Bahrain Grand Prix 2014, Sakhir - Race 3/19

I've said it before, but Mercedes have engineered an absolute monster of a car. I can't believe the rate at which that gap increased after the safety car. At the moment it seems that Mercedes has a massively bigger advantage than any of the really dominant Red Bull cars (2011 and 2013). Vettel may have cruised to a couple dozen of his victories in those machines, but I just feel like Mercedes have something disgustingly quick in their hands.
 
trickycurve said:
I've said it before, but Mercedes have engineered an absolute monster of a car. I can't believe the rate at which that gap increased after the safety car. At the moment it seems that Mercedes has a massively bigger advantage than any of the really dominant Red Bull cars (2011 and 2013). Vettel may have cruised to a couple dozen of his victories in those machines, but I just feel like Mercedes have something disgustingly quick in their hands.
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and people thought Hamilton leaving Mclaren was a poor decision............ lol.

The only issue at Merc is having a quick team mate and still not an awful lot of luck. If he'd won the first race which frankly he looked quite a bit faster than Rosberg, then he'd have a 21 point lead. You would expect at some point for Rosberg to have a bit of bad luck and the points even out to respective performances but it doesn't always happen and could go the other way and get worse for Hamilton.

If they had a Webber instead of a Rosberg in the other seat, this title would absolutely be Hamilton's. Very good driver + luck can beat a great driver, but a meh driver + luck + fast car will maybe win a few races but not be truly competitive enough to beat their team mate, which pretty much defines Webber.

It is a ridiculously fast car when it can go all out, and as I said it was great to see them fight, if they settled on a 1-2 they would have cruised out to a 5 second lead and sat there.

But don't underestimate how fast the Red Bull was, the tires are better this year and the cars are more efficient. Red Bull frequently went and banged in 2-3 second faster laps but simply stopped after 3-4 laps and then maintained same pace as the guys behind. The difference today was they didn't stop after 3-4 laps. The Red Bull at quite a lot of races has had that level of performance difference for sure. Just they usually do that off the grid and after a safety car and Webber could never really push Vettel so both gave up after a 5-10 second lead.
 
drunkenmaster said:
and people thought Hamilton leaving Mclaren was a poor decision............ lol.

The only issue at Merc is having a quick team mate and still not an awful lot of luck. If he'd won the first race which frankly he looked quite a bit faster than Rosberg, then he'd have a 21 point lead. You would expect at some point for Rosberg to have a bit of bad luck and the points even out to respective performances but it doesn't always happen and could go the other way and get worse for Hamilton.

If they had a Webber instead of a Rosberg in the other seat, this title would absolutely be Hamilton's. Very good driver + luck can beat a great driver, but a meh driver + luck + fast car will maybe win a few races but not be truly competitive enough to beat their team mate, which pretty much defines Webber.

It is a ridiculously fast car when it can go all out, and as I said it was great to see them fight, if they settled on a 1-2 they would have cruised out to a 5 second lead and sat there.

But don't underestimate how fast the Red Bull was, the tires are better this year and the cars are more efficient. Red Bull frequently went and banged in 2-3 second faster laps but simply stopped after 3-4 laps and then maintained same pace as the guys behind. The difference today was they didn't stop after 3-4 laps. The Red Bull at quite a lot of races has had that level of performance difference for sure. Just they usually do that off the grid and after a safety car and Webber could never really push Vettel so both gave up after a 5-10 second lead.
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I was one of the people that thought it was a bad decision at the time. How wrong was i lol?

That car is super quick and the constructors and drivers championships already look finished after 3 races.

At least we have competition at the front now and not Vettel cruising to easy wins every race.
 
lucarocks92 said:
Ferrari are a joke, i think Stefano might be out of a job next season. It's been 6 years since they had a race winning car now. They have 2 of the best drivers on the grid this season and still cant put out a half decent car for them to challenge for race wins.
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lucarocks92 said:
race winning car
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The 2013 Chinese Grand Prix says hi. Also the 2013 Spanish GP....and the 2012 Malaysian, European and German GPs. Oh, and the 2011 British GP. And the 2010 Bahrain, German, Italian, Singapore and Korean GPs. And the 2009 Belgian GP.

Maybe instead of rampant hyperbole, we could just go with "championship winning car" in future, yeah? ;):p
 
JRS said:
The 2013 Chinese Grand Prix says hi. Also the 2013 Spanish GP....and the 2012 Malaysian, European and German GPs. Oh, and the 2011 British GP. And the 2010 Bahrain, German, Italian, Singapore and Korean GPs. And the 2009 Belgian GP.

Maybe instead of rampant hyperbole, we could just go with "championship winning car" in future, yeah? ;):p
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That Ferrari was never a race winning car though, Alonso generally took advantage of certain situations. The Chinese GP was the only race where He was properly the fastest guy on track if i remember correct.

Malaysian GP was in wet conditions with a lot of crashes on track, Spanish GP Vettel who was dominating broke down.

German GP was in wet conditions as well.

British GP was after they banned that Red Bull part just for that race then brought it back the next race after.

Bahrain 2010 Vettel broke down again leading the race

Singapore out qualified Vettel by pure driving ability not the car. Lead that race from start to finish by masterclass driving holding Vettel in the faster car off all race.

Korean GP race leader Webber spun out and Alonso took full advantage.

Monza i did not see that race so can not comment on it.

Belgium 2009 he was not at Ferrari.

So there u have it he has not had a race winning car since he has been at Ferrari. Any race he won it was more down to Alonso driving the wheels off a car that should not be at the front.
 
Absolutely brilliant race.
As Lauda said "These people who are complaining about how bad F1 is this year really are idiots" :)

And to help illustrate the speed:

Fastest lap comparison - Bahrain
2013 - Vettel - 1.36.96
2014 - Rosberg - 1.37.020

More of the same races please!
 
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robbiemc said:
Absolutely brilliant race.
As Lauda said "These people who are complaining about how bad F1 is this year really are idiots" :)

And to help illustrate the speed:

Fastest lap comparison - Bahrain
2013 - Vettel - 1.36.96
2014 - Hamilton - 1.37.108

More of the same races please!
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That's a bit misleading.

Hamilton wasn't having to save petrol at the end. Overall race time will be a fair bit slower.

Similarly qualification times won't be much slower.
 
1h36m vs 1h39m but that's not accounting for lost time under the safety car this year which wasn't a factor last year, say they lost approx. 30 seconds per lap under the safety car for 4 laps was it? that's 2 minutes, so overall time is really only in the region of a minute slower, which is bloody impressive so soon after new engines, aero restrictions etc.
 
lucarocks92 said:
I was one of the people that thought it was a bad decision at the time. How wrong was i lol?

That car is super quick and the constructors and drivers championships already look finished after 3 races.

At least we have competition at the front now and not Vettel cruising to easy wins every race.
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This is how it should be. An epic battle between team mates. Shame red bull never allowed it.
 
Was anything said in the after show about Hamiltons radio call that he lost power? He didn't seem to lose any speed?

Button trouble of missed the accelerator? ;)

There was no way if every thing is running fine that Nico can beat Hamilton wheel to wheel. It reminded me of that time Button tried, then got re-passed and dropped. I don't rate his chances of getting past him on the track too often. I think Hamilton would have scored a massive hit to Rosbergs confidence today.

It will be interesting to see how Rosberg bounces back. Hamilton has never won three on the trot iirc?
 
I think considering they said he could use the overtake button with 4-5 laps to go that he might have lost something for the few laps before that. Maybe it was the kers usage of power in pitstops and lack of ability to charge up power easily under the safety car so the first few laps were lacking overall power? Not sure to be honest.

Then again Hamilton has said they had a braking issue and something replaced between quali/race and that it didn't feel great all race. Considering the importance of brakes to the feel of the car I would imagine you can't really get a optimum setup during practice/quali with dodgy brakes and when replaced he's stuck with the same set up.

Overall there will be tracks drivers favour and ones they don't, no matter the driver. So Hamilton might be 95% average, but one track he is king off, 100% and another he's at 85% because it's his worst track. Some tracks will usually favour one driver over another and you get some seemingly odd results. but in general Hamilton would be faster in most tracks than Rosberg.

I think luck/reliability will probably have a bigger effect on Hamilton vs Rosberg outcome than specific tracks. I think with same engine problems or lack of them, same number of people smashing them off, same number of pitstop issues then Hamilton would win the title.

I mean one more car failure for Hamilton, a 25 point gain for Rosberg, presuming Rosberg could still get second Hamilton would need 8 races to make up the difference for two races. Of course a bit of bad luck for Rosberg and Hamilton might get a 25 jump of his own. Between much closer drivers like Ros/Ham, luck could play havoc on their title fight.
 
That Merc is a weapon! Cant work out if it has the advantage the RB had yet though, Vettel never got the opportunity to really race it as hard as they did today. Either way something has to go horrbily wrong for it not to win both championships this year.

What has come of today is i think we have seen some of the true pace of the Mercedes!

Questions must be being asked at Mclaren this week, they were out shined by 2 teams that shouldn't be able to touch them in the realms of car development! You cant expect them to be mixing it with Mercedes but they really should be ahead of FI and Williams by some margin.
 
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