"If someone said to me that you can have three wishes, my first would have been to get into racing, my second to be in Formula 1, my third to drive for Ferrari" - Gilles Villeneuve
On first glance Paul Ricard may look like Montreal because of the straights and chicanes (riding curbs) but Paul Ricard also has a few high-speed corners at the end of the lap and a twisty complex on the opposite side of the circuit. So there is a need for a quite different setup. Setup-wise Paul Ricard is in the same category as Barcelona and Suzuka but not quite as tough as Sillverstone. The track surface is also rather rough and the run-off areas are like sandpaper so going off track will damage a lot of drivers' tyres.
Exactly. Nice to see someone understands my point of view. Imagine if the shoe was on the other foot and Ferrari was the team "cooking" its tyres at the Barcelona test...I agree, if a team has a problem cooking their tyres...guess what....that's the teams problem. Pirelli should have said, "Hey, don't make your problem my problem!!!" "You fix it."
Reports say a conspiracy regarding Pirelli caved into Mercedes demands and other reports say Pirelli were already going to do this anyways regardless of what the nay-sayers say...I myself tend to lean more towards the former rather than the latter. I saw those tyres during testing (Barcelona testing---2 weeks prior to Melbourne) and Mercedes were the only ones that "cooked" their tyres....no one else (Toto said RedBull had the same issue....whatever!!!) cooked their tyres.
How do you know that? What evidence and what data are you using to come to that conclusion? The only evidence and data we have from harder tyres (original compounds) is from pre-season testing...and Merc were having problems with blisters. Infact what it seems is that Merc is only faster on the "special" softer (than usual for that circuit) tyres brought to Barcelona.
Weather prediction for race weekened is dry and hot with temperatures reaching near 30C. I think this is good for us.
https://www.yr.no/sted/Frankrike/Pro...idsvarsel.html
They would not have used harder tires. I think what 512 is saying is that Merc could have been worse off than us on the original ultra softs, even though we would have had worse deg as well. the fact that the extra rubber was causing them to squirm and blister is the reason they were shaved. I think Ferrari would have been able to manage these tires better than Merc could as in testing they were burning through them so quick.
Exactly! But in reality the saying should be "manage these tires less worse than Merc".
Aberracus
As for Bahrain and China, In Bahrain Seb and Kimi locked out the front row because Ferrari are better on original softer tyres than Merc on normal circuits. That's the only relevant observation. Even if Bottas might have been quicker at the end on harder tyres the equation was that Ferrari were better in total as Seb won. Would Seb have won in Bahrain had the "special" Barcelona tyres been used there as well? I very much doubt it. It was the same compound range as Barcelona. As for China. It's impossible to evaluate that race because of the SC manipulation that race control did, effectively removing both Seb and Bottas from the chance of winning.
Anyway. What might save Ferrari at Paul Ricard is the "unknown" factor. Nobody really knows what to expect and the drivers basicly only know this track (in race speed) from simulation. But that obviously goes both ways. Although a team like Merc, who should have an advantage, are the ones that have the most to lose.
Last edited by 512 TR; 16th June 2018 at 11:39.
Its a race by race proposition there is no need to agonise over who or what has the upper hand it will be decided on race day it is to unpredictable enjoy the ride ditch the brain drain.
Any news about Ferrari's upgrades for this race? How is Ferrari going to counter Mercedes engine upgrade? We already saw in Canada that Ferrari's new engine is still slower than Mercedes old engine. In Monaco which is a chassis track, Ferrari was worryingly slower than Mercedes, that doesn't bode well for the upcoming triple header which has fast sweeping corners, power track and thinner tyres - all pointing towards Mercedes domination.
ferrari's new engine isn't as fast as mercs old one nor will it be quicker mercs new one, sports bild say, could be up to 0.3quicker because of the HP and i hear brand new fuel formula that is going to bring the bigger part of that 0.3s increase. but ferrari has much better fuel consumption and it might help in races where its easier to pass. in monaco i wouldnt say ferrari were slower, if anything ferrari is marginally faster but kimi is slow so it looks worse than it is. french gp mercs are favourites but there was that rumor that ferrari's new engine had its engines turned down slightly in power because of the engine failures on kimi's car from Spain and binotto wants reliability over power.
hockenheim 2018 / China 2018 : Never forget how quick Ferrari can lose it all, be humble.
Positivity doesn't win you championships, whining about people being negative makes you blind!
lol ignore the bitter old cows ;-)
nice onboard of Paul Ricard from redbull last year practicing there last year and di resta giving a walkthrough of it
http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/124...altteri-bottas
Interesting rb chose a much more conservative tyre choice, maybe they realized the softer tyres won't last the entire lap?
hockenheim 2018 / China 2018 : Never forget how quick Ferrari can lose it all, be humble.
Positivity doesn't win you championships, whining about people being negative makes you blind!
lol ignore the bitter old cows ;-)
https://twitter.com/F1/status/1008746778944892929Nobody did it better
Michael Schumacher took EIGHT wins at the #FrenchGP through the years
A record to this day for wins at a single circuit or race
hockenheim 2018 / China 2018 : Never forget how quick Ferrari can lose it all, be humble.
Positivity doesn't win you championships, whining about people being negative makes you blind!
lol ignore the bitter old cows ;-)
This is what Hamilton said after Monaco qualifying:
"My first Q3 lap… I was happy with my last one. I was 0.27s but I lost it in the middle and the last sector so naturally not happy with that. That wouldn’t have been enough anyways for pole but it would have made a difference, obviously I would have been second"
Hamilton was fastest of all in Sector 1 but then made mistake and lost time in Sector 2 and 3. Mercedes was indeed faster than Ferrari in Monaco but poor lap from Hamilton cost him front row.
But Canada was worrying, despite running 6 race old engine, Bottas was less than a tenth slower than Vettel and we all know Vettel is a much better qualifier than Bottas so we can safely conclude that Mercedes old engine is faster than Ferrari's new engine. But there is hope because Ferrari have gone radical with this year's car direction so there should be a lot more development in the pipeline compared to Mercedes and Red Bull.
That's your wishful thinking, Kimi is never a match for Seb in either qualifying or race. Without Hamilton's own issues, he would be at least 3 tenths up on Vettel's time. I hope work on new cylinder head is underway as was reported before the start of the season which should allow Ferrari to give a proper fight to Mercedes in qualifying.
NO, Kimi did make a mistake in his last lap in Q3 and like Greig said, he would have been up there with Seb at worst P3 in quali.....he was a pretty close match to Seb all throughout Free practices and especially in FP3 when the car was dialed in perfectly for quali......
So 2023 started off bad, but managed to claw back some lap time come end of the year. Lets hope SF24 will give us tifosi something to smile about.
So 2023 started off bad, but managed to claw back some lap time come end of the year. Lets hope SF24 will give us tifosi something to smile about.
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