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Last year we had the Ferrari v Mercedes thread and its great to add Red Bull to this discussion. I am going to kick the thread off with a fastest lap race pace analysis adjusted with an attempt to adjust for fuel being carried and tyre life.

- The cars get quicker the lighter they are.
- The tyres get slower the more laps they do.

The assumption is, 1 lap of fuel = 0.066. So 3 laps of fuel = 0.200
This is arrived at with the assumption the cars are 4 second per lap slower on full tanks with new tyres compared to no fuel and new tyres and the same engine modes. Divide that by the 60 laps and its 0.066 per lap.

The tyres work in opposite direction. This is much harder to calculate, but times improved as stints went on so that means tyre wear was significantly less than 0.66 per lap. Tyres also hit the cliff at a certain point too, Vettel did this in stint one, the last 3 laps of his run were 0.6-0.8 slower than he was doing just a few laps before.

Hamilton:
1m 26.444
- 8 laps of fuel on board
- 26 racing lap old tyres (discounted SC laps)

Raikkonen
1m 26.373
- 1 lap of fuel on board
- 34 racing lap old tyres

Vettel:
1m 26.469
- 5 laps of fuel on board
- 22 racing lap old tyres

Ricciardo:
1m 25.945
- 4 laps of fuel on board
- 23 racing lap old tyres

Fuel adjust all times to that of having just 1 lap of fuel like Kimi's lap:
Hamilton - 25.982 (26 lap tyres)
Raikkonen - 26.373 (34 lap tyres)
Vettel - 26.271 (22 lap tyres)
Ricciardo - 25.747 (23 lap old tyres)

Both Ricciardo and Hamilton were being held up so we don't know for certain how quick they might have gone if they had numerous laps. Dan literally only got 1 flyer, Hamilton got 3 flyers in when he dropped back from Vettel. But look at the fastest laps and the stint averages as well. It seems pretty clear;

Mercedes > Ferrari
Red Bull > Ferrari

However, the race pace of Red Bull and Mercedes is too close to call. The Red Bull could easily be the quickest car here. Ricciardo was 0.5 faster than Vettel fuel adjusted and they had the same aged tyres. I did not include Bottas and Verstappen as they spent the entire day in traffic. I think its safe to assume everybody was pushing hard in that stint too, they all had reason to keep the pace up.

Don't mean to criticise the effort you put in, but wouldn't the tyres degrade in a non-linear manner? I.E. the heavier the car, the more they degrade?

Well, Ferrari scored the quickest lap in testing, won the first race and scored more wcc points than the competitors. All else is wait and see what happens in the next races.

Oh, and one other thing. Hamilton was asking whether he could attack now, despite being practically up Vettel's exhaust for a number of laps. This suggests a considerable amount in reserve we never got to see

This is why I did not attribute a number to tyre wear. Fuel burn is linear we can give a good estimate. I put the tyre wear numbers there just to give the fuel adjusted numbers context. Vettel was 0.1 quicker than Kimi for example, but given that it was on 12 lap fresher tyres, without putting a number on it that looks to me to be a better lap from Kimi.

Ham had 3 laps to push in, when he dropped back from Vettel he did a 26.4, 26.5, 26.5 before he caught him back up. I think that is close to all Hamilton had. But of course he may have ruined his tyres a bit being so close to Vettel all stint by that point - but then Dan also spent the stint in the same place behind Kimi.

Dan literally had 1 lap. He fell behind Kimi and did that 25.9 and immediately caught back up and was stuck again. If anything, I think Dan probably had more just because he only got 1 flyer.

At this point, its just fun to speculate. We have so little data. There is also the possibility that Vettel had a stinker and if on form would have been his usual 0.2-0.4 up on Kimi in race pace and right up there with the Red Bull and Mercedes.

Mercedes was clearly the fastest car in Melbourne. Ferrari and Red Bull were fairly even, Ferrari a bit quicker on ultras and RBR quicker on softs.

That is quite a lazy analysis.

The Red Bull spent the entire first stint in traffic, both cars. How do you conclude the Ferrari to be quicker on the Ultras? There is literally no data. Except a single lap in which Ricciardo did a 28.1 on lap 25. Vettel did a 28.8 the same lap.

Based on qualifying. Yeah, it’s a pretty lazy analysis.

I still think that Ferrari are the only ones who can challenge Mercedes in this hybrid era. I really hope that their lack of pace in Australia was a result of not understanding the new car properly.

-Red Bull has no Q3 mode. There car has the biggest gain from qualifying to race pace. Mercedes has the biggest decline. Everybody knows this and Horner constantly reminds us. That was also clear today.

- Even despite that, Verstapen on best sectors was 2nd in Australia. He also made the largest error in qualifying. If everybody was error free, he likely started the race ahead of both Ferrari's.

The reason Red Bull won't challenge is that Verstappen is too hot headed and the car probably won't be reliable enough. Ricciardo isn't hot headed but his qualifying won't be good enough to challenge for the title and of course the reliability too. They will also take a lot of points off one another. They may challenge but they need to overcome those hurdles first, even if they have the fastest car I see them blowing it.

I’ve also just realised red Bull ran the slower super soft in the first stint, they didn't even run the ultra.

Ricciardo did a 28.1 on SS on his single lap not in traffic in the first stint. That is a very good time. The fastest lap on the first stint was Hamilton’s 27.8 on the ultra.

Ricciardo arguably set the fastest lap in both stints, adjusting for tyres, each with a single lap of clean air.

But he was asking if he could attack, which suggests he was waiting for permission to engage an even quicker mode. I do agree it's not something he can use all the time, but it does indicate that Mercedes had a get out of jail free card if given the opportunity to use it

You do realise that message was delayed, He was already in the quicker mode when it was broadcast.

the lap charts don't really bear that out, though

Despite his so so qualifying Ricciardo was the class of the field in the race. Only not getting past Kimi slightly dampened his performance. It's looking like a good three way team scrap once Vettel gets used to the car and Renault unleash more power in their engines with less conservative settings. Renault, Haas and McLaren also might have an effect on the championship if they are embedded in the top teams fights. Shame about the aero preventing more overtakes but hopefully Brawn can fix that in 2021.

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When you are within 0.9-1.2 seconds of the car in front, when you actually go for it might not even be visible in the lap chart numbers. He may have been getting closer at certain points on the track, only to lose it again at the next slow corner in the dirty air. Basically, he never got closer than 0.5 behind Vettel all day. That was at the end of the start finish line and the gap was always back up to 0.9 by the time they got to turn 4/5 when he did get that close.

It appears the message was delayed by about a lap or two. The lap before the message was played he did his PB, 0.4 quicker than any other lap he had managed to that point.

Yeah I think in Australia it was Merc, Redbull, Ferrari.
Max should have outqualified the Ferraris as lamo pointed out.
Ricciardo was all over Raikonnen, so was obviously faster.
Raikonnen did a good job sticking to Hamilton for a long time in the first stint and Ham mentioned it in the post race.
What if it was Ricciardo behind Hamilton in the first stint? Chances are he would have done an even better job since he was faster than Rai.
Race pace wise the cars are close, but to me right now, Merc and Redbull are clearly ahead of Ferrari, who have definitely taken a step back.
The way Vettel sounded on the podium was another indication; he knows they are lacking right now.
Bahrain should suit their car more than Redbull though. Straights are more prominent.

Unless my timing screen is completely messed up, his PB was 1:26.444. The two laps before were 1:26.548 and 1:26.656. I'm not seeing this major improvement

Good point about the Red Bulls on SS.
What caught them out was both Max and Dan being stuck behind Haas in the early stages of the race.

They had originally planned to pit much later in the race either going to the Ultras if they could run long enough, or go to the softs with not many laps remaining.

Max ended up putting early to try and undercut the guys he was behind after his mistake.
And when the VSC was on, it was stupid for Dan to do anything else other than pit.

Maybe Max could have been in position to challenge for the lead had he not lost his position to Kmag at the start, then stayed out behind Vettel after Ham and Kimi pitted...

Edit:
Or how awesome would it have been it they put the Ultras on Dan under the VSC. He would have been against 3 guys on the softs, so 2 compounds softer. If he would have been able to overtake it would have been a nail biter to see if he could hold on to the end.

I think we are in for an exciting season.

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I also like: Perez, Hulk, Sainz, Button and Alonso
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Unless my timing screen is completely messed up, his PB was 1:26.444. The two laps before were 1:26.548 and 1:26.656. I'm not seeing this major improvement[/quote]

From memory, the message that he was going for it was played and then literally 30 seconds later he went off track. The off track lap is the slow lap in there. The lap before the slow lap he did a PB at the time. The recovery in clean air from the off track incident is the laps you describe.

So, for me, it seems like Ferrari might indeed have the best overall package. It is the most radically different from what they had last year by comparison to Mercedes and Red Bull. That might explain why they were not quite on it in Australia (plus Australia is a very unique circuit). In Bahrain, however, they have been easily the fastest. Bahrain is also a power track and Ferrari have been faster than Mercedes in a straight line consistently all season. In Q1, Raikkonen did a faster time than Hamilton despite being on softs while Hamilton was on supersofts. That's not something to ignore. The Merc might potentially have the third best chassis and second best engine!

There's a lot of talk of Mercedes getting superior fuel efficiency and that's a definite bonus on race day if accurate but in terms of raw pace, the Ferrari looks superior. Early days still and we need to give it a couple of more races in order to formulate a distinct opinion but Ferrari are certainly in good shape.

Maybe Mercedes threw away their only chance of a win this year in Melbourne.

Bahrain qualifying is pretty straight forward. Ferrari fastest, Mercedes second, Red Bull third.


Let's see what the race tomorrow brings. I reckon that Ricciardo will be very competitive.

Ferrari have made huge gains. Usually in qualifying Mercedes are always faster and Singapore, Monaco tracks only other team had a chance. Mercedes I think are 3rd fastest team in Bahrain. Commentator said it could be tyres and temperature thing

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In terms of raw pace the Ferrari looked better today, but not by any stretch in Melbourne. And it should be noted that Bottas only missed pole by a couple of tenths and the front row by two hundredths of a second, and Hamilton is normally comfortably quicker than him, so a Mercedes pole today certainly doesn't seem like an impossibility

Mercedes had the normal uptick in Q3 performance relative to the field but it wasn't enough. This is a power circuit and I think the race pace advantage for Ferrari might be even bigger. One thing I have little doubt about is that Ferrari are not at a power disadvantage this season. They may potential be at an efficiency disadvantage but certainly not power.

Lewis only improved by a couple of tenths between Q2 and Q3 and you can normally bet the house on him improving, so I'm guessing he either had some kind of issue or simply wasn't comfortable in the car, which is a rare enough occurrence to be noticeable. The fact that Bottas beat him also suggests something was not quite right for him (although I accept I may be being a little unfair on Bottas). Given that, I don't think Mercedes are in trouble, more like they just don't appear to have their usual performance advantage

I'd agree that here Ferrari certainly don't look to have a deficit in power., which bodes well for the WDC battle.

edit: and another thing: Lewis set his Q2 time on the Softs, so in reality he didn't improve in Q3 at all, which suggests even more strongly that something wasn't right for him, rather than that Mercedes have been overtaken

Having the grid penalty might be a factor in Hamilton's qualifying today but I don't think it really matters much. What matters is that the Ferrari was more planted while not giving up anything in a straight line and showed better ability to utilize both compounds. They are also not dealing with over-heating issue with the engine and tires the way Mercedes are.

Again, it's a data point and we need a few more to formulate an opinion but it looks like Ferrari may indeed be the strongest this year. Certainly Bahrain is more representative of most of the tracks than Melbourne. I'll be the first to raise my hand and admit I thought Mercedes had a clear advantage this year after the Australian GP but this weekend has completely changed that perception for me.

But yeah it's going to be another closely matched season.

I would like to point out that even last season, when Ferrari was quicker than Mercedes in qualifying (Russia, Monaco, Hungary), Hamilton was often outperformed by Bottas. Today that trend continues.

Hamilton and the Mercedes was simply great on the harder tyre. This is pretty standard between Hamilton and Bottas and also Hamilton and Rosberg. He is always stronger on the harder tyre than those two. This is why Bottas was heavily criticised last year for never being able to run two stints at good pace, because as soon as he bolts on the harder tyre his pace drops well off.

Hamilton probably would have done Q3 on softs if he had enough of them left. The soft is a great tyre here, we saw that with Vettel on friday too.

Yet Vettel losing out to Kimi in Australia didn't alter your perception there. You have to maintain logical consistency otherwise there's not much point to providing an analysis.

It’s not a shot at Hamilton as a driver, I’m just pointing out that Vettel tends to lose to Raikkonen randomly. In Hamilton’s case, he tends to lose to Bottas in specific circumstances.

I really don't see that. In Monaco, Hamilton lost out to Bottas because he never got in a flyer in Q1. Russia is Bottas' strongest circuit so that explains that one. In Hungary I'd assume Lewis just didn't have a great lap but I recall him being the quickest during the race there. At other tracks where Ferrari were quicker like Singapore and Malaysia, Hamilton was on a different planet from Bottas.

I completely forgot about just how big the gap was at Singapore. Fair enough.


I still expect Mercedes to be the car to beat in China. Ferrari are only 0.4s faster than Ricciardo here, which is about the same margin they had in Australia. I think that Merc are just struggling here and it’s track specific.

Could be but my gut tells my Ferrari will be quicker there too. In fact they seemed quicker during the race there last year.

I think the tyres are being a bit tricky with Merc. Pirelli are changing the compound make up for Spain,France and Silverstone after getting feedback from at least Mercedes about blistering, could be more teams but none mentioned.

Initially AMuS said it was at the request of Mercedes but they back peddled from that and pointed out Pirelli's own research had thrown up concerns about those recently relaid tracks but Red Bull and McLaren weren't happy apparently.

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Yes on Dutch TV they also said it was following requests from Mercerdes

China and Bahrain are basically the same track. It will depend on the temperature.

This is probably a bit off topic but I'm really quite disappointed in Renault. They look like they may have taken a tiny step forward but are still much more in the midfield than they are challenging the big three. Even correcting for any driver deficit the car it self is still a long way off.

Yes, finishing over a second behind a Red Bull is pretty poor. They are of course doing much better than McLaren as some consolation but don't look good