Daffy
Full Member
And again – LH gets stuck, where FA gets passed.

Nothing to do with the AM clearly having better pace than the merc then lmao

Well, that was fun! 😆

Feel sorry for LeClerc… again FFS! He was doing a solid job with the tools provided up to that point 🙄

Nando looked like he was enjoying himself 😆
Really hoping AM can keep up the push as the season progresses.

Even though I’m not a fan of Verstappen that was a pretty much flawless performance. Another fine recovery drive from Perez too 😆

Did anyone else feel like there was still a bit of a grudge between Checo and Max after qualifying? Body language read like it to me somehow.

Nothing to do with the AM clearly having better pace than the merc then lmao

FA was only catching LH at 0.1s per lap. when he finally did, LH and FA raced within a second of each other for 5 laps and caught Sainz within 4 laps, FA passed LH at turn 10 (no one else made an overtake at turn 10) and passed Sainz within 2, maybe 3 laps with LH right behind him. LH ended up staying behind Sainz and until the end and was almost 10 second behind FA. Sainz was driving slowly, his tyres were shot and he was only fast in a straight line. LH didn;t make the pass in the corners where FA did, he kept waitng for the straights/turn 4 and the DRS and/or for Sainz to make a mistake.

Watch the race – none of this can be disputed, it’s all there on screen.

IF the Aston was substantially faster than the Merc, why did it take FA so long to catch LH, why was Stroll unable to pass GR, how could LH and FA dance for lap after lap regardless of which car was in front?

I’m a LH fan, but I’m not a blind fan.

FA was only catching LH at 0.1s per lap. when he finally did, LH and FA raced within a second of each other for 5 laps and caught Sainz within 4 laps, FA passed LH at turn 10 (no one else made an overtake at turn 10) and passed Sainz within 2, maybe 3 laps with LH right behind him. LH ended up staying behind Sainz and until the end and was almost 10 second behind FA. Sainz was driving slowly, his tyres were shot and he was only fast in a straight line. LH didn;t make the pass in the corners where FA did, he kept waitng for the straights/turn 4 and the DRS and/or for Sainz to make a mistake.

Watch the race – none of this can be disputed, it’s all there on screen.

IF the Aston was substantially faster than the Merc, why did it take FA so long to catch LH, why was Stroll unable to pass GR, how could LH and FA dance for lap after lap regardless of which car was in front?

I’m a LH fan, but I’m not a blind fan.

Given the same car as Hamilton Russell couldn’t even challenge an average driver with broken wrists.

Anyhow, terrible race and ominous for the season ahead. Great to see the regulation changes last season have made such a dramatic difference though…..

I’m a LH fan, but I’m not a blind fan.

Maybe not, but you are desperate to “prove” your rather strange assertion, which I don’t think I’ve seen proposed by any respected F1 journalist

The only thing I’ll add – Alonso was going for his first podium in years, I’m not sure LH could care less if he’s 4th or 5th.

Desperate? 😂

The only thing I’ll add – Alonso was going for his first podium in years, I’m not sure LH could care less if he’s 4th or 5th.

I don’t believe that for a moment. Rule 1.) Beat your teammate. Rule 2.) Beat everyone else. They’re always racing for position. It HAS to matter.

I think Hamilton has lost a bit of interest now. I’m sure I head one of the commentators say something about him not going anywhere until he had his 8th championship but might have miss heard as I wasn’t paying proper attention at the time but I can’t see this happening now if they do go for normal sidepods then everyone’s got a couple of years on them and as good as they are by the time that happens he’ll be retired.

As you were for Red Bull and Ferrari then. Enjoyed the Aston Martin v Mercedes tussles though!

Daffy

FA was only catching LH at 0.1s per lap. when he finally did, LH and FA raced within a second of each other for 5 laps and caught Sainz within 4 laps, FA passed LH at turn 10 (no one else made an overtake at turn 10) and passed Sainz within 2, maybe 3 laps with LH right behind him. LH ended up staying behind Sainz and until the end and was almost 10 second behind FA. Sainz was driving slowly, his tyres were shot and he was only fast in a straight line. LH didn;t make the pass in the corners where FA did, he kept waitng for the straights/turn 4 and the DRS and/or for Sainz to make a mistake.

Watch the race – none of this can be disputed, it’s all there on screen.

IF the Aston was substantially faster than the Merc, why did it take FA so long to catch LH, why was Stroll unable to pass GR, how could LH and FA dance for lap after lap regardless of which car was in front?

I’m a LH fan, but I’m not a blind fan.

I almost can’t be bothered to talk about this, it’s such a bizarre point to make.

Lewis has shown many times that he can cut through the field, probably the most famous one being turkey 2006 when he came back from p18 to take p2 and thus win the gp2 championship (so identical cars & no DRS).

The AM is just clearly faster and better car in every area than the Merc is. But don’t take my word for it

https://www.mercedesamgf1.com/reports/bahrain-grand-prix-2023

Whoops that 👆 post sounds way more aggy than I meant it to be on reading it back… But I can’t now edit it.

Just imagine I’m making the same points without being a dick about it

I’m not sure what I find more tedious: yet another Red Bull cruise to a 1-2 or yet another page or two of an STW F1 thread filled with bickering about one person’s opinion about a driver.

I’m not sure I’m going to bother watching the highlights….after all the anticipation after pre-season testing it does look like the season is done and dusted in terms of who wins. As far as I can see, almost nothing has really changed since last season with RB comfortably ahead, Ferrari probably 2nd…and the only change is AM joining the scrap with Mercedes for places when Ferrari break down or blow their strategy calls.

I hope I’m wrong.

I don’t know as the race was so exciting that I slept through most of it.

I hope I’m wrong

I will guarantee that you’re wrong. Bahrain is a weird circuit that’s pretty much unlike everything else. I think the title is  RB’s but I don’t think for a second that they won’t have to fight for it.

As a race it was OK – some good action between Alonso and Lewis, and further down the field too. Albon doing the business again.

It’s just that feeling of aaaaahhh-shit you got when Max sailing off into the distance without having to push it at any time.

The aaaaahhh-shit feeling seeing McLaren so far off the pace – again.

The aaaaahhh-shit feeling seeing a Ferrari parked up – again.

The aaaaahhh-shit feeling seeing of knowing Perez isn’t capable of taking a fight to Max. So not even a team-mate battle to look forward too.

The aaaaahhh-shit feeling of ‘well that’s the 2023 title over’! 🙂

Really depends if you’re only interested in the winners or the ebb and flow up and down the grid. Williams seem to have taken a step forward, with more to come once their new structure settles down. McLaren have done worse than Merc – at this rate Lando will be a sure thing for Audi. At the front I don’t think we really know what the gap to RBR is – Max was easing away comfortably then (allegedly) had some mechanical grumbles, so if he was being challenged I expect there’s a fair bit of pace left for him to explore. But F1 was ever thus – we tend to see periods of dominance by one team as they exploit the regulations better than the rest, then either the regs change or people move on and the next challenger steps up. I’d say that RBR’s performance in 2021 – catching and (caveated) beating the previous dominant team – is the exception rather than the rule.

Twodogs
Full Member

I’m not sure I’m going to bother watching the highlights….after all the anticipation after pre-season testing it does look like the season is done and dusted in terms of who wins. As far as I can see, almost nothing has really changed since last season with RB comfortably ahead, Ferrari probably 2nd…and the only change is AM joining the scrap with Mercedes for places when Ferrari break down or blow their strategy calls.

I hope I’m wrong.

Worth watching for the alonso/hamilton scrap if nothing else!

Bahrain is a weird circuit that’s pretty much unlike everything else. I think the title is RB’s but I don’t think for a second that they won’t have to fight for it.

This. The cars have only run on one circuit, one which puts heavy load on the rear tyres. The Mercs and Ferraris had to nurse their rear tyres, the Red Bulls and Aston Martins didn’t. Other circuits will require different car characteristics. Red Bull clearly have a very good car, but Bahrain almost certainly exaggerated their advantage.

Bahrain is a weird circuit

There was some stat they were quoting on R5 that the winner of Bahrain hasn’t gone on to win the Championship since 2016 (I think)

Really depends if you’re only interested in the winners

I’m not, but I really detest seeing Verstappen (and more importantly, Horner) winning 😂

Worth watching for the alonso/hamilton scrap if nothing else!

True….I hear Alonso was saying nice things about their tussle this morning…bit of a a change of tune from last year!

thols2

This. The cars have only run on one circuit, one which puts heavy load on the rear tyres. The Mercs and Ferraris had to nurse their rear tyres, the Red Bulls and Aston Martins didn’t. Other circuits will require different car characteristics. Red Bull clearly have a very good car, but Bahrain almost certainly exaggerated their advantage.

True enough but i get the feeling they had probably a second or more in the bag if they’d needed it.

They seemed to have less deg on the soft than other teams had on the hard!

True enough but i get the feeling they had probably a second or more in the bag if they’d needed it.

This. If you look at the fastest laps, the Red Bulls were over two seconds off the top, with near-identical times between the two cars. This from a car that was fast enough to qualify 1-2. That’s several signs of a very comfortable race for them.

The problem I have with it is not that one team is dominant, but that the dominant team is one who you know will only be backing one driver. It was the Schumacher/Ferrari years that stopped me watching F1 for a few years in the mid 2000s for that reason, until there was some hype about some new British hot tip which meant I turned in at the start of 2007… At least when McLaren and Mercedes and Williams have been dominant they’ve mostly let their drivers fight and some of those dominant years have been classics.

It’s a shame I don’t like Alonso, otherwise I’d have felt much more enthused by Aston’s performance. As it was I was largely just disappointed by McLaren and Mercedes. To the point where I’d think that Norris will be looking for (or poached for) another seat quite soon, and if Mercedes’ supposed upgrades don’t instantly catapult them into regular podiums then we’re very quickly going to see a lot of questions about Hamilton’s potential retirement.

The RB is disadvantaged at the Sakhir circuit much less than nearly every other car. There’s an extreme here that happens almost nowhere else I can think of. Things will be much different at every other race.

there’s obviously a problem with extracting predictions of performance from a circuit that flatters the RB while at the same time reveals an issue (rear tyre wear) with other cars that isn’t going to be as bad from now on

Is that true? Last year the Red Bulls qualified second and fourth and in the race Mercedes finished surprisingly well (obviously assisted by RB’s double DNF, but their gap to the winner was a tenth of what it was this year) yet Red Bull dominated the season and Mercedes were completely adrift until Silverstone. I agree that one circuit is a poor predictor (and it’s annoying that they now use the first circuit of the season for testing) but I’m not sure it’s necessarily obvious what it’s predicting poorly. But there are plenty of people here more familiar with the numbers than I am…

Yeah the RB is clearly a really really good car, they’ve  managed that by creating “enough” down force over “most” of the circuits. Ferrari and Mercedes can’t produce that overall level of down force so they aim to take advantage in places where the  “averagely good” RB hasn’t got either the peak downforce that the Ferrari can on the straight or in the medium/slow speed corners where the Merc is a bit better.

Sahkir shows off the very best of the RB while at the same time the very worst of the Ferrari and Merc.

the RB/ Verstappen combo is still going to be ridiculously hard to beat though, agreed.

It’s a shame I don’t like Alonso, otherwise I’d have felt much more enthused by Aston’s performance.

There’s a separate thread for that.

Separating the Art from the Artist

I do wonder if McLaren are saving their budget for next years car. This years looks underdeveloped and they’ve only just got their new wind tunnel up and running. So makes sense to use the new tools on the 2024 car.

But then they have talks with Red Bull about a Ford engine supply, which smacks of a lack of ambition – while Honda are sat there with a race-winning engine and no-one to use it! 🤷‍♂️

Mark Hughes has an explanation of why Red Bull were so dominant (beyond just having a very good car).

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.monday-morning-debrief-how-red-bulls-unique-strategy-helped-seal-their.3BBHxzJWLvisNBD0CdKUyD.html

I do wonder if McLaren are saving their budget for next years car. This years looks underdeveloped and they’ve only just got their new wind tunnel up and running. So makes sense to use the new tools on the 2024 car.

But then they have talks with Red Bull about a Ford engine supply, which smacks of a lack of ambition – while Honda are sat there with a race-winning engine and no-one to use it!

I thought they said they just messed up the aero and have too much drag/not enough downforce, but are going to bring a big upgrade in a few races.

Honda won’t have a race-winning engine in 2026, they may not have any engine. The engines will all have to be redesigned from scratch for the new rules, they can’t just bolt their current engine in. At this stage, every team will be talking to Honda and Ford (and the other engine manufacturers) as a routine thing just to get a picture of what might be available. The headlines about being in talks are probably true, but they don’t really mean much.

There’s a separate thread for that.

Oh, now I feel like I have to Google to find out what several people’s toxic characteristics are. (Not that my own tastes have a huge overlap with the names on that thread…)

Anyway, for me it’s simple when it comes to sport: anything that comes under foul play gets someone marked down in my book. Schumacher and Alonso both firmly qualify. With Verstappen it’s hard to tell; he’s probably more tainted in my eyes by his father and his team, although his arrogance became tiresome after a while before his bad Monaco weekend forced him to get a grip. In his first season or two I really loved his on-track performance so it was a shame it gradually became obscured by other things.

It’s a shame I don’t like Alonso

Like him or loathe him he’s a hell of a racer. More likeable than Verstappen too.

Like him or loathe him he’s a hell of a racer.

Yup, there’s no disputing that. Lots of times when he’s dragged an underperforming car to an impressive result, and the only teammate he didn’t trounce was the one who now has 7 titles.

If he can rob Red Bull of some wins I might warm to him 😉

I think much of Verstappen’s arrogance –  for a given value over baseline racing driver standard. is down to him being from the Netherlands

I’ve met a few and they can come across like that to Brits as they don’t have the same brain-mouth filters that we do.

Was deflated after seeing the RB sail off into the distance and frankly Max could have driven around one arm out the car and pulled in for a coffee and still won.

However…

Pinning hope on the ‘only 46.6% of winners of the first race go on to win the championship’ stat.

Nothing against Max, but I woud love the see that smug look wiped of Horners face.

Can somebody explain to me why on earth Mercedes have turned up with such an uncompetitive car which they clearly knew was uncompetitive and were already talking about changes before the Championship started (with the sidepods specifically)? After last season surely they should have gone back to the drawing board and taken the same approach most other teams have proven is the correct approach? Surely constructors should be geared up with having what they believe is the most competitive car for the start of the season, not a few races in?

Can somebody explain to me why on earth Mercedes have turned up with such an uncompetitive car which they clearly knew was uncompetitive

Don’t know – it’s baffling. According to Wolff they hit their performance targets for the new car, it’s just that the Red Bull has gone further away than expected. They are there or there abouts with Ferrari and Aston though. And we can’t say Aston are really in the mix based on one race.

Seems Plan B was always in the works – It’ll just be bought forward.

Bez

Anyway, for me it’s simple when it comes to sport: anything that comes under foul play gets someone marked down in my book. Schumacher and Alonso both firmly qualify. With Verstappen it’s hard to tell; he’s probably more tainted in my eyes by his father and his team, although his arrogance became tiresome after a while before his bad Monaco weekend forced him to get a grip. In his first season or two I really loved his on-track performance so it was a shame it gradually became obscured by other things.

What????

Verstappen has been barging people off the track since he got into F1 – 90% of his overtakes were DRS assisted block passes that ran the car in front off the track.

I won’t say he’s not a great driver as his car control is 2nd to none but he’s cynical and a habitual cheat in my eyes.

Verstappen has been barging people off the track since he got into F1 – 90% of his overtakes were DRS assisted block passes that ran the car in front off the track.

My recollection of his early races was that he did what Senna did: he positioned his car such that the other driver had the option of ceding the place or coming together. That’s not the same as being the one who takes the decision to come together, or barging people off the track. It’s a fine line but I recall seeing Verstappen’s passing as always just about staying the right side of that line: ballsy and aggressive and eye-opening, but not in itself dangerous. I don’t recall the specific examples, I just recall my impression of his driving style. His defending on the other hand did cross the line and was certainly dangerous. And things have evolved, of course: there were multiple occasions in 2021 for example when he seemed very willing to be the one causing the collision. Maybe looking back at his early races with that hindsight I would see them in a different light, I don’t know.

I watched the C4 high lights last night, the Alonso/Hamilton duel was the high point.
A few good moves further down the field, but watching Max cruise off was disappointing.
Was never a huge Alonso fan – especially after crash-gate etc., but I’m liking Alonso 2.0 after his break from F1 – seems more fired up than previous years.

Thought Haas might have been in the mix a bit more after Hulks qualy, but their race pace isn’t there