2019 Abu Dhabi GP: Practices & Qualifying

**ALO** · 30th November 2019, 13:12

Once again in front of Piero. Guess nothing learned from this qual. https://youtu.be/5UTD-AqCn-s

**tifosi1993** · 30th November 2019, 13:13

Originally Posted by Rishu

Embarrassing

ThErE's NoThInG wRoNg WiTh ThE PiT-WaLl.

**ALO** · 30th November 2019, 13:14

Originally Posted by Christopher

Why send the cars out so late

exactly

**nani_s23** · 30th November 2019, 13:16

Originally Posted by Noquarter

Vettel slows down Charles. What a idiot.

Seriously, you are always ready to get on top of vettel. Seems a particular agenda for you.

**Vettel165** · 30th November 2019, 13:16

Omg team. What are they doing. First they put Seb on the worst tyres he will destroy them in s3 and then this at the end. Feel for Charles really could improve. Even Seb tyres werent in range.

**Tifoso Svedese** · 30th November 2019, 13:18

Originally Posted by Vettel165

Omg team. What are they doing. First they put Seb on the worst tyres he will destroy them in s3 and then this at the end. Feel for Charles really could improve. Even Seb tyres werent in range.

Vettel on softs is a sitting duck tomorrow and won't stand any chance of a podium. In fact, the way our strategy is working I'm not even sure Charles can hold off the Bottler tomorrow. This is just so pathetic all round.

The only hope again is the Ham-joke and Crashtappen coming together and sadly that never seems to happen

Even when it does the 44 primadonna keeps rolling (Mexico).

**nani_s23** · 30th November 2019, 13:19

Originally Posted by Vettel165

Omg team. What are they doing. First they put Seb on the worst tyres he will destroy them in s3 and then this at the end. Feel for Charles really could improve. Even Seb tyres werent in range.

Off late I’ve been saying it’s S3 always for Ferrari. Never been a strong track for them this one.
Good that season ended. Bad that it’s ended on bad note with error from team.

They need to correct all these come next season.

**nani_s23** · 30th November 2019, 13:20

Originally Posted by Tifoso Svedese

Vettel on softs is a sitting duck tomorrow and won't stand any chance of a podium. In fact, the way our strategy is working I'm not even sure Charles can hold off the Bottler tomorrow. This is just so pathetic all round.

The only hope again is the Ham-joke and Crashtappen coming together and sadly that never seems to happen

Ferrari don’t have any option... so gone for it. I’m ok with that call.
But wts wrong is delay in sending our drivers out on final run.

**tifosi1993** · 30th November 2019, 13:21

Race engineers are the vital part of the team, they motivate the driver and bring the best out of them. Ferrari on the other hand, employs race engineers who sounds like robot (Plan A, B,..X.Y..etc) and shows zero emotions. I would be pretty depressed hearing such monotone voice over the team-radio if I were the driver.

This team need complete overhaul at track operations, they need to fire Rueda and employ someone who's competent enough.

**tifosi1993** · 30th November 2019, 13:27

Originally Posted by nani_s23

Bad management by pit wall. Ruined vettel & Lec Laps.
At least tomorrow we are on Softs at the start should take both Ham & Max. From then Lec/vettel should manage the pace

Vettel still managed to do his final lap, although it was pretty slow with only personal best in sector 3. Leclerc on the other hand got completely screwed.
With Bottas's penalty, Charles had the pace to qualify on P2 today.

**bondilad** · 30th November 2019, 13:27

Originally Posted by nani_s23

Bad management by pit wall. Ruined vettel & Lec Laps.
At least tomorrow we are on Softs at the start should take both Ham & Max. From then Lec/vettel should manage the pace

Charles is starting on mediums

**nani_s23** · 30th November 2019, 13:34

Originally Posted by tifosi1993

Vettel still managed to do his final lap, although it was pretty slow with only personal best in sector 3. Leclerc on the other hand got completely screwed.
With Bottas's penalty, Charles had the pace to qualify on P2 today.

Yup agree.

**nani_s23** · 30th November 2019, 13:36

Originally Posted by bondilad

Charles is starting on mediums

Then I see Lec either P2/P3 at max. Ham’s long run pace is excellent. I don’t think we can challenge him.
Vettel will be in no mans land tmrw.
Only hope is Max vs Ham battle/crash.

Ham didn’t have single DNF this season & last I think so. Great drive from him & his bullet proof car.

**bondilad** · 30th November 2019, 13:39

Originally Posted by nani_s23

Then I see Lec either P2/P3 at max. Ham’s long run pace is excellent. I don’t think we can challenge him.
Vettel will be in no mans land tmrw.
Only hope is Max vs Ham battle/crash.

Ham didn’t have single DNF this season & last I think so. Great drive from him & his bullet proof car.

Best case P2 & P4. Not sure if Bottas might come into play or not.

**doublesixes** · 30th November 2019, 15:10

Ham is way too smart to crash with Ver in the opening lap. His pace through the race is superior to RB and Ferrari so even if he relinquished the lead in the first lap, he'll regain it after the first pitstop. Easy win for Ham to put an end to a miserable Ferrari season.

**nani_s23** · 30th November 2019, 15:17

Originally Posted by doublesixes

Ham is way too smart to crash with Ver in the opening lap. His pace through the race is superior to RB and Ferrari so even if he relinquished the lead in the first lap, he'll regain it after the first pitstop. Easy win for Ham to put an end to a miserable Ferrari season.

Yeah ... totally agree with you.
Change in ham this season is his race pace with better tyre management. That’s giving him lot of options from team.
That mercs is very good race car combined with Ham skills. They are enjoying the moments. Hope this is the last for them.

**Vettel165** · 30th November 2019, 15:25

The 2017 Seb until Singapore was absolutely mighty. Keeping the lead in the world championship in a second best car in Front of Lewis. That was the real Seb, than Malaysia and Japan with mechanical dnfs happened which breaked the team spirit and also Seb.

**stefa** · 30th November 2019, 15:45

I completely forgot about today's Q. I see that I didn't miss anything!

**chinmay** · 30th November 2019, 15:58

Originally Posted by Vettel165

The 2017 Seb until Singapore was absolutely mighty. Keeping the lead in the world championship in a second best car in Front of Lewis. That was the real Seb, than Malaysia and Japan with mechanical dnfs happened which breaked the team spirit and also Seb.

Vettel was mighty that whole year. Just look at the gap between himself and Kimi in qualifying sessions even after Singapore. In Mexico, Red Bull and Mercedes were going very strong all weekend, Vettel out of nowhere stormed to pole, 8 tenths faster than Kimi! Peak Vettel is unstoppable and unbeatable. A shade of that was seen this year in Canadian qualifying and Japanese qualifying.

Hamilton who was driving a faster Mercedes was made to look like a complete amateur by Vettel in 2017. Even in Baku after all that happened, with that massive Mercedes engine advantage against very weak Ferrari engine, he asked team to slow down Bottas so he can overtake Vettel.

It was looking very good this year in winter testing when after day 1, Vettel declared that this was the best day 1 of testing he has ever had. Then the season started and the car turned out to be a dud. After Russia, Mark Hughes had written an article talking about various points of this car and Vettel's driving style and called it the worst of both worlds for Seb. One thing he also said was that Vettel would absolutely love the current Red Bull driven by Verstappen.

If only the 2018 engine was in the 2017 car, Vettel would've been champion by a country mile.

Let's see what 2020 holds. Testing was completely unrepresentative this time around so we will have to wait till Australia to see if the car is anything like 2017 or not. Because with the current problems, they must be missing SF70-H.

**chinmay** · 30th November 2019, 16:00

Originally Posted by stefa

I completely forgot about today's Q. I see that I didn't miss anything!

I only watched it because it was the last qualifying of 2019.

**wappad** · 30th November 2019, 16:48

Originally Posted by stefa

I completely forgot about today's Q. I see that I didn't miss anything!

I don't believe you

**wisepie** · 30th November 2019, 17:05

Originally Posted by tifosi1993

Race engineers are the vital part of the team, they motivate the driver and bring the best out of them. Ferrari on the other hand, employs race engineers who sounds like robot (Plan A, B,..X.Y..etc) and shows zero emotions. I would be pretty depressed hearing such monotone voice over the team-radio if I were the driver.

This team need complete overhaul at track operations, they need to fire Rueda and employ someone who's competent enough.

Agreed and it happens far too often that any 'risks' taken by the pit wall/track engineers backfire on us, with this kind of gamble we're never going to outdo a well-oiled machine like the Merc or even Red Bull teams, even the lower teams manage better than ours. I'm also curious as to the drop-off in performance of the Haas and Alfa teams in quali, as well as our own apparent loss of outright performance, referred to by Brundle in quali. Have the Ferrari power units really and truly had their wings clipped but it's being quietly swept under the carpet, or just the attempts to make the car better in the twisty bits? Whatever the reason, it's not working on this circuit, and I don't believe Seb had anything to do with Charles missing his last Q3 run. The race should be interesting if nothing else as far as our drivers are concerned, on different strategies, but having Max and HAM in front is never a happy prospect.

**nani_s23** · 30th November 2019, 17:12

In Q2 Charles asked for medium tyres in final q2 run.
Good to see Charles taking the calls.

**nani_s23** · 30th November 2019, 17:14

Charles ends the season with 7 poles more than any other driver.

Great start to his career.

**Nick Singer** · 30th November 2019, 17:15

Attachment 7661

**Nick Singer** · 30th November 2019, 17:16

Attachment 7662

**tifosi1993** · 30th November 2019, 17:24

Originally Posted by wisepie

Agreed and it happens far too often that any 'risks' taken by the pit wall/track engineers backfire on us, with this kind of gamble we're never going to outdo a well-oiled machine like the Merc or even Red Bull teams, even the lower teams manage better than ours. I'm also curious as to the drop-off in performance of the Haas and Alfa teams in quali, as well as our own apparent loss of outright performance, referred to by Brundle in quali. Have the Ferrari power units really and truly had their wings clipped but it's being quietly swept under the carpet, or just the attempts to make the car better in the twisty bits? Whatever the reason, it's not working on this circuit, and I don't believe Seb had anything to do with Charles missing his last Q3 run. The race should be interesting if nothing else as far as our drivers are concerned, on different strategies, but having Max and HAM in front is never a happy prospect.

The race may get interesting, but I'm afraid it's not going to be a happy race for Ferrari. They are giving away too much time in sector 3, and our cars race pace is worse than it's qualifying pace. Hope I'm wrong, but I just don't see us finishing above P3. (And if there is a late safety car, and Bottas by that time cleared the midfield, he will definitely finish ahead of Ferrari)

As for engine power, we are still faster on straights. But the main problem, as it has been all year, is the aero. Ferrari's entry speed is just too low compared to Mercedes. Leclerc was more than 3 tenths faster on the straights, but Hamilton easily clawed back the deficit through turn 9 and 10. And Ferrari had no answer to Mercedes's pace in sector 3.

**tifosi1993** · 30th November 2019, 17:45

Originally Posted by Nick Singer

I can definitely picture Ferrari "strategy(if you can call that

)" tomorrow.
Start: Vettel, being on softs, may get better launch and end up ahead of Leclerc. But after certain amount of laps, Vettel will start losing tyre grip, and Leclerc will be on Vettel's tail. Leclerc, due to being on dirty air, will start overheating his tyres. But the clowns at the pit-wall, rather than imposing team-order, will do nothing and Leclerc will keep on losing time to the cars ahead, unless he manages to overtake Vettel (which is a big risk). And after, another certain amount of laps, Ferrari will pit Vettel, and by that time, Leclerc's tyres already way past their best. But they will keep Leclerc on track, thanks to their pre-race strategy plan (A,B,C...whatever you call it). And by the time they pit Leclerc, he will come out behind Vettel and the gap to him, and the cars ahead, will be bigger than they were before.

If Leclerc, makes a better start and manages to hold track position, then we can ignore the above scenario. Hopefully, he will keep his track position at the start, and who knows, may jump Max at the start.