2018 Russian Grand Prix: Race Thread (race starts @ 12:10pm UK time)

[SilverSpeed]

[evo_spook]

This I can believe..FIA must have given our secret battery management and engine modes to Merc. There is no other way to explain such swing in performance.

Wrong.

Merc hasn’t massively increased in speed, developments mean they are handling tyres better.

Ferrari though have dropped back relatively to everyone else, a small part of this is bad developments, but also the trick seems to have gone. Renault said their GPS shows it wasn’t used at Singapore or Russia.

This points to the trick being taken off.

I can think of 3 posssible options for this.

1. For these races they are using a older engine
2. It stresses the engine and so are being careful
3. It was illegal, but to not cause a stink, fia have just told them to stop doing it.

I’ve also heard mention that the special fuel maybe not available

[Rob]

Maurizio Arrivabene: “Right from Friday, the Sochi weekend was rather a difficult one for us. Despite all our efforts to find the ideal set-up, neither on Saturday nor in the race were we competitive enough to worry our closest rivals. Compared to the way we performed at other circuits, something was missing here and so we were unable to reduce the points gap. On paper, the next race in Japan should have very similar characteristics to the one at Silverstone, so in Suzuka, we will get a more precise indication as to the potential of our car. If it goes well, we will know that, despite the difficult situation in terms of the classification, we still have the right tools with which to fight all the way to the very end.”

Sebastian Vettel: “Today the feeling with the car was very good and I was able to push, but I just wasn’t as fast as the others. Obviously, today it was better than yesterday in terms of pace, but it wasn’t enough to put pressure on our competitors. We tried everything and I am happy that we got a podium finish, but obviously this is not the result we were looking for. My start was good, but there wasn’t much track space for me and I could go nowhere. After pit stop we were able to overcome Lewis, but he could pull ahead more than us and at the end there was nothing to do. We lost some points during the two last races and it doesn’t help, but we have our plan to follow and hopefully we can make some progress in the races to come. Maybe the next couple of tracks are better suited for us, we will know when we get there. We need to keep pushing and try; who knows what will happen in the next races.”

Kimi Raikkonen: “Not much happened in my race today, I was most of the time on my own. Unfortunately, this is what we kind of expected to happen. The feeling with the car was pretty good; with the first set of tires we suffered a bit with the front left, but then on the Softs the car was very nice to drive. Unfortunately yesterday in qualifying we were not fast enough and obviously today in the race it was very difficult to overtake.”

[mwk360]

"The stop was too late, we didn't recover from that. The car felt good, especially after the stop.But we are generally too slow. It's not that there's a specific problem with the car. It just lacks speed. Seb & I drove as fast as we could but every1 could see that wasn't enough."

-kimi

[mwk360]

Wrong.

Merc hasn’t massively increased in speed, developments mean they are handling tyres better.

Ferrari though have dropped back relatively to everyone else, a small part of this is bad developments, but also the trick seems to have gone. Renault said their GPS shows it wasn’t used at Singapore or Russia.

This points to the trick being taken off.

I can think of 3 posssible options for this.

1. For these races they are using a older engine
2. It stresses the engine and so are being careful
3. It was illegal, but to not cause a stink, fia have just told them to stop doing it.

I’ve also heard mention that the special fuel maybe not available

Biggest possibilities imo is 2 & 3 plus the fuel thing (which is apparently too much time & expensive to make a lot )

Plus with our updates according to seb & kimi ate the tyres up quicker than any other car so they had to revert back to old spec aero

[mwk360]

What a race !!! Feels like a win, best of the rest for the first time this season. Important points for the team, see you in Japan

Leclerc , hope he can catch Gasly in the points before the end of the year

[evo_spook]

Biggest possibilities imo is 2 & 3 plus the fuel thing (which is apparently too much time & expensive to make a lot )

Plus with our updates according to seb & kimi ate the tyres up quicker than any other car so they had to revert back to old spec aero

Something doesn’t seem right with the development path they’re taken after summer. Very McLarenish. Could be a consequence of throwing the kitchen sink at developing whereas merc, didn’t do any updates but concentrated on sorting there tyre issues. Even without performance updates they only fell slightly behind Ferrari, now that they understand the tyres and how to get the best out of them they can now look at performance.

Though Ferrari degradation seemed good today.

Next year I think red bull will be back in the mix, the Honda engine looks like improving

[FerrariSteve]

Watched lewis on Seb again, and I just cannot believe how much ground he makes up in that one straight. it's staggering
at the start, you see Seb get on the power and 2-3 secs later you think he's gone.. the gap is good. then the merc just eats up the distance so fast.. crazy

anyone who says the Ferrari is the faster car is just deluded.

[evo_spook]

Watched lewis on Seb again, and I just cannot believe how much ground he makes up in that one straight. it's staggering
at the start, you see Seb get on the power and 2-3 secs later you think he's gone.. the gap is good. then the merc just eats up the distance so fast.. crazy

anyone who says the Ferrari is the faster car is just deluded.

Lewis had a tow, Vettel didn’t, he even commented on the fact no one was willing to give him one

[stefa]

Watched lewis on Seb again, and I just cannot believe how much ground he makes up in that one straight. it's staggering
at the start, you see Seb get on the power and 2-3 secs later you think he's gone.. the gap is good. then the merc just eats up the distance so fast.. crazy

anyone who says the Ferrari is the faster car is just deluded.

This! But everyone lives in their own world (box).

[Ferrarichamp]

well at least if it rains in Suzuka it will make the race more interesting.

[FerrariF60]

This! But everyone lives in their own world (box).

We were faster until Spa, or until Mercedes figured out our tricks and now they prolly Implemented them on their car too

We seem to be lost with the development of the car, whatever updates we bring they don’t work or chew the heck out of the tires

We have lots of homework for 2019 if we want to be competitive

[evo_spook]

https://mobile.twitter.com/Graftechw...43383512813571


I don’t understand why they don’t revert. If in development we hit a issue and can’t put up a quick fix, you revert to the last working version.

[Vettel165]

https://mobile.twitter.com/Graftechw...43383512813571


I don’t understand why they don’t revert. If in development we hit a issue and can’t put up a quick fix, you revert to the last working version.

Holy moly, its a miracle that we had this pace with this rear wing configuration on a pure power track. Our guys in factory are sleeping, this slip up in last 2 races in development has cost us the WDC just as things already said. If everything went normal after Spa, we would have a victory in Monza, Singapore and Sochi now. And now we have nothing, its sad, but we had worst days.

[tifosi1993]

https://mobile.twitter.com/Graftechw...43383512813571


I don’t understand why they don’t revert. If in development we hit a issue and can’t put up a quick fix, you revert to the last working version.

Thing is these folks too often just make stuff up or get info from bad sources. I am sure Ferrari have some strategic reasoning for it, they aren't out to jeopardize the championship.

[evo_spook]

Thing is these folks too often just make stuff up or get info from bad sources. I am sure Ferrari have some strategic reasoning for it, they aren't out to jeopardize the championship.

Seeing a barn door on the back isn’t exactly making stuff up.

[FerrariF60]

Seeing a barn door on the back isn’t exactly making stuff up.

no wonder we were losing more then half a second in S3......Jeez

[tifosi1993]

Seeing a barn door on the back isn’t exactly making stuff up.

And? It's not like you or the twitter account have wind tunnel data. Just because the wing looks conventional doesn't mean it is bad.

[jgonzalesm6]

Look people, it's simple really.

We've been out-engineered, out-driven, out-strategized.......yet again. Can't blame the car this time or the saying "Merc-Power." Ferrari coulda-shoulda-woulda be ahead in the points right now.

Mistakes happen and of course everyone makes them, including the teams............one team makes very few of them and we all know which team that is......while they capitalize on the other that makes the most.

If that Honda engine gains more hp, RedBull will be yet another team Ferrari has to deal with........and personally, I'm looking for a 3 way fight. Onward to 2019...let's see who brings their A-game throughout the season.....it's not how you start, but how you finish.

[tifosi1993]

no wonder we were losing more then half a second in S3......Jeez

We lost time to Mercedes in every sector.

[ferrari1.8t]

Only positive to come from today is more and more people are starting to see what a classless rat Hamilton really is. He didn’t need the points and should have let Bottas through. Fans are growing tired of this Merc circus F1 has become, not just ferrari fans.

[jgonzalesm6]

Only positive to come from today is more and more people are starting to see what a classless rat Hamilton really is. He didn’t need the points and should have let Bottas through. Fans are growing tired of this BS Merc circus F1 has become, not just ferrari fans.

Mercedes is playing it safe for the moment maximizing Lewis with points. I'm sure in the end, Lewis or Toto will return the favor and gift back a win for Bottas.

[jgonzalesm6]

Was Schumacher a classless rat?

Yep, Fangio, Scheckter, and MSC all benefited from team orders.

[evo_spook]

Mercedes is playing it safe for the moment maximizing Lewis with points. I'm sure in the end, Lewis or Toto will return the favor and gift back a win for Bottas.

I’m wondering if they’re thinking of a potential engine change

[jgonzalesm6]

I’m wondering if they’re thinking of a potential engine change

On Lewis??? You mean starting with a 2019 PU towards the end??? Then that would "gift" a Bottas win.

Maybe.

[evo_spook]

On Lewis??? You mean starting with a 2019 PU towards the end??? Then that would "gift" a Bottas win.

Maybe.

Cause of the oil leak that was reported on the grid and loss of power

[jgonzalesm6]

Cause of the oil leak that was reported on the grid and loss of power

Possibly. I did see that "puff" of blue smoke when they started in the pits for their practice starts but it was'nt alarming; they've done it before.

[JPMFerrari]

Bring back this man.

Ross-Brawn-725x500.jpg

[Giallo 550]

Well, we can now add the car to the list of reasons why Ferrari lost the championships. It's clear that it isn't as dominant as I and several others originally thought. The fact is that even if Vettel was perfect all season, the championship would probably still be lost based on the momentum that Mercedes will most likely continue to carry throughout the duration of the season.

[FerrariF60]

Possibly. I did see that "puff" of blue smoke when they started in the pits for their practice starts but it was'nt alarming; they've done it before.

that, and also on the grid at the start of the race.....Rat's car wsa smoking quite a bit when he took off, compared to Botas which i did NOT see any...so maybe he will have a new engine installed in Japan....hence tried to extend his lead at the expense of taking Valteri's win away from him