2018 Chinese GP Race

[Otakukim]

Give Maldonado a fast car and he would get you some podiums too. Yes no one is immune to having accidents. But if one person is a statistical anomaly in terms of accidents, there should be repercussions. Why should others suffer till this buffoon grows a brain? I thought the lower leagues ensured that the guys who ended up in F1 were mature enough from word go.

Wasn't there a black points system?

If he take put ham then he will be in serious trouble

[Deephouse]

Im even more hyped for Baku now and the chance of a Ferrari comeback. This season is shaping up to be a good one

[Vettel165]

I don't agree on Seb thing. He was too aggressive and compromised Kimis line as well as his teammate being 2nd which would probably mean Merc would have no chance to undercut him. Kimi would not be able to take corner before Seb and both could have taken a good line into it. Bad move for everyone around bar RBs and Bottas.

To many ifs, what would happen if.... Seb would not defend from Kimi (Every leading driver would defend hard on first lap from the second car, it was always the case here) ... We had the best strategy.... If there was no safety car... Its game over for this race, the drivers and the team have to prevent from it happening again. Its early days, 450 points to grab.

Staying humble will help, I am keeping the feets on the ground. Hope really we will strike back soon.

[512 TR]

I think there is something wrong in the Kimi-Ferrari relationship. Of course Seb has the 1st shot at the WDC, but its still early and more important we have to go for the WCC too.Today it looked like all the crew where watching for Seb(doing a bad job at it too) and they left Kimi's strategy to the janitor. If Kimi was pitted when the safety car came he could have won, but the janitor hadnt figured out how to turn the communications on yet

That is most likely true. Even if Race Control manipulated the SC period the way they did, had Ferrari pitted Kimi along with the Red Bulls he probably would have won the race. It's easy to forget what happened with Kimi because of everything else that happened but that was the biggest screw up of them all. At least with Kimi they had the chance to react. That's probably what Charlie is telling the team "oh, but we gave you a shot with Kimi and you dropped the ball". That's also true.

[jgonzalesm6]

Give Maldonado a fast car and he would get you some podiums too. Yes no one is immune to having accidents. But if one person is a statistical anomaly in terms of accidents, there should be repercussions. Why should others suffer till this buffoon grows a brain? I thought the lower leagues ensured that the guys who ended up in F1 were mature enough from word go.

Wasn't there a black points system?

Maldonado had his chance. end of. He was more reckless and produced very little. Personal note but I believe the guy had spatial distorientation. Lower leagues ensuring that guys ended up in F1 were mature enough??? By this what do you mean? If it's F1 drivers crashing into other F1 drivers, get on youtube and look at compilations of drivers crashing into other F1 drivers...pick any name. And how long have you've been watching F1?

[jgonzalesm6]

I think there is something wrong in the Kimi-Ferrari relationship. Of course Seb has the 1st shot at the WDC, but its still early and more important we have to go for the WCC too.Today it looked like all the crew where watching for Seb(doing a bad job at it too) and they left Kimi's strategy to the janitor. If Kimi was pitted when the safety car came he could have won, but the janitor hadnt figured out how to turn the communications on yet

Since I have been watching F1, the 70's, Ferrari only care's about 1 title....the WDC title and not the WCC title since hardly anyone cares about it HENCE why Ferrari's driver strategy is focusing on the #1 driver while #2 plays "tailgunner." I have seen this strategy play out through the years and it still holds true today. Heck, even Force India has a better driver strategy as both their drivers earn serious pts for the team....their mid-pack but most of the drivers end up next to each other towards the end of the race...with some duels every once in a great while.

[Giallo 550]

The team did just a decent job up until now. I always knew they would screw up eventually. They always do. But I was hoping we could make it to the summer break. Now with Kimi's pit stop last week and he strategy this week, the screw ups came way early.

Yes we got bad luck with the Safety Car but keeping Seb and Kimi out there waaaaay too long after the Meecs pitted didn't help our track position.

Merc WILL sort their crap out, we needed to strike while the iron is hot and two wins are nice but we should have had three 1-3s or 1-2s



Simple. They think he is the second coming of Jesus. They won't say boo. I'm telling you, he will never be champion unless he pulls his head out of his rectal cavity. You can't win a championship by crashing into people. Well, I guess you can but you need to gets wins first. Can't get wins with all those crashes.

The kid needs a serious ass kicking. Not figuratively via talk with Charlie, but literally, with feet and firsts. Set him straight.

The commentators were swinging from his you know what and saying that he's still inexperienced. This is his FOURTH SEASON in Formula 1 and he hasn't figured out how to overtake without nailing someone?

[Giallo 550]

I don't agree on Seb thing. He was too aggressive and compromised Kimis line as well as his teammate being 2nd which would probably mean Merc would have no chance to undercut him. Kimi would not be able to take corner before Seb and both could have taken a good line into it. Bad move for everyone around bar RBs and Bottas.

I agree completely. Ferrari needs to be able to control the race from the front, just like Mercedes have been doing. The Ferraris aren't fast enough for them to screw around with each other at the start without it benefitting their rivals. The team needs all hands on deck, and that also includes the pit wall making better calls. There was zero benefit to leaving Vettel out as long as they did.

[Aberracus]

If we have called kimi to the pits on the SC what tires could we have to give him ?
US to the end of race ? No way, we didn’t had any more softs, and that’s where the strategic mistakes started.

In future races when there’s Medium tire available mercs will try to use them and make one stop, they are better than anybody on those white tires. And on the first 2-3 laps of those tires they can be 2-3 seconds faster than us, so they can undertake or overtake on the pits. No easy solution.

Very bad start from our guys, Seb shouldn’t have squeezed Kimi, with a 1-2 Fer that overtake trick could work with our 1st guy.







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[PURE PASSION]

Why you arw saying thar the Mercs arw faster then us in meds.When Vet came out from the pits he immediately close the gap to 1sec and under and stayed there for the hole race till Ric past him

[paolo lalli]

All ferrari and merc hype then like thieves in the nite red bull stole it from under there noses .

[512 TR]

If we have called kimi to the pits on the SC what tires could we have to give him ?
US to the end of race ? No way, we didn’t had any more softs, and that’s where the strategic mistakes started.

In future races when there’s Medium tire available mercs will try to use them and make one stop, they are better than anybody on those white tires. And on the first 2-3 laps of those tires they can be 2-3 seconds faster than us, so they can undertake or overtake on the pits. No easy solution.

Very bad start from our guys, Seb shouldn’t have squeezed Kimi, with a 1-2 Fer that overtake trick could work with our 1st guy.


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Medium for either track position infront of Ricciardo until the end or US-US and he would most likely have gained on track what he lost with one additional pitstop. Try to imagine the speed on track he would have had with the US tyre. He would have been passing cars left and right. Now, the strategy he was given left a lot of laps in the medium compound because of the late stop. Sure he was fast because they were newer but there was a lot of racing left on them at the flag. Totally unnecessary.

At that time, had he covered the Red Bulls and with Bottas and Seb out of the hunt (because of the SC manipulation) only Lewis would have been a threat, and he beat him anyway with the wrong strategy.

[Aberracus]

Why you arw saying thar the Mercs arw faster then us in meds.When Vet came out from the pits he immediately close the gap to 1sec and under and stayed there for the hole race till Ric past him

Analyze bottas first lap on mediums vs vet and tell me


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[paolo lalli]

Mercedes can no longer pull away from ferrari.

[WS6TransAm01]

Mercedes can no longer pull away from ferrari.

Give it four weeks.

[da_one]

The Chinese GP is done with. We wasted a good opportunity to increase our lead in both WDC and WCC. However, the pros still outweighs the cons after 3 races in 2018. So we have a lot to look forward to this season!

Cons:
1. The strategists are still committing the same brainfarts. I believe we were more concerned with RB in the China GP than covering Mercedes, being they were on a different tire strategy. Screw that. Mercedes will be our main challengers this year and we should only cover them from now on.

2. The pit,stop accident in Bahrain seemed traumatic for the crew and so they were noticeably slow in China when both our drivers pitted in the race. We can't afford this especially when we can't pull away from Merc while leading or if we want to undercut them in future races. Accidents happen yes, but they have to move on asap!

3. Kimi is showing his age during races. In qualifying, he looks 28 yrs old and at the prime of his career, but come race day, he's back to being 38 yrs old, just about ready to retire. He needs to be consistent and we need him to battle with two Mercs.

Pros:

1. Contrary to the winter testing analysis by F1 pundits, we are not behind Merc and Red Bull (and even Haas). I believe our engine is now at par or even more powerful than the Merc, and once we sort out the ideal setup with a longer wheelbase, then we will be even stronger. Perhaps the Merc has hit a plateau in terms of development, after all they have been dominant for the past 4 years. Cpupled with a different design philosophy with the Merc, which we have not fully exploited yet. we are in a good position to leapfrog them this year.

2. We are way ahead of Red Bull. As we saw in China, the Red Bull is not as strong in race pace as they claim, they were on ultra softs but Vettel and Bottas still managed to widen the gap to Max prior to the first round of pit stops. Another thing that is going against them is the reliability of the Renault engine. Sooner or later they would have to get grid penalties and this will hamper their challenge to us as they have to conserve their engines. If it weren't for the SC in this race, they would be 4th and 5th at best and they would only be ahead of Kimi because we left him out on track, way too late for his pit stop.

3. Vettel seems more relax this season and he needs to be so for the whole season since we know what happens if he loses his cool. Maturity and patience are two attributes of a champion, and he needs to have both if he wants to get the 5th title away from Lewis.

4. Kimi is fast in qualifying. Grid positions are important especially when your car is just about equal with your main rival. I hope Kimi continues his qualifying form and also improve his race craft and he will give Mercs headaches in the coming races.

5. Lewis seems bored this year. Apart from the masterful qualifying in Australia and the triple overtake he did in Bahrain, his races have been lackluster. He has been outqualified by Bottas for 2 consecutive races now and in those races, Bottas was actually faster pace wise. His body language is different this year, he whines more during the race and looks haggard after. Perhaps he is playing the long game or perhaps he is not that hungry anymore. Hopefully it's the latter and Vettel, even Kimi, should capitalize on this.

Toss up:

1. In-season development. We all know that of the 3 top teams in F1 today, Ferrari has the worst in-season development. We cannot afford to relax against Merc and RB, who are both notoriously good in bringing updates at the start of the European races. So far we look okay after 3 races but okay is not enough. Our car has a lot of potential and we should not stop developing the car even with a double digit lead in the WDC and WCC. Mercedes showed us last year that no lead is safe in a long F1 season. If we want to be king of F1, in-season development is key.

[Hornet]

If I'm not mistaken, I think Ted (from Sky F1) mentioned during the race that when Vettel came into the pits, he had enough gap to come out ahead of Bottas.
However, the pit stop was a little slower and so Vettel missed Bottas.

I think Ferrari took a risk to ensure we have enough performance from the medium tire set, and it didn't work out... rather than blindly following their plan and not reacting.

As we saw towards the end, Kimi was able to close up on Bottas with a newer set of tires, so Ferrari was probably concern about this difference.
Of course in hindsight, we now know that the risk was not worth taking, but that's how racing is. No decision is certain.


And I can't believe people are still going on about Vettel defend on Kimi. Kimi did not lift down the straight, he had enough room to keep going. He just lost out due to being on the inside of the corner.
But what was Vettel to do, let Kimi have the racing line?
And you have to give credit to Bottas too, he had a great start. That's how Bottas was able to get ahead of Kimi.

[Deephouse]

If I'm not mistaken, I think Ted (from Sky F1) mentioned during the race that when Vettel came into the pits, he had enough gap to come out ahead of Bottas.
However, the pit stop was a little slower and so Vettel missed Bottas.

I think Ferrari took a risk to ensure we have enough performance from the medium tire set, and it didn't work out... rather than blindly following their plan and not reacting.

As we saw towards the end, Kimi was able to close up on Bottas with a newer set of tires, so Ferrari was probably concern about this difference.
Of course in hindsight, we now know that the risk was not worth taking, but that's how racing is. No decision is certain.


And I can't believe people are still going on about Vettel defend on Kimi. Kimi did not lift down the straight, he had enough room to keep going. He just lost out due to being on the inside of the corner.
But what was Vettel to do, let Kimi have the racing line?
And you have to give credit to Bottas too, he had a great start. That's how Bottas was able to get ahead of Kimi.

Yeah if you look at the replays when Vettel came into the pits you can see that he was released a bit late. I wonder if the mechanics were playing it safe after Bahrain.

[bondilad]

If this was a messy race I think we really have to be on top of our strategy in baku. Anything can happen over there, its a bit of a lottery.

[karthikn.1011]

That is most likely true. Even if Race Control manipulated the SC period the way they did, had Ferrari pitted Kimi along with the Red Bulls he probably would have won the race. It's easy to forget what happened with Kimi because of everything else that happened but that was the biggest screw up of them all. At least with Kimi they had the chance to react. That's probably what Charlie is telling the team "oh, but we gave you a shot with Kimi and you dropped the ball". That's also true.

100% mate ..that's spot on ..it still baffles me when Kimi was not brought in

[nani_s23]

If this was a messy race I think we really have to be on top of our strategy in baku. Anything can happen over there, its a bit of a lottery.

SC or VSC is inevitable in baku

[Brembo]

Ferrari want's Seb WDC over both RB, Merc and Kimi. at any cost. Imagine if Kimi got that pole. How bad would it have looked seeing him " let Seb pass."

[Retroblue]

This year the car is fast, both the drivers are on top form,but we really need good strategy from the pit wall. Its 2 races, that we have been caught napping with our strategy. I really hope that we improve with our strategy.

[Ferrarichamp]

SC or VSC is inevitable in baku

who knows RB could win again

[Ferrarichamp]

That is most likely true. Even if Race Control manipulated the SC period the way they did, had Ferrari pitted Kimi along with the Red Bulls he probably would have won the race. It's easy to forget what happened with Kimi because of everything else that happened but that was the biggest screw up of them all. At least with Kimi they had the chance to react. That's probably what Charlie is telling the team "oh, but we gave you a shot with Kimi and you dropped the ball". That's also true.

if that is true then it's super disappointing. It's one thing for the pole sitter not to win, but if the second driver is denied due to poor strategy, then wow.

[jpalmito]

This year the car is fast, both the drivers are on top form,but we really need good strategy from the pit wall. Its 2 races, that we have been caught napping with our strategy. I really hope that we improve with our strategy.

If we are able to do pole positions the majority of coming races, some bad strategy decisions won't have any kind of impact concerning the championship outcome.
Track position is KING.
I strongly believe this is our best improvement this year.

[Vettel165]

If we are able to do pole positions the majority of coming races, some bad strategy decisions won't have any kind of impact concerning the championship outcome.
Track position is KING.
I strongly believe this is our best improvement this year.

Agree I hope we will keep that Q3 pace. It would be crucial for some races which are harder to overtake. In Baku we are seeing US,SS,S rubber, which should suit Ferrari.

[zike]

Agree I hope we will keep that Q3 pace. It would be crucial for some races which are harder to overtake. In Baku we are seeing US,SS,S rubber, which should suit Ferrari.

i would add that the start is equally crucial.

[Vettel165]

i would add that the start is equally crucial.

Agree we need to also fix the strategy on every race. We had a lot of bad luck yesterday, but had a lot of luck in Australia.

In last two races Seb does got 29 points, Lewis 27.

[Vettel165]

If a quote Vanja from tehnical forum, he made a fantastic analyis.

Honestly, instead of gloating when Mercedes or Red Bull have some issues like yesterday (and that 0.5s per lap was obviously not a realistic advantage) and crying about poor strategy after the race, we should point out some positive things from this weekend for Ferrari:

- Ferrari appear to be on top of their problems from Australia, with nothing more than better set-up
- Ferrari appear to be better on straights while keeping their pace throughout the corners compared to Mercedes, and are better everywhere compared to Red Bull, this being very important for pole position fight, which is showing to be even more important this year
- This advantage is shown in race in a way, as Seb pulled away from Bottas easier than Bottas pulled away from Seb (and made a bigger gap) and Mercedes was forced yesterday to sacrifice corner speed for top speed to have a fighting chance in the race
- Vettel, as championship leader, has maintained his advantage in spite of being hit by Max, so he ran trough a catastrophic race for him with a few points and his main rival struggling as well
- There are usually two unlucky races (not qualifications, just races with things going against them) for championship contenders in previous seasons, and I'm not counting races where one of them is simply slower than his team mate, Seb just pushed trough one of them
- Whether their concept will give them more room for aero improvement over the season or not is to be seen, but there is room for that in multiple areas and that is important
- Power train development is "less" important, but reliability will be of utmost importance and the team confirmed that Control Electronics from Bahrain are OK and will be used again during the season, so no upcoming penalties - yet

For the team, the pace in qualy and race is there, reliability is to be seen, but for now there are no major issues. Sometimes, like today, luck is just not on your side.