[uniqueMR]

Formula 1 - 2019 season is on the roll

Great victory, Congrats to Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport).


Ferrari were slow today. Vettel finished 4th.
Comm'on Ferrari

[Chihuahua]

I was expecting a Mercedes to rocket off into the distance, just not THAT Mercedes.

WTF Claire Williams, WTF...

[Chihuahua]

I was expecting a Mercedes to rocket off into the distance, just not THAT Mercedes.

WTF Claire Williams, WTF...

[1MOREMOD]

Yeah watched it last night over some beers

[thebishman]

Originally Posted by Chihuahua

I was expecting a Mercedes to rocket off into the distance, just not THAT Mercedes.

WTF Claire Williams, WTF...

She needs to resign her position or the team will collapse/be bought out. Such a shame given their history!

[Yapakanichi]

Well when your name is in the team name....

[Foghorn]

Pretty boring race overall.

[Yapakanichi]

Originally Posted by Foghorn

Pretty boring race overall.

disagree, the racing is never in the front but in the midfield. I think if ricciardo didn't get retired I think things might have been better.

[///M Power-Belgium]

Max and the new Honda power source , that looks very promising . Max was faster than the Ferrari's !
Red Bull is also planning big evolutions with their chassis !

Good job Max !

[ptack]

A somewhat surprising result, but a boring race. I guess the drama will now build on:
1) Ferrari - looked like they had Renault engines
2) Hamilton - this could be entertaining with him fighting his teammate and Max


But that's about it. I suppose the rest of the field looks pretty level, but there's not a lot of interest in who finishes 6th or higher.

[racerbruce]

OK, Lewis admits the very early tire change created a massive tire management issue....but 22 sec??

Honda power appears to have figured it out....weren't the Honda powered Toro Rosso's reaching maximum speed trap numbers?

[///M Power-Belgium]

Originally Posted by ptack

A somewhat surprising result, but a boring race. I guess the drama will now build on:
1) Ferrari - looked like they had Renault engines
2) Hamilton - this could be entertaining with him fighting his teammate and Max


But that's about it. I suppose the rest of the field looks pretty level, but there's not a lot of interest in who finishes 6th or higher.

The keyword in your statement is Max

[six_timer]

Originally Posted by uniqueMR

Formula 1 - 2019 season is on the roll

Great victory, Congrats to Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport).


Ferrari were slow today. Vettel finished 4th.
Comm'on Ferrari

I didn't realize Kimi was Italian.

Hamilton had a damaged floorboard. Otherwise, Bottas would not have had "the best race of his life".

This is shaping up to be yet another Mercedes walkover year. Sad.

[NickyC]

Horrid race, couldn't have been any worse. I'm done with this shit, I can only take so many years of zero competition and watching the same car blow everything away. Bottas would have won by over a minute if he hadn't shut it down over the last 20-30 laps. Alonso was right to get away from this crap, and even though I love Kimi I think he's out of his mind continuing to "race" this year.

The only good part of the entire race was seeing the confetti machine malfunction on the podium and dump everything at once all over the drivers and the stage.

[six_timer]

Originally Posted by NickyC

Horrid race, couldn't have been any worse. I'm done with this shit, I can only take so many years of zero competition and watching the same car blow everything away. Bottas would have won by over a minute if he hadn't shut it down over the last 20-30 laps. Alonso was right to get away from this crap, and even though I love Kimi I think he's out of his mind continuing to "race" this year.

The only good part of the entire race was seeing the confetti machine malfunction on the podium and dump everything at once all over the drivers and the stage.

This is my 30th year of watching F1. The last time this kind of year-after-year domination occurred was with the Schumacher-era Ferrari. And even then, it was only 3 dominant seasons out of 5 WCs. Even Red Bull with Vettel didn't have this kind of domination, as 2 of his 4 WCs saw a close fight with other teams.

This year is starting like it's the 6th consecutive season of Mercedes domination. WTF happened to the formula that would result in teams rising and falling?

[GTIGUY1992]

Originally Posted by five_timer

This is my 30th year of watching F1. The last time this kind of year-after-year domination occurred was with the Schumacher-era Ferrari. And even then, it was only 3 dominant seasons out of 5 WCs. Even Red Bull with Vettel didn't have this kind of domination, as 2 of his 4 WCs saw a close fight with other teams.

This year is starting like it's the 6th consecutive season of Mercedes domination. WTF happened to the formula that would result in teams rising and falling?

Agreed, this level of consistent WDC/WCC points, and time delta domination is unprecedented in F1. Merc led by 7/10ths in Q3 last year in Melbourne as well! Only reason Ferrari won was because they got lucky with a safety car lottery.

The difference then was that Ferrari knew what the issue was last year and had solutions already going into Bahrain- new floor & bargeboards if I recall. This time rumors are that the issue is more systemic in power unit/MGU-K.

[E90SLAM]

Originally Posted by five_timer

This is my 30th year of watching F1. The last time this kind of year-after-year domination occurred was with the Schumacher-era Ferrari. And even then, it was only 3 dominant seasons out of 5 WCs. Even Red Bull with Vettel didn't have this kind of domination, as 2 of his 4 WCs saw a close fight with other teams.

This year is starting like it's the 6th consecutive season of Mercedes domination. WTF happened to the formula that would result in teams rising and falling?

Again, I've said it before. No WDC won with a POS car.
Each era had a few teams had a dominant car, McLaren, Williams, Ferrari, Brawn (for a year), RBR, Mercedes. everytime there's people screaming giving up the sport.
And of course those who are not in the best car will be quite vocal of leaving etc.

And why everyone acted surprised when Merc blew it away? Everyone "Knows" the Mercs had been sandbagging during winter testing. Stop letting the "fast laps" from Ferrari last few weeks gave you a false impression.

[E90SLAM]

Originally Posted by GTIGUY1992

Agreed, this level of consistent WDC/WCC points, and time delta domination is unprecedented in F1. Merc led by 7/10ths in Q3 last year in Melbourne as well! Only reason Ferrari won was because they got lucky with a safety car lottery.

The difference then was that Ferrari knew what the issue was last year and had solutions already going into Bahrain- new floor & bargeboards if I recall. This time rumors are that the issue is more systemic in power unit/MGU-K.

What worries me was the loss of power of Vettel's car was not being shown in telemetry. And Engineers/Pit Wall didnt know the cause at all. When vettel expressed why the car is so slow, the pit wall was clueless and didnt know why. There's a lot of work to do in Maranello.

[GTIGUY1992]

Originally Posted by E90SLAM

What worries me was the loss of power of Vettel's car was not being shown in telemetry. And Engineers/Pit Wall didnt know the cause at all. When vettel expressed why the car is so slow, the pit wall was clueless and didnt know why. There's a lot of work to do in Maranello.

They had a post race interview with Binotto and he expressed how Ferrari felt "off pace" all weekend. I don't know if that's PR bull to cover up their PU problem as a setup issue and save face or what but yeah they have serious work ahead. Watching Q2 where Merc dropped the hammer hard for the first time and Binotto just shaking his head on HAM's cool down lap made my heart sink and think Ferrari knew this was coming the whole weekend.

IIRC lap 10-16 was around where Vettel just fell right off his marks (like a hard pace drop) and never recovered. His fastest lap of the whole race was lap 16! Which explains LEC getting within 1.5s of him.

Edit: Whoops! Of course I would post a vid with no translation lol.

[hellrotm]

Ferrari had strong car the first half of last season. Vettel was on pole 5 out of the first 11 races last season. With many believing Ferrari also had better race pace as well.

They fell apart second half the season, a combination of driving mistakes, bad race calls, and poor upgrades. They had their chance last season, but blew it.

[hellrotm]

Originally Posted by E90SLAM

And why everyone acted surprised when Merc blew it away? Everyone "Knows" the Mercs had been sandbagging during winter testing. Stop letting the "fast laps" from Ferrari last few weeks gave you a false impression.

Ferrari was quick in testing going into the 2018 season. They backed it up with pace in the regular season. They showed legitimate speed right away, after Australia Ferrari fired off 3 straight poles in Bahrain, China, and Azerbaijan. I guess everyone was expecting the same thing as last season. I wouldn't be so quick to count them out yet. Australia can be a bit of an anomaly.

[mk1-fan]

Originally Posted by hellrotm

Ferrari was quick in testing going into the 2018 season. They backed it up with pace in the regular season. They showed legitimate speed right away, after Australia Ferrari fired off 3 straight poles in Bahrain, China, and Azerbaijan. I guess everyone was expecting the same thing as last season. I wouldn't be so quick to count them out yet. Australia can be a bit of an anomaly.

Indeed, Melbourne is not indicitive of general pace. Having said that, we will only know the cars true pace a few races in. There isn't much time for them now to make any changes now. I still think Ferrari is still up there, but for some unexplained reason they couldn't show it in Australia.