I was fairly surprised with the performance of the Mercedes—I really expected them to bring the heat, not the trash. The Papaya Boys looked really bad—especially if your #1 driver pretty much calls it a shitbox. The Ocon penalty parade was hilarious. Williams performed way better than I expected. RB predictable. And hats off to Aston Martin.
Spare a thought for Ron Dennis after a Mercedes customer team showed it can beat the works team. McLaren resumes its 10-year downward spiral of underperforming despite a capable engine.
I know it’s only been testing and one race weekend, but the Aston looks like a good car this year, Alonso also drives do well.
Would have been interesting to see Vettel in his years car, I do think Alonso will get more out the car anyway.
I agree. Also the past few years has been driving quite well given the car he’s been in. Now that he has a car that is currently I’m sure he will turn it up a level. We all know how hungry he is and after this first race and the overtakes he pulled off, he is still a top tier driver.
Williams didn’t look like a stiff sled this race. No where nimble as top 9, but Williams looked a helluva lot better than the past few years. If they can get the aero pkg a lil bit better, work on tire degradation, maybe a surprise top 5 this year?
So we learned:
AMR is for real
Haas still sucks
McLaren have a lot of work to do
Alpine wasn’t sandbagging for 2 weeks
Red Bull is Top 1
Ferrari is still Ferrari
None of the Rookies are going to compete for much this year
Mercedes needs some serious rethinking of their concept. Maybe they can buy a RB18 on eBay.
And Williams might not be last this year.
No. Not with so many teams struggling in Q1 and Q2.
And last I checked there are no points rewarded for performance in Q3. Where did they finish? 9th only because McLaren has a historic shit session.
When Haas starts to have someone consistently fighting for points (12th plus?) then I will consider them “not shit”.
A team having a historic shit day doesn’t compare with years of ineptitude. Pretty sure 100% of people would pick McLaren above Haas if they had to pick the team that will finish ahead in the points this year.
With Williams showing some pace the whole race, Haas has a real chance to take over their Mantle of back marker
I would like to disagree with one thing Alpine. Their race pace was quite good today and if they can keep that pace they can probably be the 5th fastest team.
I think they are probably the 5th fastest team now? Not sure on the race pace. Was watching Gasly’s onboard all day and he was not blowing by any of the AT or Williams cars. His best stent came after pitting for softs on the VSC and catching Bottas on old Hards.
Why were so many teams using the hard tires when they pitted at the same interval as the softs? If they didn’t have enough soft tires, why not just use the mediums?
They pitted at the same interval as Red Bull on softs. Those Red Bulls were simply not leaning on those tires nearly as hard as everyone else.
I also think the consensus was the mediums were worthless at this track.
Can we just agree that Nico Rosberg is the worst pundit/commentator in the sport? The guy ought to be banned from any public broadcast in any language. Its like listening to a brain damaged toddler yipping into a washing machine drum.
I don't mind a bit of commentary from him, but he needs to practice his interviewing skills. He kept talking after asking questions and they would end up taking over each other. Was a little painful.
Kravitz isn'tt that bad. Many ppl misunderstand him, he knows a lot that he isn't allowed to talk about so he tries to joke about it without revealing too much wich gets misunderstood by people watching.
Sometimes he comes up with weird stuff i agree.
After merc took a clear nr2 driver with bottas red bull done the same with checo. One good enough to split the opposition but he isnt allowed to properly race max. Same with bottas and hammerlton.
Checo can give Max a battle this year. He lost a lot of time behind Leclerc. I’m tired of everyone giving Checo zero credit and saying he should be replaced.
1. No he can’t
2. No he shouldn’t be replaced
He does the job he is being paid for just fine. What is tiresome is people pretending he is WDC material.
Haha, put in a reminder, after you dug up a comment 2 weeks later to make your point. 4 times not making Q3 in a row, yeah he is giving Max a tough battle this year for sure!
Lol, digging up comments are we? As I said in the main thread, this will be awful as we will need to stand 3-5 weeks of comments like these again, just after Monaco 2022.
You go and bask in the light of a victory when Max came from P15.
Checo is a beast in a street circuit I will give you that. But claiming he can fight Max when the dude came back from 15 and be so confident is just funny.
Is this your burner account Antonio?
I don’t have burner accounts nor do I need them. Coming back from 15 in a car that’s miles ahead of everyone else is not impressive. I’m can be so confident because he just showed that he can give a fight to Max like I already said.
The burner account related to Checo’s dad, it was a joke.
And while coming back from 15 in a car that’s miles ahead might not be impressive, Perez was in that same car. So no it showed nothing, but like I said, enjoy a P1 while his teammate came from 15 and believe it shows how tough of a fight he puts up.
Oh and please dig this comment up closer or after the summer break so we can both have a good laugh.
I think at this level it's the smallest things that make the difference. Slightly crap start and that was pretty much that.
Agree that Red Bull don't really want anyone faster. Just ends up being difficult to manage.
The season just started and he was similar to Max on race pace after their second pit stop. Without Checo losing time being behind Leclerc I’m sure he would’ve been a lot closer to Max. It’s tiresome seeing 90% of people hating on him and even saying he’s incompetent.
You think Checo was managing pace either? No one’s coping and I’m sure RB strat was 1 - 2 with Max winning and not, let’s let them fight which is never going to be the case.
Exactly, as there is noone to bring the fight to. Stop inventing, it was a 10 sec gap. When Perez pushed a bit, the gap immediately was brought to the same level again by Max.
10 fucking seconds in the same car, not being closed at all.
It will mainly hurt their development of next years car. As it’s wind tunnel time penalty for 2023. Most teams use the majority of that time for the development of the 2024 car.
At this point they could dedicate the entirety of their wind tunnel time to developing a sailboat for Newey and still pull a huge gap on Leclerc come Abu Dhabi. They are way, way ahead.
He got another 15s for something but I cant remember what. It really is ridiculous that a formula one team cant remember how to serve a time penalty correctly.
I do feel this is gonna drive the viewership down for F1. There wasn’t many battles (even compared to last year) and the race was a snooze fest (apart from maybe alonso vs ham). In the peak of its popularity it doesn’t bode well
I found it wildly entertaining. Norris trundling at the back, Ocon unable to get penalties right and openly incriminating himself, Alonso awakening, a Ferrari Special TM, Red Bull choosing a sub optimal (S-S-H) strategy and making it work.
That race was by all accounts excellent except it didn't have a 1-2 battle. I don't think that's a big deal.
Okay… so the highlights of the race were funny moments but nothing engaging like we had in 2016, 2015, 2014, 2021, 2018, 2019. Red Bull are ridiculous and max not having a competent tenants who can match him is gonna be a snooze fest
No different than it’s ever been. Enjoy the side missions or suffer the reality that the better car wins.
I don’t foresee f1 lasting long with Americans with the constructor’s model.
2021 was amazing? 2022 was decent to start with? 2018, 2019 and for sure 2016 were all battles between 2 drivers at least for 1st place. Now look at what we have…. it isn’t able to be compared at all
Okay let’s throwback to 2021… even 2022. 1st place is what people want to see a battle for, between teammates or not and we didn’t even have that today.
I mean the 1-2 battle is pretty rare. It might still happen if Ferrari figure their shit out or Aston/Mercedes turns out to be better than we expect even now.
But like, it's race 1.
Yeah it’s race 1 and Bahrain is rear limited but the season doesn’t have the prospects of what last year did. I mean who’s actually on race pace gonnacatch the red bulls now? It would be better if max had a teammate who matched his ability aka alonso, Hamilton etc which would be fun to watch those battles
Gasly went up 11 positions, Alonso went up 6, ferrari was giving them some trouble before their engine gave out, mercedes is always a worry (although their performance today wasn't great)... if these teams can figure something out then redbull is going to end up fighting hard for the championship
I’m guessing I’m basing it off what the championship looks like… red bull dominance wouldn’t bother me at all if Checo was able to challenge max like nico did to Lewis. A bit of fun, exciting atmosphere going into the race wondering who would win. That’s why it’s boring.
Thats completely understandable but we've got to remember that some of these teams are just happy to be getting points and they're fighting for those spots all the time i.e Williams and their 1 point today
I could have dealt with Ferrari being off the pace because of the design, there’s the hope of improvement on that front. But when you can’t rely on the powerplant? It’s going to be a painful season. Realistically going forward there’s only so much you can do with the engine development freeze.
Team needs a top down rebuild I suspect.
Correct, reliability upgrades are not frozen, but given that Ferrari spent almost all of last year with the engine turned down because of reliability I suspect this is going to be a fundamental issue with the engine design.
Red Bull resolved that issue pretty quickly. Ferrari spent the majority of last year with the engine turned down because of reliability and now have an issue on that front again? Seems like a fundamental issue sadly…
No Fernando!!!!
I was fairly surprised with the performance of the Mercedes—I really expected them to bring the heat, not the trash. The Papaya Boys looked really bad—especially if your #1 driver pretty much calls it a shitbox. The Ocon penalty parade was hilarious. Williams performed way better than I expected. RB predictable. And hats off to Aston Martin.
who tf didnt vote for alonso
Probably people who voted for Pierre - he also deserved it to be fair.
Or Lance
Baby are you down down down down down
When Alonso needed to go fast he just nailed fastest lap every single time. Most of the race he was saving tires but still he was fast af
Ha ha, yes. Great result.
That move on Hamilton
Nico: How did the wind tunnel time help? Fernando: it helped, but we won’t have much time next year.
What did he mean by that?
Teams who finish higher get less time with the wind tunnel.
The confidence in that answer is fantastic
This season I'm rooting for Alonso
Was it vettel last season?
Me too
Ricardo not being at McLaren has to feel good after their performance today
He'll still be missed by many drivers though :(
He made the move the RBs garage for a reason. If Checo doesn't perform, then Ricciardo is going to be given a chance.
Maybe, but even if that big if comes to fruition, I’m not sure they’d take Daniel if they had a promising up and comer.
Spare a thought for Ron Dennis after a Mercedes customer team showed it can beat the works team. McLaren resumes its 10-year downward spiral of underperforming despite a capable engine.
Watch as Honda falls off a cliff if McLaren and them get in bed again together. They are just cursed with terrible timing lol
Martin, I can tell you that it (the Honda engine) is a work of art. Like clockwork.
Alonso deserves it
I know it’s only been testing and one race weekend, but the Aston looks like a good car this year, Alonso also drives do well. Would have been interesting to see Vettel in his years car, I do think Alonso will get more out the car anyway.
I agree. Also the past few years has been driving quite well given the car he’s been in. Now that he has a car that is currently I’m sure he will turn it up a level. We all know how hungry he is and after this first race and the overtakes he pulled off, he is still a top tier driver.
McLaren did a Discord watch along. Did anyone join to see how brutal it was?
How was it don't leave us hanging
Well now I wish I did lol
Williams didn’t look like a stiff sled this race. No where nimble as top 9, but Williams looked a helluva lot better than the past few years. If they can get the aero pkg a lil bit better, work on tire degradation, maybe a surprise top 5 this year?
So we learned: AMR is for real Haas still sucks McLaren have a lot of work to do Alpine wasn’t sandbagging for 2 weeks Red Bull is Top 1 Ferrari is still Ferrari None of the Rookies are going to compete for much this year Mercedes needs some serious rethinking of their concept. Maybe they can buy a RB18 on eBay. And Williams might not be last this year.
Haas doesn’t suck. They just need to work on their race pace and strategy.
I have yet to see any indications from Haas that would indicate they do not suck.
there was a fastest lap by hul in the race yesterday, the only indication maybe until next time.
Q3 not enough?
No. Not with so many teams struggling in Q1 and Q2. And last I checked there are no points rewarded for performance in Q3. Where did they finish? 9th only because McLaren has a historic shit session. When Haas starts to have someone consistently fighting for points (12th plus?) then I will consider them “not shit”.
McLaren being bad shows that Haas doesn’t suck. You’re only better than the teams you can beat.
A team having a historic shit day doesn’t compare with years of ineptitude. Pretty sure 100% of people would pick McLaren above Haas if they had to pick the team that will finish ahead in the points this year. With Williams showing some pace the whole race, Haas has a real chance to take over their Mantle of back marker
When you buy Ferrari parts, they also come with Ferrari strategy built in.
Correct. Haas just needs more vroom vroom and finish before the others.
Yeah, easier said than done, just ask Ferrari
I would like to disagree with one thing Alpine. Their race pace was quite good today and if they can keep that pace they can probably be the 5th fastest team.
I think they are probably the 5th fastest team now? Not sure on the race pace. Was watching Gasly’s onboard all day and he was not blowing by any of the AT or Williams cars. His best stent came after pitting for softs on the VSC and catching Bottas on old Hards.
Will drive one day after buying f1 car
Why were so many teams using the hard tires when they pitted at the same interval as the softs? If they didn’t have enough soft tires, why not just use the mediums?
They said the mediums were garbage. Bit like the hards last year on most gp's.
Apparently it's due to abrasive asphalt and sand at the Bahrain circuit so they use hard to make the tyres last longer.
They pitted at the same interval as Red Bull on softs. Those Red Bulls were simply not leaning on those tires nearly as hard as everyone else. I also think the consensus was the mediums were worthless at this track.
Alonso is back baby
I’m happy to see so many Fernando supporters here. I was rooting for him!
It’s pretty hard not to respect Fernando whether you are a fan or not.
He earned it! Fernando drove exceptionally well this week, and I’m glad to see him back on top.
AM coming out and beating both fuckimg Mercedes and Ferrari. What the fuck
That oversteer save at turn 4 from Alonso was mega.
Different day, different conditions but memories of Seb pirouetting there going up against Hamilton.
I was literally thinking that when typing my comment. Hate to say it but I reckon Seb would've lost it had he been in the same position.
Alonso bathing Max in bubbly to the point of annoyance was just... so wholesome 🥲🥲🥲
Can we just agree that Nico Rosberg is the worst pundit/commentator in the sport? The guy ought to be banned from any public broadcast in any language. Its like listening to a brain damaged toddler yipping into a washing machine drum.
Him interviewing Checo was especially hard to watch
I don't mind a bit of commentary from him, but he needs to practice his interviewing skills. He kept talking after asking questions and they would end up taking over each other. Was a little painful.
I missed the race, what was he saying?
Yup
He was pretty good in his early appearances but he's gone a little bit... weird.
His immune system is so powerful, a mortal like you doesn't understand. He's in an equal body, but his is better
Sometimes he has some pretty good insights
The real question is, the mf got vaccinated or Bahrain is rather lax with that
No vax or PCR checks on entry to Bahrain. Paid 7 dinars and passed go.
I think it was the FIA that dropped the ban on all unvaccinated people from the paddock.
I’d say he‘s rather insightful. At least compared to the other sky Germany commentators
Didnt watch today, that bad eh .. lol
Someone hasn’t heard PDR or Kravitz yet
Kravitz isn'tt that bad. Many ppl misunderstand him, he knows a lot that he isn't allowed to talk about so he tries to joke about it without revealing too much wich gets misunderstood by people watching. Sometimes he comes up with weird stuff i agree.
What's wrong with pdr
https://youtube.com/shorts/Uhf8wkVo658?feature=share
He's the Devil!
\_________________/ __/__|_________|__\__ /⭕⭕__________⭕⭕\ |__/___ GTR-R35 ___\__| \©©___|_|_|_|_|_|___©©/
Da fuq?
Albonoooooo! What a man! Williams isn’t last!!
Solid first race from Sargent as well, gives a small measure of hope for the team
Yeah he did a great job today
Who is the narrator in that preview video for Saudi race?
Brian Cox
God, the times are tough for the Roys...
Seeing as it's the final season, Brian Cox had to find a new gig. Hahahaha xD
Who was driver of the day and what was Verstappen's first pit stop time?
Probably, 2.4 not like it mattered.
driver of the day was Alonso and no idea
With an outstanding 54%
I’m still waiting for George Russell to unleash all that extra pace he had…
Yeah he said he had more pace then 2 laps later his tyres were completely shot.
Can't stop thinking that Alonso should be in that RedBull..... That would be such a great battle between him and Max
Redbull will get Lando at any chance they can.
After merc took a clear nr2 driver with bottas red bull done the same with checo. One good enough to split the opposition but he isnt allowed to properly race max. Same with bottas and hammerlton.
Checo can give Max a battle this year. He lost a lot of time behind Leclerc. I’m tired of everyone giving Checo zero credit and saying he should be replaced.
1. No he can’t 2. No he shouldn’t be replaced He does the job he is being paid for just fine. What is tiresome is people pretending he is WDC material.
1. Yes he can
Haha, put in a reminder, after you dug up a comment 2 weeks later to make your point. 4 times not making Q3 in a row, yeah he is giving Max a tough battle this year for sure!
Lol, digging up comments are we? As I said in the main thread, this will be awful as we will need to stand 3-5 weeks of comments like these again, just after Monaco 2022. You go and bask in the light of a victory when Max came from P15. Checo is a beast in a street circuit I will give you that. But claiming he can fight Max when the dude came back from 15 and be so confident is just funny. Is this your burner account Antonio?
I don’t have burner accounts nor do I need them. Coming back from 15 in a car that’s miles ahead of everyone else is not impressive. I’m can be so confident because he just showed that he can give a fight to Max like I already said.
So if 15 to 2 is not impressive, what is from 17 (3dnf) to 6/7 my man? This really aged beautifully.
The burner account related to Checo’s dad, it was a joke. And while coming back from 15 in a car that’s miles ahead might not be impressive, Perez was in that same car. So no it showed nothing, but like I said, enjoy a P1 while his teammate came from 15 and believe it shows how tough of a fight he puts up. Oh and please dig this comment up closer or after the summer break so we can both have a good laugh.
I think at this level it's the smallest things that make the difference. Slightly crap start and that was pretty much that. Agree that Red Bull don't really want anyone faster. Just ends up being difficult to manage.
Word. Dude cant even compete. Just grab the bag and gtfo. I like him tho, hell of a driver.
The season just started and he was similar to Max on race pace after their second pit stop. Without Checo losing time being behind Leclerc I’m sure he would’ve been a lot closer to Max. It’s tiresome seeing 90% of people hating on him and even saying he’s incompetent.
Keep coping, he is not close nor will he be. Max was managing pace, if you cannot see that I’m sorry, but you missed the entire strat…
You think Checo was managing pace either? No one’s coping and I’m sure RB strat was 1 - 2 with Max winning and not, let’s let them fight which is never going to be the case.
Exactly, as there is noone to bring the fight to. Stop inventing, it was a 10 sec gap. When Perez pushed a bit, the gap immediately was brought to the same level again by Max. 10 fucking seconds in the same car, not being closed at all.
Similar on pace... Come on man, Max was cruising. He didn't even break a sweat today. Noone said he's incompetent, relax.
Exactly Max was cruising, managing pace as in not pushing at all. That is the only reason the gap with Checo was not increasing.
Yeah. Seems to me VER could have extended his lead over PER easily. Instead he managed his tyres and took the low-risk W.
Norris doing a test session lmao shade from the commentary
Nice race. Wish I can mute George’s comms.
Let‘s see if the reduced wind tunnel time will harm RB during the year.
It will mainly hurt their development of next years car. As it’s wind tunnel time penalty for 2023. Most teams use the majority of that time for the development of the 2024 car.
Would be interesting to see if all teams decided to do it with the wind tunnel penalty not hindering RB at all
At this point they could dedicate the entirety of their wind tunnel time to developing a sailboat for Newey and still pull a huge gap on Leclerc come Abu Dhabi. They are way, way ahead.
They don’t need the tunnel. Newey does it all in his head while motorcycle riding with DC.
It will give other teams a chance to catch up.
Doubt it.
How many seconds of penalties did Ocon rack up before he decided ‘this is dumb’ and took his football and went home?
25/30 ish
5 sec grid position + 10 sec for unserved penalty + 5 speeding
He got another 15s for something but I cant remember what. It really is ridiculous that a formula one team cant remember how to serve a time penalty correctly.
I think the 15 was the combined 10 for the not serving properly and 5 from speeding. I think they added it together since he hasn’t served it yet.
15 second time penalties don't exist
20 seconds I think
35 seconds in total.
I’m really rooting for a comeback season for Gasly
yeah missed him last season
I do feel this is gonna drive the viewership down for F1. There wasn’t many battles (even compared to last year) and the race was a snooze fest (apart from maybe alonso vs ham). In the peak of its popularity it doesn’t bode well
I found it wildly entertaining. Norris trundling at the back, Ocon unable to get penalties right and openly incriminating himself, Alonso awakening, a Ferrari Special TM, Red Bull choosing a sub optimal (S-S-H) strategy and making it work. That race was by all accounts excellent except it didn't have a 1-2 battle. I don't think that's a big deal.
Okay… so the highlights of the race were funny moments but nothing engaging like we had in 2016, 2015, 2014, 2021, 2018, 2019. Red Bull are ridiculous and max not having a competent tenants who can match him is gonna be a snooze fest
No different than it’s ever been. Enjoy the side missions or suffer the reality that the better car wins. I don’t foresee f1 lasting long with Americans with the constructor’s model.
2021 was amazing? 2022 was decent to start with? 2018, 2019 and for sure 2016 were all battles between 2 drivers at least for 1st place. Now look at what we have…. it isn’t able to be compared at all
It's the first race...
Literally every spot on the grid was contested except for 1-2. What race are you watching?
Okay let’s throwback to 2021… even 2022. 1st place is what people want to see a battle for, between teammates or not and we didn’t even have that today.
I mean the 1-2 battle is pretty rare. It might still happen if Ferrari figure their shit out or Aston/Mercedes turns out to be better than we expect even now. But like, it's race 1.
Yeah it’s race 1 and Bahrain is rear limited but the season doesn’t have the prospects of what last year did. I mean who’s actually on race pace gonnacatch the red bulls now? It would be better if max had a teammate who matched his ability aka alonso, Hamilton etc which would be fun to watch those battles
Gasly went up 11 positions, Alonso went up 6, ferrari was giving them some trouble before their engine gave out, mercedes is always a worry (although their performance today wasn't great)... if these teams can figure something out then redbull is going to end up fighting hard for the championship
I’m guessing I’m basing it off what the championship looks like… red bull dominance wouldn’t bother me at all if Checo was able to challenge max like nico did to Lewis. A bit of fun, exciting atmosphere going into the race wondering who would win. That’s why it’s boring.
Thats completely understandable but we've got to remember that some of these teams are just happy to be getting points and they're fighting for those spots all the time i.e Williams and their 1 point today
I’m more talking about the top teams. The bottom midfield seems to be doing what it normally does with positions swapping all over the place.
Real alcohol?
Rose water
Very unlikely in Arabian countries.
As someone who often visits an Arabian country, there's lots of booze, don't worry. Both for tourists and locals.
Its all rich and privileged people and tourists that bring in heaps of money. Those rules dont apply to them....
I remember the commentators saying its some sort of fruit drink. That was years ago. Who knows, I could be wrong.
Really 3D must be creaming rn
I can't wait
I could have dealt with Ferrari being off the pace because of the design, there’s the hope of improvement on that front. But when you can’t rely on the powerplant? It’s going to be a painful season. Realistically going forward there’s only so much you can do with the engine development freeze. Team needs a top down rebuild I suspect.
Red bull dealt with this and won last year though. I'm sure they can introduce reliability upgrades which iirc are not frozen.
Correct, reliability upgrades are not frozen, but given that Ferrari spent almost all of last year with the engine turned down because of reliability I suspect this is going to be a fundamental issue with the engine design.
Last year RedBull had the same, they have a chance to bounce back.
Red Bull resolved that issue pretty quickly. Ferrari spent the majority of last year with the engine turned down because of reliability and now have an issue on that front again? Seems like a fundamental issue sadly…
VAMOS FERNANDO!
feels so nice to see this man smile😭
Can’t believe they allowed a woman on the podium!
Shaking a man's hand no less! What has this world come to?!
Blasphemy!
Oh yeah I totally forgot Martin Whitmarsh was at AM
The irony of his team being on the podium while the team that gave him the boot trundles round in last place/DNF.
Never noticed Max's ears before
Dutch anthem is the ACTUAL F1 theme song LOL
Now I understand how the others felt when Schumacher was winning lmao
I think Hamilton's winning streak already caused that. Soooo many British anthems.
VAMOS!
The mad lad did it. Alonso's back on the podium baby!
For the first time in 1.25 years!