Had a sinking feeling when Williams signed Kubica it was an emotional rather than sporting move. Seems that way. CLC a bit down on himself for his Q3 performance, but won’t start looking at him vs Vettel until the fourth race. Man, those Mercs are worryingly quick.
Best car, best driver, best team, done it again, season is set. Kubica, give up man, it can't be done.
Begining to look like the entire Williams team should call it a day. Even in George Russell's capable hands they're as bad as old Caterhams.
As much as I feel Mercedes have an awesome car, Haas ain't exactly far off Ferrari, have Ferrari messed it up somewhere?
The bit " Where Ferrari might go wrong " is interesting . https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/47527705
Kubica, it does look a worry. Off the pace and didn't he hit the wall in practice. I guess we have to see in a couple of races whether he can match George. Wiiliams - McLaren had Norris in Q3 when they were in a dreadful place in past seasons, so a rebuild is possible for Williams but they need to rebuild this year to keep sponsors I expect. Nothing is impossible but it will be staffing and morale and money that achieves it. Doesn't look good. Stroll, no one has mentioned him, out in Q1. He now has a half decent car. Will he damage the team in the seasons points by failing to deliver consistently. No where to hide now. I am sure the race itself will deliver some surprises and upset the order we are seeing. Early wake tomorrow.
What mercedes did was to get Ferarri to show their hand against the 1st car in thr first tests, then they brough the second car and only really extended.it a bit on the last day. So with everybody doting about how sweet the Ferrari waa to drive and its pace, tey just got caught offguard. I honestly believe that the Mercs drive were a bit surprised too because they thought Ferrari were sandbagging. When you compare both cars though, you would reslly think Ferrari were sandbagging, because the car looks so smooth and easy to drive, while the Mercs are bumping and stiff, and thr drivers appear to be wrestling with thr car. So the race eill be exciting.because it will be tough for Mercs drivers to fight thst car for a whole race distance. If only that waa as smooth os the Ferraris thrn i would say season is in trouble, but......
Although I don't THINK Kubica will deliver , I hope I am wrong and I hope given more time he will come good . He's had precious little driving yet . He said himself he feels only 20% prepared .
Yes, was thinking that about the Mercs over a race distance. If they’re fast but jittery it could throw up some costly mistakes (and when it’s that bumpy, things can break on the car too). Suspect it’s wishful thinking though - they can probably run off, hide, then take it easy with that pace.
the Merc front end is shoving the air outwards and over wheels which makes it twichy but it's bloody fast. the Ferrari is pushing air inside and round barge board which are also bigger. it's nice to drive but it's not exactly stinking right now. the only hope here is ferrari use a lot less tyres and end up winning race after pit stops. i hope. in short the gap.last year was smaller... hamilton to walk this championship
Aus is not a typical circuit so I am hoping that Ferrari's design to get the downforce 'inboard' will work better than the traditional outwash designs that Merc and Red Bull have stuck with. I was hoping that different designs would give benefits in different areas of the track so there would be more of a battle. I did think Merc were sandbagging during testing as they always do but I do wonder if they have fully shown their hands yet!!!!! Great to see Norris and McLaren doing reasonably well. Pity for Renault as they don't seem to quite be towards the front of the mid pack. I do feel very sorry for Williams, Kubica seems to need a bit more practice to get used to the size of the car, I really hope he is not having strength issues. As for the car!!!!!!!! I think it's amazing that with 4 different PUs, 10 different chassis not to mention 20 drivers can be so close on the track. Well I say close that is if you discount Williams!!!!! So how can Williams have this so wrong? Is there wind tunnel vs computational models vs on track correlation off/ If it was they would surely know. So it must be poor design, so is that because they can't attract the decent talent, I doubt it, as they know full well they need a good design so they must throw decent money at talent. Is it leadership? Well after seeing the documentary about Williams and Frank I do wonder if Franks management style and I dare say the style that his daughter grew up with has had it's day. I do feel really sad for Williams as their ethos of building everything they can on the car is one I think should be the way it's done. I really don't like these 'B' teams. The 'A' teams are getting way too much control over everything on and off the track. Liberty are going to have a huge job to stop 'B' teams, introduce a police-abe budget cap, create decent 2021 rules and redistribute prize money!!!!
Just noticed that Kubica only just scraped through on 107%. Lewis 1m20.486s - Kubica 1m26.067s - 107% = 1m26.120s. OK so he hit barriers and would have probably gained a little, His team mate George Russell did 1m24.360s so Kubica should have been able to reduce his time by 1.5s at least. Doesn't look good for them though as lots of the other were out of position in relation to their teammates. I wonder how the Mercs and Ferrari will do on the tyres? How good will reliability be at first race, there are sure to be some silly failures. Hopefully we will get a good race.
