Bahrain Grand Prix 2015, Sakhir - Race 4/19

If Williams were taking their own route on Fridays as they normally do then the potential might be there to mix it with the Ferraris tomorrow. However, I think the Ferraris will be out of sight on Sunday, like the last couple of races.
 
roadie said:
If Williams were taking their own route on Fridays as they normally do then the potential might be there to mix it with the Ferraris tomorrow. However, I think the Ferraris will be out of sight on Sunday, like the last couple of races.
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Williams aren't anywhere at all, they have zero chance this year of doing anything interesting outside of reliability/damage. They've barely developed, have a meh car and no real plan going forwards.

I think midway through last year Williams made a step, likely adjusting to the engine more completely, since then, nada. Low drag no downforce design, they've lacked downforce since day one of testing last year and still do today. Honestly I'm incredibly disappointed in them, smaller budget, sure, other small budget teams are taking FAR bigger chassis risks and have more down force. I feel more like Lotus, TR and RBR are more likely to go by Williams than Williams gain even a bit on the guys in front of them.

Merc vs Ferrari pace, slightly strange numbers, a second behind the other two on a heavy fuel on slower tires is about right but not showing the gap they showed last week. Rosberg's run for soft tires looked slow on any fuel by comparison. Slower driver, maybe, maybe just Merc aiming for a higher delta to just check the drop off. Maybe they want to know stint length when slower and if it's not good enough they might try a burn around like a bat out of hell three stop race.... what they should have done from the start in Malaysia.

The other option, maybe more likely, is that just the older the engines guess they more they are engine saving and the more they will rely on computer models to estimate tire life on faster stints. Run around at 1:40's, get data, plug it in, get estimates for life life doing 1:38's.
 
Interesting comment from Vettel earlier about Mercedes turning up their engines for qualifying, when I was saying Red Bull were doing it for him and not Webber everybody rubbished it yet here we have him nonchalant accusing another team... certainly explains why he was so bad all of a sudden last year after deciding to move to Ferrari. ;)
 
Tend to agree about Williams - they were the second fastest team last year but totally failed to make anything of it, leaving Red Bull and Ricciardo to capitalise when Mercedes stumbled.
 
mmj_uk said:
Interesting comment from Vettel earlier about Mercedes turning up their engines for qualifying, when I was saying Red Bull were doing it for him and not Webber everybody rubbished it yet here we have him nonchalant accusing another team... certainly explains why he was so bad all of a sudden last year after deciding to move to Ferrari. ;)
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Do you mean this comment...

“But we know that Mercedes is turning up their engines for qualy so I’m sure they are still a bit ahead. The closer we can get, though, the better it is.”
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If so, I have no clue how you can even possibly connect that to your own theory. They way you've worded it, and without including what Vettel said, you've implied he's nonchalantly accusing Mercedes of turning up one drivers engine more than the others... which isn't what he's said at all. You're implying that then suggesting a link to somehow back up your other claim. No, Merc turning up engine in qualifying is expected, standard and happens on both cars. Most teams hold a little something back. Those with more speed to spare turn down their engines further in practice.

Vertigo1 said:
Tend to agree about Williams - they were the second fastest team last year but totally failed to make anything of it, leaving Red Bull and Ricciardo to capitalise when Mercedes stumbled.
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I think they peaked and I've suggested before, they weren't so much second best car last year as... least bad of the rest, helped massively by Mclaren making their second crap chassis in as many years. SO they beat out their WAY bigger budget competition and beating FI, lower budget and generally a not great team in general, but more due to both of them being rubbish than Williams doing anything special.

So disappointed though, basically they lucked into the 3rd best car of last year and managed to do absolutely nothing interesting to take them forwards. Couple decent sponsors boosting the income last year, good livery, gained some support and good will and more constructors cash than for ages... they should have really taken some risks with a new aero design, higher downforce and less top speed has for years now been the key to a genuinely fast car.
 
Just watching FP3. After seeing Hamilton overshoot turn 1, it's quite interesting how Alan McNish said that at 200mph, if you miss your braking point by just a tenth of a second you then travel 10 meters further than you needed. Goes to show how difficult it must be to control these machines at such high speed.
 
majnu said:
Bruno Senna really gets on my nerves. He states the obvious and offers 0 insight.
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Yep, fed up with ex-driver pundits who have very little experience of F1 generally and zero experience of the current generation of cars. They know little more than most avid fans do.

Whilst he has a lot of experience, I actually feel the same way about Damon Hill - he contributes nothing but the blindingly obvious and isn't very natural in front of a camera.
 
Will be interesting to see what happens in qualifying. I suspect the closeness is mostly down to having the engine turned down a little for reliability. We can assume Merc will likely turn it up as much as possible in Q3 and we'll get a fairly realistic gap though mistakes in laps being taken into account to judge the 'real' gap.

I'm not under the impression the engines lost a dramatic amount of power through their life however the engines are usually planned and used sensibly, ie take a new engine for a race like Malaysia or Bahrain and then give them a couple easy races somewhere else in the season. So while last year maybe most teams would have taken a new engine here, this year Ferrari have a new ICE while Merc are using an engine that has done 3 races, one of them exceptionally tough. I think the gap will be a bit closer because of that, how much will be very interesting to see.

I mean, aside from the new ICE I don't think there have been any updates in the engine nor any noticeable aero changes in either the Merc of Ferrari, the biggest change here compared to China is engine life.

Wouldn't be surprised to see Merc pull out a half second in Q3, but that could leave Rosberg more vulnerable or even just one mistake, a few tenths lost and right into Vettel's hands. Track temps tank quickly though in the next 90 mins before Q3, which could change the situation significantly.
 
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Verstappen took a new engine for FP3, so onto the third engine. My guess is that they did kill that second engine completely last race, they ran the first engine for Fp1/2 but he was talking about being down on power and made the decision to break out a new engine for today.

He'd taken a new TC/MGU-K yesterday meaning he was on no.2 for all parts then added a third ICE/MGU-H today. Renault really struggling now, 3 of four cars are using their third engine for the 4th freaking race... and that presumes these engines last through qualifying and are the ones used in the race.
 
Pretty bad all round for Renault. Is it possible that they've actually gone backwards since last year? I mean they were pretty unreliable but not to the extent of burning through 3 engines in 4 races. It almost seems like they just designed an inherently bad engine and by chasing performance, its exposing the weakness in their overall design...who knows.
 
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