Poll: Australian Grand Prix 2019, Melbourne - Race 1/21

[drunkenmaster]

Norris looked great.. McLaren up nearer the top.
Race pace is the next question though
The cars that can heat up the tyres the best in qually do sometimes end up being the the ones that struggle to keep the temp down in the races...
It's far from over yet

It's usually the other way around, in that being not in the window usually means being over the temp window rather than out of it. The ultra's have a window of like 110-140C operating window, and the track temp was pretty high today (44c I think it was, that might have been FP3 actually). Ferrari were absolutely tearing their tires to hell in friday, didn't really see much of their tires and mostly short runs today. It's more likely that the Ferrari and RB were overheating tires and struggling to keep grip throughout the lap without sliding around and overheating. Merc for no reason get accused of pushing their tires hard but it's been mostly that Merc are insane on keeping tires in and keeping temps lower. The blistering that effected Merc in places like Barcelona before the tires were made thinner... was less bad blistering than Ferrari had. With the thinner tires Ferrari still got blistering worse than Merc who just about moved into a safe temp window for the tires. In places like Mexico Merc had massively worse graining than RB and Ferrari who got more heat into their tires. Tracks that were cool or not working tires well enough were dominated by RB/Ferrari, most of the excessive blistering tracks had Merc do great. THe only exception was Austria and that's largely because everyone else pitted and went slow as hell cruising while Hamilton got screwed, got pit from comfortable first where they were cruising on pace away from everyone to having to push to teams that had their tires working after a long slow warm up and that caused blistering, also of course fuel issues so was pushing harder when he had fuel to stay ahead of Vettel.

So my bet is more that Ferrari were struggling to maintain tires over the whole lap and had to go easier to keep them working by S3. They maybe could go faster s1/s2 but would then have a dire S3.

If that is the case then I can't see any issue with Merc and tire life in the race, they'll run cooler, run longer and have less wear than Ferrari.

 

[CaptainRAVE]

Wow, Mercedes have been seriously sandbagging.

Same margin over Vettel as last year. Who won last time?

True, but it was a very unusual error. It still depends on how we’ll Ferrari still start and what race pace is like, but that is a big gap.

 

[Entai]

I just don't get anyone who says that

It's just perfectly normal tactics surely if you know you have performance in hand, there is zero reason to show it untill absolutely necessary

Why give other teams the advantage of showing your true potential to early, and giving them a chance to catch up

It makes no sense to show your absolute pace untill you need to

 

[Glanza]

FP3 Highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSzVUpHNd-0

Qualifying Highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMbxRkymoaY

 

[Mr Jack]

True, but it was a very unusual error. It still depends on how we’ll Ferrari still start and what race pace is like, but that is a big gap.

It was. But F1 has a habit of making fools of us when we make strong predictions based on qualifying.

 

[Lopéz]

Got to hope this is a bogey track for Ferrari or we might as well congratulate Lewis and Mercedes on their Championships already.

Boom, 7:10 - @JunglistE you were almost spot on.

 

[adam cool dude]

2019 WDC already concluded then. Yawn

 

[J1nxy]

No. Sandbaging, no fooling people , just normal British precision.

Fixed for you

 

[The_Abyss]

Quality lap from Hamilton, and great from Lando too. Disappointing from Leclerc, but he was pretty average for the first few races last year too. I thought Vettel’s moustache attempt was also disappointing.

Not too dissimilar to Melbourne last year - let's see the difference to Ferrari if any when we get to proper tracks.

Renault cannot be happy.

 

[CaptainRAVE]

Not too dissimilar to Melbourne last year - let's see the difference to Ferrari if any when we get to proper tracks.

Will be interesting. Let’s hope Ferrari actually capitalise this year when the opportunity arises.

 

[JRS]

Got to hope this is a bogey track for Ferrari or we might as well congratulate Lewis and Mercedes on their Championships already.

2019 WDC already concluded then. Yawn

What do we all reckon then, this some kind of record on the forum for early declaration that the season is over?

Boom, 7:10 - @JunglistE you were almost spot on.

Nice going @JunglistE! You win...well, absolutely **** all but at least you have the satisfaction of almost calling it

 

[CaptainRAVE]

What do we all reckon then, this some kind of record on the forum for early declaration that the season is over?

We have broken many records so far in this thread

 

[Motogpv4]

oops ferrari where the best in pre seaon oh same old same old the mercs with hamilton will do the usual go uk

 

[englishpremier]

But you never ever show your full hand till you need to.

Nothing to do with trolling, or sandbaging, or holding back.

It's just normal only show what you really have when you actually have to so you don't give other teams time to catch up

Other teams can't just magically become faster just because you've shown how fast you are. They will already be at 100% development anyhow.

 

[GravyMonster]

Massively impressed with Norris. I know Sainz missed out on Q2 because of Kubica so any comparison is skewed, but it's still a great job by a rookie.

 

[Lakeland]

It’s mainly mind games at this level of competition.

 

[Kanpai]

oops ferrari where the best in pre seaon oh same old same old the mercs with hamilton will do the usual go uk

But they really weren't

 

[kindai]

 

[Steampunk]

How many times have we heard how strong the Ferraris look in pre-season practice, and then Mercedes smacks them down across the course of the season? I have a suspicion that it's become an in-team joke that Mercedes have turned into a tradition.

 

[Mr Jack]

Massively impressed with Norris. I know Sainz missed out on Q2 because of Kubica so any comparison is skewed, but it's still a great job by a rookie.

I missed that, what happened to Sainz?

Also, he wasn't actually that much slower than Norris, about 0.4s, Gasly was even more unlucky, just 0.2s behind the guy who took 4th in the end. If it keeps being this close, we're going to see a lot of surprising drivers going out in Q1 and Q2.