sandman1347 wrote:
China? Based on what? Vettel admitted to messing up his qualifying lap there. That cost him the pole and in the race, Vettel was the fastest car without question. Strategy just played into Mercedes' hands there with the safety car timing and Vettel being stuck in traffic. Not sure on what basis you come up with Mercedes being faster there.
Talk about some nonsense revisionism. Vettel lost half a tenth at most relative to his best lap. Hamilton himself didn't get the best possible lap in either in Q3. Mercedes was faster in qualifying. I see absolutely no evidence to suggest that Ferrari were any faster in the race. Vettel's gamble under the VSC did not pay off, but Hamilton never looked threatened and Vettel was never able to close the gap in any significant way until the end of the race when Hamilton was cruising. Bottas finished right behind Raikkonen despite spinning under the SC and losing a bunch of time.
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Austria and Belgium are also races in which there is not objective reason to think Mercedes were faster. In Belgium in particular, Ferrari were easily on Mercedes' pace.
In Austria, the slower Mercedes driver was about as fast as the faster Ferrari driver across a race distance. The faster Mercedes driver finished only 7 seconds behind, despite losing 20 seconds behind the slower Ferrari driver, who was slower than even the Red Bull.
If the situations were reversed, don't even try to deny that you would give that race to Ferrari.
In Belgium, Mercedes were quicker in qualifying and were quicker in the race when Hamilton had to push. The fact that in the final 10 laps, Hamilton was quicker on softs than Vettel was on US was very telling, since the US was supposed to have a 1.4 second advantage.
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Either way, it is about even. To say Mercedes have been faster 75% of the time is a total falsehood. Speculation about how things will break down moving forward is just speculation right now but to suggest that it has been uneven up to know is flat out untrue.
75% may have been an exaggeration, but to claim that the cars are "too close to call" is completely nonsense. Only those who have an agenda in favor of certain drivers and against others would claim that.
Ferrari have taken 4 poles and 4 wins. Mercedes have 10 poles and 9 wins (should be 10 wins if not for Hamilton's headrest issue). It requires some serious dishonesty to claim that the cars are equal.
They are not equal cars. Mercedes generally better in qualifying, and usually as fast or faster in the race. Which makes it overall the car to have.
You seem to be taking this extremely personally and you are only looking at results. Results come from a combination of factors. They are not purely down to the car. Based on your way of looking at things, you would conclude that Mercedes were faster last weekend in Singapore. Instead of making emotional arguments, present some form of empirical support for your arguments.
In Belgium Hamilton was clearly holding Vettel up on pace. If Hamilton had the pace to open a gap, he would have opened one much like he did at Monza, Singapore or pretty much any race where he has had the pace to do so. The fact that he didn't gap Vettel means that he couldn't gap him. The Ferrari was quicker there during the race. Vettel just couldn't find a way around Hamilton. In no way was Hamilton quicker during the race. They had to be perfect with their strategy in order to maintain the lead and would have lost it had Vettel been able to pull off a pass or if Ferrari were able to execute the overcut.
In your last sentence you said Mercedes are generally as fast or faster during the race. Again, this is blatantly false. Read the race-by-race breakdowns that are listed in here and you will see that in the races this year Ferrari have been faster more often than not. Qualifying goes to Merc and some people would say that they would prefer the slight edge on Saturday over the slight edge on Sunday but you have to come back to reality in order to really engage in this conversation in a meaningful way. Your use of exaggerated statements here is bizarre.