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Open Wheel Racing 2019, There is Ferrari and then everyone else

M

manurespreader

Still upright
Since we are now under 2 weeks until Melbourne and Indy is getting ready to start I thought it would be good to have a new thread.
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2019, There is Ferrari and then everyone else

Now that F1 testing is over here is what I've learned by spending 6 hours per day watching the live stream.
Ferrari has stolen a march on everyone and is roughly .3 quicker than Mercedes, who sandbagged through most of the test until the last day. Ferrari has had a few small issues such as electrical and hitting something on the track which both caused Vettel to stop, in one case against the barrier. The car is easy to drive and LeClerc is also very quick.
Mercedes is fast and after the first week introduced a change by changing out over 1500 new parts, mostly aero parts over last weekend. It has made them better.
the field is bunched quite close behind. Red Bull and Renault are both about the same but only .1 or .2 slower than Mercedes. Then there is a group of three teams right behind them, another .1 behind. Torro Rosso, Alpha, MacLaren are all very good and showed a lot of quickness.
Following them is Haas, then racing point about another .1 back and finally Williams another .5 seconds after that.
Williams did not get the car running until day 3 1/2 and so they were way behind. the car improved significantly but they are still over a second back on Mercedes.
Now you can't read too much into testing. the teams all have an MO and most of it means they do not focus on lap times. The last day they work on qualifying trim and so there is some correlation. Williams tried to catch up and did to some degree. Time will tell. They are putting on a brave face,But they haven't shown a lot of speed. Everyone else is going faster by at least a second.
So bottom line it will be very close in the mid field with all the teams making big strides and the cars are a bit faster than last years cars. Alpha, toro Rosso and Renault will be right there if the big boys falter.
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2019, There is Ferrari and then everyone else

Oh poop!

@peterjkostis: What a loss... Charlie Whiting gone at 66.... F1 will miss him. RIP
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2019, There is Ferrari and then everyone else

So we get going in F1 this weekend! I'll watch FP3 here in a few min, and watch a replay of qualifying in the morning. So far, the practices have been very interesting relative to winter testing. Seeing Merc so fast isn't a surprise, but it was cool to see Red Bull being pushed by that Honda so quick. The midfield looks REALLY close. Other than Williams, which is just trying to survive.

The Indycar race last weekend was pretty darned good. Clean, hard driving, and reasonably close. Some impressive rookies, too.

(on a side, not open wheel note- nice to see WEC @ Sebring- which is on Motor Trend until Midnight)
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2019, There is Ferrari and then everyone else

Someone forgot to send the news conclusions from winter testing to Mercedes. Both of them broke the track record. And are pretty far clear of the Ferraris.
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2019, There is Ferrari and then everyone else

Dominant drive by Bottas, you hear all the cliches around a new sporting season (hungrier than ever, best shape of their life etc), but he went out and put his money where his mouth was. What a show.

Ferrari, yeesh, that wasn't great. Leclerc unlucky to finish behind Vettel tbh.

Stroll looked pretty good. Obviously it's just one race, but the stigma that he's a bad driver propped up by daddy's money can be disproven on the track and he had a solid drive today.

Kvyat was excellent too, aside from when he went into the gravel, you have to wonder where he'd finish had he not lost so much time there with the pace he had today. Defended extremely well against Gasly who was on newer, faster tires.

That Williams is legitimately atrocious
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2019, There is Ferrari and then everyone else

solovsfett said:
Yep. They were sandbagging like Penske does.

Great job by haas btw.
Click to expand...

After so many years of them doing the same thing, I would not call it sandbagging- it was following a very strict program that gave them the information they needed to be the fastest car by a wide margin.

And yea, Ferrari was not good. They are more like 1.5 vs RBR/ Mercedes and the rest of the field.

Ironic that Haas had half a problem like last year. Fastest of the rest and had a wheel problem. But they look to be much better than everyone else. Which is really cool since any one of us could work there in North Carolina.

Gasley... be angry at the team for a very bad call in Q1, as seeing Max demonstrated that the car is really fast. Competitive with Mercedes for sure. Nice job, Max.

Other than Haas, Alfa/Sauber and McLaren seem to have improved the most- they should be the battle for 5th, if Haas can keep it up.
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2019, There is Ferrari and then everyone else

alfablue said:
After so many years of them doing the same thing, I would not call it sandbagging- it was following a very strict program that gave them the information they needed to be the fastest car by a wide margin.

And yea, Ferrari was not good. They are more like 1.5 vs RBR/ Mercedes and the rest of the field.

Ironic that Haas had half a problem like last year. Fastest of the rest and had a wheel problem. But they look to be much better than everyone else. Which is really cool since any one of us could work there in North Carolina.

Gasley... be angry at the team for a very bad call in Q1, as seeing Max demonstrated that the car is really fast. Competitive with Mercedes for sure. Nice job, Max.

Other than Haas, Alfa/Sauber and McLaren seem to have improved the most- they should be the battle for 5th, if Haas can keep it up.
Click to expand...
I thought Alfa's results were a terrible dissapointment. They had more speed than that and the tactics screwed them. I like that Haas did so well but i'm thinking that in the mid field it's so close you can't expect that from them next time out. I thought Gasley was terrible and not only messed up his own team but damaged one of the Williams also.
On the subject of Williams, since I like rooting for the underdog. They are certainly behind the 8 ball and have a lot of work to pick up the 2.5 seconds against the field they will need. If the replacement for Paddy Lowe is better, we might see something after China. Let's see if they can get at least some time back in Bahrain.
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2019, There is Ferrari and then everyone else

manurespreader said:
On the subject of Williams, since I like rooting for the underdog. They are certainly behind the 8 ball and have a lot of work to pick up the 2.5 seconds against the field they will need. If the replacement for Paddy Lowe is better, we might see something after China. Let's see if they can get at least some time back in Bahrain.
Click to expand...

There was an interview with George Russell Saturday- based on what he said, I would not expect anything for their car significant until they get back to Europe. He seems to think they will just be running testing for at least 5 races. But they did finish... Which is an improvement over the winter testing.

One of the really confusing things to me were the illegal parts they put on the car- the mirrors were pretty blatant, as were the brake ducts. Why waste your time on tiny little cheater parts when there are fundamental problems with the car? Hearing that Lowe took a lot of credit for the mirrors, the fact that he's gone isn't surprising.
 
alfablue said:
After so many years of them doing the same thing, I would not call it sandbagging- it was following a very strict program that gave them the information they needed to be the fastest car by a wide margin.

And yea, Ferrari was not good. They are more like 1.5 vs RBR/ Mercedes and the rest of the field.

Ironic that Haas had half a problem like last year. Fastest of the rest and had a wheel problem. But they look to be much better than everyone else. Which is really cool since any one of us could work there in North Carolina.

Gasley... be angry at the team for a very bad call in Q1, as seeing Max demonstrated that the car is really fast. Competitive with Mercedes for sure. Nice job, Max.

Other than Haas, Alfa/Sauber and McLaren seem to have improved the most- they should be the battle for 5th, if Haas can keep it up.
Click to expand...

True on Mercedes. I winder how the H Ferrari can be so far behind with the immense resources at their disposal.

I really hope haas can continue their trajectory.
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2019, There is Ferrari and then everyone else

alfablue said:
There was an interview with George Russell Saturday- based on what he said, I would not expect anything for their car significant until they get back to Europe. He seems to think they will just be running testing for at least 5 races. But they did finish... Which is an improvement over the winter testing.

One of the really confusing things to me were the illegal parts they put on the car- the mirrors were pretty blatant, as were the brake ducts. Why waste your time on tiny little cheater parts when there are fundamental problems with the car? Hearing that Lowe took a lot of credit for the mirrors, the fact that he's gone isn't surprising.
Click to expand...

I believe that Lowe, at Mercedes, had pretty average reviews as to his performance. He had a huge salary too. I think it will be an improvement to have someone else. I don't think the basics of the car is all that bad, but they waited so long, again a Lowe issue, to put things into production that they couldn't get things built in time. I Russell tweeted out this afternoon that there was going to big a big effort now to get some improvements on the car for Bahrain.
 
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