Impressive job by rookie Gasly and Toro Rosso Honda in qualifying. They are within a second off Red Bull and just a little over that off the works Mercedes and Ferrari team. Maybe in race they will struggle more in PU terms but so far looks really promising so early in relationship given they had very little time to make a gearbox and integrate package. Honda must be so glad they avoided Sauber, stopped having to pay McLaren so much money to get badmouthed and have potential of partnering up with probably best chassis maker on grid which looks like Red Bull at the moment.
Speaking of Red Bull though, their drivers seem quite lacklustre so far this start of the season, they really need to step it up as they've got a car that could win the championship. They can't afford to have too many unforced errors. Incredible job Red Bull having managed to turn around the chassis last season and start off so strong this year, they and Ferrari deserve a lot of credit for taking the fight to Mercedes and Mercedes for staying up there. It will be interesting to see if Renault can make a PU upgrade that makes gains on others but IIRC, Mercedes also planning a decent PU upgrade of their own though.
Williams need an experienced driver ASAP by the looks of things, maybe they've got a car that is good enough to be fourth best or they have managed to actually make a car a lot slower than last years one which there drivers are showing this weekend which is hard to believe (Maybe they made the car more draggy without adding much more downforce or could be poor setup?). I wouldn't be surprised if they had Massa still, they would have started P5 today.
Not looking good for McLaren if this qualifying form on this race is going to be representative of future races, they like to blow their own trumpet a lot and make a lot of excuses but looks like at the moment they have become the joke after trying to divert their issues to solely Honda. Supposedly best driver on the grid and one of the best chassis scraped through to Q2 narrowly on time setting difference relying on a shocking lap by Grosjean on one of their home tracks. Maybe in the race they will be better. They could learn a lot from Ferrari of recent years who have kept their head down and made great progress, hopefully McLaren can turn it around now they have a solid reference to aim for. I wonder if Alonso will stick around for the whole season if form does not improve.
Overtaking in this Formula does not seem like it is going to be a major issue going by last race as cars could stay quite close but will see better on this race as there should be more opportunities to have a run on others and more of a braking zone to perform a move in. If Lewis and Max can't overtake in positions they are in then F1 does have serious issues but I doubt that will happen, should be really interesting to watch as long as they don't get involved in any incidents. Hopefully Ricciardo and Bottas will be able to pull off some dive bombs, don't want Ferrari to have an easy race and hoping Lewis manages to pull off a win somehow.
