planetf1.com

Of course not, but as said before I'm not talking about testing to destruction, just about actual realworld usage testing i.e. testing in realistic conditions at representative speeds.

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Go Vandoorne - Verstappen - Vettel!

Yea I know, just having a chuckle and enjoying your chat - no offence intended.
You are clearly one of the more knowledgeable and intellectual posters here.

Too much credit, but thank you!

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Go Vandoorne - Verstappen - Vettel!

Looks like Ferrari haven't made the best start in the reliability stakes this year. New ES and CE for Kimi already!

I just read that Mercedes are 5 kg overweight! They haven't optimized the weight of the car yet apparently. That suggests lots of room for improvement.

http://www.foxsports.com/motor/story/f1 ... tle-032517

That's interesting. I wonder if it explains the rumours that Mercedes got a bit lost with setup/new parts and went back to a more rudimentary/heavier set of parts.

I know an F1 car can't use more than 105 kgs of fuel in each race, but does anyone know how much lap time 5 Kgs is worth in Melbourne?

Kimi...

How much does that oil weigh???

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Forza Ferrari
WCCs = 16
WDCs = 15

About 1.5 tenths per lap.

I know it's still early days, but does anyone fear that this season could be as bad as 2000 and 2007 in terms of the top 2 teams being in a completely different planet to everyone else?

Even if it is, it will still be a change to just one team so will automatically be better received.

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"Clark came through at the end of the first lap so far ahead that we in the pits were convinced that the rest of the field must have been wiped out in an accident."
-Eddie Dennis, describing the dominance of Jim Clark in the Lotus 49 at Spa 1967

It could actually end up worse.
When Merc had dominance they let the drivers race as there was no one barking at their heels. If there is a squeeze, drivers my be under orders to be sure Merc gain maximum points from each race. Which may mean hold position

Still have to fight the lead Ferrari at least so it's still preferable to anyone not a Mercedes fan. Two man fight within one team or at least two man fight with two teams.

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"Clark came through at the end of the first lap so far ahead that we in the pits were convinced that the rest of the field must have been wiped out in an accident."
-Eddie Dennis, describing the dominance of Jim Clark in the Lotus 49 at Spa 1967

Do not underestimate the development force behind Mercedes. They endeavour to make a certain aspect of the car 99% better. This in turns plays in their hands and by far their development is far far better then the rest of the field, importantly than Ferrari. By the name you can see I am SF fan, however, I see Mercedes patching this up soon and we have no idea on the Mercedes or Ferrari even RB's compare on faster, down-force related tracks.

Mercedes will win the WDC and WCC, Ferrari close in second, unless RBR find their wings!

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Scuderia Ferrari

Considering that Räikkönen seemed to be out of form here, Ferrari overall had a small but significant advantage over Mercedes in Melbourne. May change or get bigger at other tracks.

Game on! A 2-team battle for the title is absolutely brilliant for the sport, especially when one of them is Ferrari

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I don't rely entirely on God

I rely on Prost



FA#14

Don't really care whether it's Ferrari or RBR, now it is Ferrari and I would love to see Vettel take it to Hamilton. I just hope that they can do this consistently and don't fade away in the second half of the year.

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Go Vandoorne - Verstappen - Vettel!

I don't mind which team it is either. But as the most popular team by a country mile, having Ferrari fighting at the front is always good for F1

This might be the Hamilton v Vettel title fight we've been waiting for

_________________
I don't rely entirely on God

I rely on Prost



FA#14

I think Red Bull will be mighty by the middle of the year.
In the last few years you would say that the biggest development gains come from Red Bull, then Merc then Ferrari.

There are some big question marks over both Merc and Ferrari.
How much influence did Alison have on this years Ferrari design?
How important was Paddy Lowe in driving the in season development for the last few years at Merc?

The weakness of the Merc seems to be only how sensitive it is to following other cars vs Ferrari.

Merc lost the race here being stuck behind Max's Red Bull. Had Ham not been held back, Vettel would have emerged behind Ham after the pit stops, and would have had to overtake on track to take the win.
As Melbourne is notoriously hard to overtake, Ham would have probably been able to hold him off.

Can't wait for China where I think Merc will bounce back for the win.

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I support: Ricciardo
I also like: Perez, Hulk, Sainz, Button and Alonso
I respect: Ham, Vettel and Max

What a coincidence that Force India which also uses a Mercedes engine, is overweight!

Not that the Mercedes engine is heavier this year but apart from these 2 teams, not heard any other team claiming to be overweight.

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Feel The Fourth

If Hamilton does win, still it would be too early to assume that Mercedes is clearly the best car on the grid. Unless he wins by some margin over Vettel then it would shed some light on this issue.

China as a track is more overtake friendly & the weather may be cooler as well.

But I sincerely hope that Ferrari is as strong as the Merc or vice versa for the sake of competition. I also hope Bottas & Raikkonen get into the mix. Sooner or later, Red Bull will crash the party.

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Feel The Fourth

It seems these cars are reasonable close, close enough for the drivers to make the differences.

Does anybody have a figure for how much of a time penalty one lap of fuel is around Australia?

Hamilton vs Vettel lap chart -

http://en.mclarenf-1.com/index.php?page ... n%20Vettel

1) Vettel when released from Hamilton didn't go much quicker, he managed one lap 0.3 quicker (of the 6 laps) than Hamiltons in lap but the others were all in the ball park of the laps Hamilton did before pitting. Vettel was quick but it appears he wasn't being heavily held up in that first stint.

2) Fastest laps. We can not read too much into it as nobody had much to push for, but on paper it seems pretty close. Fuel adjusted Hamilton was probably quickest but the others set there times in similar conditions and were all close.

- Hamilton did a 27.00 with 13 laps of fuel on board and 27 lap old tyres
- Vettel did a 26.60 with 4 laps of fuel on board and 30 lap old tyres
- Bottas did a 26.59 with 2 laps of fuel on board and 31 lap old tyres
- Raikkonen did 26.53 with 2 laps of fuel on board and 30 lap old tyres

3) Hamilton vs Vettel final stint
By the time Hamilton was by Max the gap was up to 5.8 seconds on lap 25. Vettel ran this entire stint with tyres 7 laps younger tyres so if the car-driver packages were equal you would expect Vettel to pull away at a couple of tenths per lap. Traffic played a part and neither pushed too hard I imagine, but it played out as if the cars were very equal but the newer tyres made the gap up to 10 seconds.

Conclusion -
The Mercedes and Ferrari were very close this race and either could have won. I suspect if you the race was run again tomorrow Mercedes would win as really the race was lost through strategy.

Interesting analysis lamo. I agree Mercedes and Ferrari were about as equally fast as it gets. Hope it stays that way the whole year!

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Räikkönen - Vettel - Bottas
Thank you Nico - You´re the champ!

PF1 Pick 10 Competition 2016: CHAMPION (2 wins, 8 podiums)

massive development from both teams and the constructors championship will go to which team does this best

Ferrari SF70H floor flex rumour swirls in Bahrain

http://www.thisisf1.com/2017/04/14/ferr ... n-bahrain/

I think that Ferrari have the better fundamental concept and that Merc are more banking on evolutions of their previous solutions. I reckon that as long as Ferrari can keep pace with Merc in the engine department that they'll have the best car for the season overall. But we don't know of course and that's half the fun.

2017 Bahrain - Senior Team Personnel press conference - Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU5ZCCctnsw

Slightly mischievous comments from Mattia Binotto at the end of this, I'd say.

15 minutes in.

Reading that Mercedes will bring a new front suspension to Spain, aimed at better managing the tyres.
Also, weight saving will become even more of an issue since they're apparently coming with a permanent solution for the T-wing installation construction that adds another kg to the already overweight W08.

Source: http://soymotor.com/noticias/mercedes-p ... ana-933523

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Go Vandoorne - Verstappen - Vettel!

interesting that they attribute Mercedes' weight issues to the their loss of their banned suspension systems. Wonder how much stronger the Mercedes would have been if they had been allowed to keep it?

I wonder if the drivers are trying to cut their weight? Hamilton and Bottas are two of the stockier drivers. I reckon a few KGs could be shaved.

About 3 tenths quicker it has been said because of the weight of the car.

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PF1 Pick 10 Competition

2013: 5th Place
2014: Champion
2015: 3rd Place
2016: 4th Place
2017: 9th Place
2018: Currently 12th

Wins: Abu Dhabi 2017
Podiums: 2nd Canada 2015, 3rd Monza 2016, Hungary 2016 and Barcelona 2015

is that just factoring the weight, not any advantage the suspension system itself may have given?

Sounds like the Merc would again have been the class of the field. One wonders how far ahead they would have been in previous years without that suspension

I heard they are running 4-5 kgs overweight, I suspect that is costing them about 0.150 per lap in just weight. But then there is the lack of optimisation due to not being able to run ballast and then the gain of the suspension itself. I think with the suspension it would probably be like 2015 against Ferrari. i.e. Ferrari can win with a bit of strategy and luck on certain tracks but Mercedes is still the class of the field and basically winning every race with a near 0.5 per lap advantage. Even with just 0.2 a lap Mercedes likely would have won every race this season and locked out all the front rows bar Russia due to Hamilton.

Weren't Red Bull also running that suspension, they have dropped about 1.0-1.2 seconds per lap to Ferrari from the end of last year.

Yep, that sounds about right - we always hear that '10kg of extra weight costs about 0.3 seconds per lap', so they should be losing a tenth and a half for 5kg. Considering how tight things are with Ferrari, that's still a lot though.

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PF1 PICK 10 COMPETITION (3 wins, 12 podiums): 2017: 19th| 2016: 3rd| 2015: 4th
PF1 TOP THREE TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP (No Limit Excedrin Racing): 2017: 2nd| 2015: 1st
AUTOSPORT GP PREDICTOR: 2017 United States Champion! (world #2)

Allow me yet more fun even though I didn't actually make any concrete predictions regarding who'd win the Championships.

This looks solid right now but Red Bull need to be super strong in 2018 to complete the deal. Also, it implies that Mercedes have the least potential in development by continuing to tweak a now ageing concept and understanding under new regs.

I do expect Red Bull to be great from the start in 2018 and that they're warming into a terrific understanding of the regulations regarding their car. I think Mercedes will be the weakest of the three as they'll make larger changes to their fundamental design albeit it won't be a complete redesign. Instead it will be them who make the fastest gains but unlike Red Bull they'll make them fast enough in 2018 to be able to realistically fight for at least one Championship.

Next season could be won on reliability. I could envisage Red Bull having an edge on Ferrari and Mercedes in races but that their engines will fail more often and that they'll take more penalties. Ferrari will continue their strong work and not many important heads will roll; they will learn from the errors of 2017 and close the gap to Mercedes regarding their race weekend operations. I expect a race down to the wire for both Championships for 2018.

Let's see.

PS, I'll add that I do expect good things from McLaren in 2018 and that 2019 will see Renault truly enter the fray as a team who can win races.

You could just have replied saying "I told you so"

Yeah you had a good heads up for this year and next year I wouldn't too surprised if you are not right.

Regarding Mercedes you are saying they will not have a complete redesign, so they keep the long wheelbase and stay away from the high rake concept?

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PF1 Pick 10 Competition

2013: 5th Place
2014: Champion
2015: 3rd Place
2016: 4th Place
2017: 9th Place
2018: Currently 12th

Wins: Abu Dhabi 2017
Podiums: 2nd Canada 2015, 3rd Monza 2016, Hungary 2016 and Barcelona 2015

Problem with RBR is that they always start slow and then improve. It worked well against Alonso-era Ferrari because Ferrari had a habit of fading away and not developing.

Merc is not the same and RBR simply can't beat them. I don't see RBR starting 2018 on a high. Ferrari has also improved so there's more competition.

Merc needs to redesign the car so it can go very right, or very wrong. Ferrari have the best design IMO, and their reliability issues can be ironed out. If Red Bull can start high, we may have a season on our hands, but I doubt that.

Worst case scenario for Mercedes is actually worse than it is for RBR in my opinion. Now that Red Bull have properly wrapped their heads around the current regs, there is no reason to believe they won't be competitive from the off next year. The power unit was really the primary thing holding them back to begin with and we've seen that the current, upgraded Renault power plant is actually producing similar performance to Mercedes and Ferrari (although seemingly without the all-powerful Q3 modes). A reliability improvement is really all that is needed now as the upgraded units have failed a few times already.

Worse case for Mercedes is that they miss the mark with their new design and are not competitive with the leaders. Considering Ferrari's performance level this year and the fact that they are merely evolving their design rather than going through a total re-think; I think they are also far less of a gamble than Mercedes for 2018. It's truly impossible to predict at this stage how things will shake out next year.

Has Mercedes going for a new design been confirmed?.

There was good reasons they went with this one, they lost too many points of d/f with their simulated swb design last winter, and outside the 3 highest d/f tracks they've been competitive at the other 17 (Assuming they don't have a nightmare at Brazil or AD) so it seems a bit risky to me.

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"Clark came through at the end of the first lap so far ahead that we in the pits were convinced that the rest of the field must have been wiped out in an accident."
-Eddie Dennis, describing the dominance of Jim Clark in the Lotus 49 at Spa 1967

The real risk would be not to re-design the car. The writing is on the wall with this long wheelbase car already and they have less scope for development with it than the other top teams do with their short wheelbase cars. In other words, Mercedes have a more developed concept but it is a fundamentally inferior concept. As they move forward through time with this current concept, they will do nothing but continuously lose ground.