Hamilton and Sebastian finally went wheel to wheel under the Spanish sun, Lewis took the win after a number of tussles in an amazing race. Ricciardo picked up his first podium of the season. Elsewhere Kimi, Bottas and Verstappen had an unfortunate coming together at turn 1, Alonso overtook somebody!, Force India and Hulkenberg continue their impressive show of form. We return to the jewel of the calendar, how will the wider cars fair through the streets of the principality? No room for error over 70+ laps. Driver skill counts more here than anywhere else... This season is showing the beginnings of a titanic two driver battle... Will Ferrari strike back? Last year Ricciardo was robbed of a win by a team cock-up. *Alonso will miss this Grand Prix due to Indy 500 commitments. please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image TV TIMES (BST): FP1-9am FP2-1pm SP3-10am Q-1pm R-1pm TYRES ALLOCATED: Ultra-Soft Super-Soft Soft 2017 Predictions Championship x3 El_Bando x2 moreinjuredthanowen Smithers BrightLampShade tomcat606 BigErn Julius Caesar ErnieBecclestone eddie_squidd happyal fevriul St. Slicks of Stoneham Dell Boy x1 tomcat606 DHCanary SgtBhaji dhel McFerrari ched999uk discostu333
Poll thread, I made a rookie error and forgot to add with the main chat thread, use this to post votes.
Maybe the problem is those replacements don't want to be in the Renault, they aren't exactly great shakes themselves, maybe Palmer was the best they could get? Renault are wishy washy, 1 year they wanna be in F1, the next 3 they're trying to sell up. they've had more than a couple of years longer than Honda to build an engine, and under less pressure, but I don't think it's up there with the other 2, regardless of what the FIA say. It's an attractive proposition for Alonso right now, but will it be at the end of the season? If Honda fix their vibration there's a pretty good chance it'll unlock the rest of the power unit's capability, which must be suffering due to it's inability to run at optimum. And if the Mclaren is a Q3 car by 2/3rds of the season he won't leave them for Renault.
That's a fair point in terms of the engine. But we can't go on one q3 performance 5 races in. We have to take into account the development since 2015. Which has been mininal, infact they have possibly gone backwards this season. I very much doubt they will be hot stuff in 2018.
I should imagine there's a fair few drivers with money and who could do a comparable job. Nasr springs to mind. It's an opportunity to impress other teams and not just Renault ahead of next season. Despite blotting his copybook in China, Giovinazzi's stock has risen off the back of a couple of races.
I've said if by the 2/3 of season mark if it is a Q3 car, which doesn't mean a fluke Q result for one of their drivers, but consistently in the Q3 session with both cars. Atm I would say it's Williams and FI that are the other 2 teams that have a Q3 car. Giovanazzi. Will renault give their 'works' seat to a Ferrari driver? or vica versa? Edit: look at the camber on Senna's front left, crazy amounts that it makes it look damaged
The bigger concern is the number of failures the engines have suffered on their first laps this year. That is something more than just issue with vibrations, its a whole quality control issue (may have gone on about this before). Until Honda accept their way of working isn't fit for F1 and reorganise themselves into a European (British?) way of doing things, then they will never succeed. As for Alonso to Renault, they are improving and Hulk has made them look pretty good in quali, but the races they still fall back dramatically so are still far from being close to the 'best of the rest' outside the top 3. Can't see why Alonso would want to take another few seasons of mid-grid struggle. Why not go to Indycar full time and wipe the floor with the average pot of drivers they have over there and have some fun doing it? I reckon the organisers would probably stump up some of his salary to get some much needed overseas publicity for a whole season. Am sure Chip Ganassi or Roger Penske would be happy to have him on board.
Hondas issue isn't just outright power and reliability, it's economy aswell. I worry that even if they can get somewhere near on outright performance and stay reliable, they will be doing that much fuel concerning we will never know.
Mercedes are thinking they might struggle this weekend which is why ive gone for Vettel. Although I think Red Bull might look good here
we won't know how good the rest of it is until they cure the up-shift vibration. until then it's not going to run at optimum, and that'll hurt it on both sides, ICE and electrical, the only way to combat the loss of harvested electrical power is to use more fuel, which is a double edged sword due to the extra weight.
Red Bull will be closer here. I nearly went for Verstappen, but I've gone Ricciardo instead. This might turn out to be genius, but probably not.
Ferrari are currently holding most – if not all – of the aces, especially for slower circuits. The Mercedes has a far longer wheelbase rendering it less flickable* where it matters and more likely to suffer with tyres. It will want to 'push' in the slower corners, making it much more difficult to get a good balance relative to the Ferraris and Red Bulls. Mercedes will probably be able to contain Red Bull through extra power, but does not hold this advantage over Ferrari. *Flickability is a great asset at Monaco.
Where's the fun in that? Maybe I should have voted Alonso. He's got as much chance of winning it from Americanshireland as he would if he was actually on track.