rig. The problem is going to be hugely exacerbated next season by the significant regulation changes, which will give Pirelli a serious headache.
Hasn't taken long for the muck slinging to start, a week ago Lotus couldn't even make the third row of the grid, one win later and they're being discredited. Lotus were the only team prepared to help Pirelli out, the others were too guarded and may or may not be paying the price for it now. If Lotus have gained an advantage it certainly isn't an unfair one; the other teams had the same opportunity but were too selfish to take it.
Massive oversteer for Red Bull. They're in for a **** weekend, they do enough damage to the rears when they aren't sliding about. Grosjean's got loads of understeer, would it be so hard for Lotus to upgrade both cars.
No idea what too take from this. FI seem genuinely quick, their times were strong all session, I think Sutil got purple in sector 3 so they must be quick in a straight line. I think Lotus are sandbagging. Mercedes possibly quicker than Ferrari and Red Bull.
Well boo hoo. I was speaking to Silver about this yesterday and we both agreed that it's the other top teams fault for not making their cars available to pirelli for testing.
Cool, we've got Alan Jones permanently on the pre-show panel this year. He was there last race but I just assumed that was because, well, it's Australia.
