Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2022Formula 1
- Thread starter Jimlaad43
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If I was Red Bull or Mercedes, I honestly wouldn’t be that concerned about Ferrari’s blinding pace right now. Given the team’s history, they aren’t going to make it the full season with out being penalized for cheating (less likely) or suddenly getting slower without any real explanation given, wink, wink (more likely)
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That Ferrari is a mean machine. I know they have visibly improved on their engine, but I don't think that's all at play here in terms of the jump all of the Ferrari teams have made. These cars have put further emphasis on mechanical grip and low speed cornering in a way, given how downforce is generated now and the added weight. The Ferrari for whatever reason, likely their suspension design and CoG, was good in that area even before this season, as you could tell from Monaco. It might pay off pretty well.
F1's equivalent of BOP seems to be doing its thing. All those years of being bad seem to have helped Alfa and Haas substantially with the extra allocation of design time ahead of these new rules. The latter has spent a good 2 years now focusing on this very car, it would be more surprising if it wasn't decent.
So far I'm happy with the new rules, the cars definitely look like they can follow more easily, more notably at low speed. I think DRS was a bit too powerful, though. They should be more pre-emptive with these anticipated changes and dial it back a bit. It felt a bit like Turkey 2011 (real ones remember)
F1's equivalent of BOP seems to be doing its thing. All those years of being bad seem to have helped Alfa and Haas substantially with the extra allocation of design time ahead of these new rules. The latter has spent a good 2 years now focusing on this very car, it would be more surprising if it wasn't decent.
So far I'm happy with the new rules, the cars definitely look like they can follow more easily, more notably at low speed. I think DRS was a bit too powerful, though. They should be more pre-emptive with these anticipated changes and dial it back a bit. It felt a bit like Turkey 2011 (real ones remember)
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Also some thoughts on the midfield. I'm a bit disappointed from all the former "best of the rest" midfield runners of McLaren, Alpine, Alpha Tauri and Aston Martin. Part (and I would say the biggest chunk) of the rise of Haas and Alfa Romeo are the lost time of the mentioned teams. Haas was around 2.5s or more back to the leaders in 2021. Yesterday they had around 1.5s on Leclerc each lap until lap 45 and Gaslys SC which lead to 1.10 minutes for Magnussen gap to Leclerc after just 75% race distance. Just to give a bit of a context. With 1.5s gap per lap they wouldn't have had made a Top 10 points finish in last years race.
Ocon was P12 at that SC-moment and already lapped while Zhou and Bottas were P11 and P10 around 5 sec before also getting lapped by Charles. Under normal circumstances everyone except the big three RB, Fer, Merc would've been lapped.
They are all far more off the pace under those new budget strict regulations which should've favoured those smaller budget teams but it's exactly the opposite. No Brawn 2.0 "miracle" in seight. And all that chunk of time gap with Merc clearly struggeling but also RB not on 100% and even Ferrari weren't able to perform 100% in the first race. Norris lost around 9/10 per lap last year in Bahrain as best of the rest. That aren't good news because they couldn't even fight a struggeling Merc which will very quick find the missing second to the front alone from curing that porpoising and gaining time from the setup without any updates...
Bahrain was a bad place for overtakes in most of the races in the past. Without DRS it would've been the same yesterday. I'm not hooked that the new rules are really working in this case. Maybe a bit better but following through the middle sector to get into 1s windows was still very hard and mostly done on the last straight before start/finish in the slipstream.
Oh and another point regarding Ferrari. I would also guess even if not 100% of the possible pace they were able to understand their car the most since they didn't have any major updates on the car since testing day 1 in Barcelona. They just drove this version many kilometers and learned more on the setup on the actal specifications to RB und Merc with their major sidepod updates in testing week 2. Red Bull even on the last day of testing without that many km on the actual setup. We all know it but this championship will be decided on the update pace and who will have the least bad weekends. Mercs first very disasterous weekend with a massive pace disadvantage already turned out to be a 3-4 finish. Also a fact of the very bad midfield performance. Last years Norris, Alonso, Ocon, Gasly or even Ricciardo would've made a podium yesterday with the slow Merc struggeling.
Ocon was P12 at that SC-moment and already lapped while Zhou and Bottas were P11 and P10 around 5 sec before also getting lapped by Charles. Under normal circumstances everyone except the big three RB, Fer, Merc would've been lapped.
They are all far more off the pace under those new budget strict regulations which should've favoured those smaller budget teams but it's exactly the opposite. No Brawn 2.0 "miracle" in seight. And all that chunk of time gap with Merc clearly struggeling but also RB not on 100% and even Ferrari weren't able to perform 100% in the first race. Norris lost around 9/10 per lap last year in Bahrain as best of the rest. That aren't good news because they couldn't even fight a struggeling Merc which will very quick find the missing second to the front alone from curing that porpoising and gaining time from the setup without any updates...
Bahrain was a bad place for overtakes in most of the races in the past. Without DRS it would've been the same yesterday. I'm not hooked that the new rules are really working in this case. Maybe a bit better but following through the middle sector to get into 1s windows was still very hard and mostly done on the last straight before start/finish in the slipstream.
Oh and another point regarding Ferrari. I would also guess even if not 100% of the possible pace they were able to understand their car the most since they didn't have any major updates on the car since testing day 1 in Barcelona. They just drove this version many kilometers and learned more on the setup on the actal specifications to RB und Merc with their major sidepod updates in testing week 2. Red Bull even on the last day of testing without that many km on the actual setup. We all know it but this championship will be decided on the update pace and who will have the least bad weekends. Mercs first very disasterous weekend with a massive pace disadvantage already turned out to be a 3-4 finish. Also a fact of the very bad midfield performance. Last years Norris, Alonso, Ocon, Gasly or even Ricciardo would've made a podium yesterday with the slow Merc struggeling.
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- OutlawQuadrant
Wonder what the timing was on that initial tweet. Sergio was blaming the engine immediately after he spun. That said, what was the deal with Gasly because if that was still fuel related, that was a far more spectacular failure.
It is somewhat expected the gaps would be larger for the first race under the new regulations, especially with the porpoising issues stealing gobs of potential lap time from teams up and down the grid. Judging how cars race each other is going to be difficult until the teams bring their upgrades and close that pace gap amongst one another. Now, if we still have these time gaps heading into summer, we have a big problem.
McLaren
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This sort of crossed my mind, & that maybe no one watching was really notified because whoever is running the new graphics this year was dropping the ball. They've got 22 more weekends to straighten it out thankfully, but geez, at one point, live timing was gone for a couple minutes during qualifying.
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Already answered this for you
Hopefully this is an epiphany for Max, where he realises that his tactics of impatience don't work in all situations, especially against faster cars. His attitude is always "win this corner at all costs and screw them over so much that they can't get past next straight". Jeddah is a circuit where apart from the final corner there isn't really anywhere that you can get a cutback and fight down the next zone, so that tactic may well work there (although as his chicane-cutting antics from last year show, he still can't pull it off), but we'll have to see if he learns, or if the Marko/Horner club keep encouraging him to be a late braker because it fits their badboy image.
McLaren
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Confirmed the issue with RB was not a fuel pump, still under investigation.
www.telegraaf.nl
Horner also sharing the aggressive strategy Max wanted would not have kept Ferrari behind.
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Max Verstappen viel niet uit door probleem met benzinepomp
Red Bull Racing heeft een diepgaand onderzoek gestart om de problemen te onderzoeken, die ertoe leidden dat Max Verstappen en Sergio Pérez de finish niet haalden in Bahrein. Inmiddels is duidelijk…
www.telegraaf.nl
Horner also sharing the aggressive strategy Max wanted would not have kept Ferrari behind.
"Aggressive" strategy Verstappen wanted wouldn't have kept Ferrari behind - Horner
Max Verstappen believes Red Bull could have done a "better job" with their strategy in Bahrain, but Christian Horner says the team just lacked pace.
www.racefans.net
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I don't think it was all that wrong to try and get ahead of Leclerc ASAP. I think he was very aware if he didn't get it done quickly he wouldn't be able to catch him again. Leclerc clearly did his homework knowing Max would be his main obstacle and, as he said, ensured he would have DRS for the run up to turn 4. I think even most drivers wouldn't have thought that far ahead.Already answered this for you
Hopefully this is an epiphany for Max, where he realises that his tactics of impatience don't work in all situations, especially against faster cars. His attitude is always "win this corner at all costs and screw them over so much that they can't get past next straight". Jeddah is a circuit where apart from the final corner there isn't really anywhere that you can get a cutback and fight down the next zone, so that tactic may well work there (although as his chicane-cutting antics from last year show, he still can't pull it off), but we'll have to see if he learns, or if the Marko/Horner club keep encouraging him to be a late braker because it fits their badboy image.
I'd say smart play vs smarter play instead of an impatient hot headed moment, up to the point where he locked his brakes. There's not enough of a run onto the 2nd straight to get a proper run unless you can get them off the racing line, which only happens if you try a move into turn 1 to begin with. Again, Leclerc knew this and was willing to give Max the inside, which isn't generally how you defend a position, but was ideal in this scenario given the nature of the first sequence of turns. Hamilton pretty much did this to Rosberg as well back in 2014.
Sometimes people are a bit too quick to consider his divebombs an unskilled or illegitimate move given how often we may be on the wrong side of it in online racing. It takes a lot more feel to get it right in a brake by wire, real F1 car than we'd think. As long as he can do it without colliding with someone, and can make the corner, it is a legitimate move. When he crosses that line (and he has), I side with the sentiment of it being completely reckless.
Dotini
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This business of the porpoising is an interesting story. Frank Dernie has suggested an over-reliance on CFD may be part of the problem. Some teams are on top of it but Mercedes seem lost at sea. But this problem surely will be solved in weeks, or a few months at most. Equally interesting is the Red Bull IC engine not coming to grips with the new fuel regs. Will solving that cost them their top speed advantage?
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Charles said in an interview that he deliberately got off the gaspedal earlier to make sure Max would be in front crossing the DRS detection zone 1 at the end of start/finish to have DRS on the following straight. Very smart thinking and I guess he is still learning very quick from his mistakes in the past. We all know how he hates himself making mistakes and communicating this on the radio.
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Max has no moves if there isn't mutually assured destruction. If he has to fight a title fight against multiple people I think he'll fall in third just because he knows that his only overtaking tactic is likely to give the other guy all the points.Already answered this for you
Hopefully this is an epiphany for Max, where he realises that his tactics of impatience don't work in all situations, especially against faster cars. His attitude is always "win this corner at all costs and screw them over so much that they can't get past next straight". Jeddah is a circuit where apart from the final corner there isn't really anywhere that you can get a cutback and fight down the next zone, so that tactic may well work there (although as his chicane-cutting antics from last year show, he still can't pull it off), but we'll have to see if he learns, or if the Marko/Horner club keep encouraging him to be a late braker because it fits their badboy image.
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I suspect they simply did not put enough fuel, because they stopped at almost the same time and at the end of the race.Confirmed the issue with RB was not a fuel pump, still under investigation.
Max Verstappen viel niet uit door probleem met benzinepomp
Red Bull Racing heeft een diepgaand onderzoek gestart om de problemen te onderzoeken, die ertoe leidden dat Max Verstappen en Sergio Pérez de finish niet haalden in Bahrein. Inmiddels is duidelijk…
Horner also sharing the aggressive strategy Max wanted would not have kept Ferrari behind.
"Aggressive" strategy Verstappen wanted wouldn't have kept Ferrari behind - Horner
Max Verstappen believes Red Bull could have done a "better job" with their strategy in Bahrain, but Christian Horner says the team just lacked pace.
If this is true, it means that their true speed was actually slower than what we've seen. Meaning Ferrari will be getting another 1-2 in the next race!
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2014 new regulations : RBR fuel issues result in DQ...
2022 new regulations : RBR double dnf with fuel related issues...
interesting pattern?
it's early for conspiracy theories, but they can be fun - that RBR was very, very fast - anyone wondering if maybe are they bending rules or they have special FIA-human-error-approved-dispansation for some extra power?
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But Perez would have just coasted to a stop instead of spinning out. Also if they both ran out of fuel wouldn't that mean neither one of them would have the required left over amount post race? Unless that regulation has been eliminated. F1 would have said they failed post race inspection.
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It seems as though Perez's problems were probably linked to the gearbox he already replaced parts of on Friday, although there is a small typo in the declaration - drivers are only allow three changes of gearbox components that aren't cassette or casing (so four units), not four changes. Cassette and casings are only 3 of each, so two changes, before the driver receives penalties.
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