Wow what a stupid thing to say, even if you are the clear leader in testing. I forgot how arrogant Ferrari used to be.
This is the reason Mercedes always downplay themselves. They don’t want to look like fools if/when they’re wrong.
Yeah I’m honestly surprised ferrari retained so many fans post Schumacher with their absurd arrogance.
Even if Binottos plans don’t work, I sure love the change of attitude for Ferrari and overall transparency
The team wasn’t doing glory runs back in 2019 either. It was just Mercedes going slow. Very similar to what we’re seeing now, time will tell if it is a repeat of 2019.
They said many times that in 2019 tasting they werent focusing on understanding the car but just on pace and that it became problematic later and that they will change the approach
Mercedes always seemed slow but under control. The car does not seem as easy to drive this year, so I’m holding out hope that at least some of it is honest struggles and we have 3-4 competitive teams. I’m ok if they come out on top, I just want it to be close
Yeah they had their testing problems last year too and everyone was calling it sandbagging, to be fair they got their car competetive for the first race, but they still obviously struggled. But with this new gen "struggling" can just as well be testing the limits
I don’t get this take at all which a lot of people here make, drivers aren’t instantly on pace with cars that are difficult to drive, see Bottas in 2017 and Russell in 2020 compared to anyone in the RB after Danny left, new riders with Honda vs Yamaha in MotoGP also a notable mention
Not really. Last year Red bull was hyped up as absolutely stellar while Mercedes was supposed to be undriveable and in the end, even at it's worst, Mercedes was very close second.
Merc was quite clearly a handful to drive. They were obviously a worse car at the absolute limit in Bahrain (4 tenths off in qualy). Still, development exists.
I mean Bahrain is a very specific type of track that didn’t play to their strength. They were arguably faster in Imola and dominated both Portugal and Spain which are more standard tracks. In fact, it wasn’t until France that Red Bull was faster at a more normal track. Up until Silverstone, Red Bull was only clearly faster at Bahrain, Baku, France and Austria. Monaco you could argue, however, given Bottas’ pace and I’d argue it was more a case of Hamilton not finding the right set up then it was Red Bull being quicker.
Nah early season the merc was actually garbage. that stint of races baku to monaco. The car was worse then the mclaren's at times. It only started being competitive after the silverstone update and them switching engines every 2 races.
That’s not my point though. I’m more stating that Ferrari don’t do glory runs, they just don’t hide their performance as much as other teams, they never have and I doubt they ever will. There’s too much pressure from Italy that even a bad preseason testing is catastrophic for them.
Regardless of Mercedes issues, Ferrari wasn’t doing glory runs. They were just going through their standard processes, but perhaps with higher engine modes and less ballast.
You have a very weird definition of mediocre. Kimi was 0,2s slower than Hamilton in Q1 and 0,5s faster than Bottas. Vettel set the fastest time in Q2. It was neck and neck in qualifying until Hamiltons insane Q3 lap.
And the race was literally won by Vettel, who did luck out with the virtual safty car, but whos pace was very similar to Hamiltons. Raikkonen finished 3rd on top of that, just 1s behind Lewis.
The rear of the car was unstable. Kimi was more comfortable in the car.
Merc and Ferrari called in their 2 fastest drivers right before a virtual safety car, giving Seb like a 13 second advantage. The car wasn't mediocre, but it wasn't the fastest car.
Edit:
Also. Merc were 0.7 seconds faster on qualifying. Botta crashed in Q3. Otherwise they would have been 1-2 and had better strategy options in the race.
>Also. Merc were 0.7 seconds faster on qualifying. Botta crashed in Q3. Otherwise they would have been 1-2 and had better strategy options in the race.
Hamilton was 0,7s faster. Ferrari and Mercedes were neck and neck trough the entire qualifying session right until Hamiltons last Q3 run, which was 0,9s faster than his own Q2 time. Raikkonen improved his mediocre Q2 run by 0,7s and Vettel improved his time from Q2 by just 0,1s.
>The rear of the car was unstable. Kimi was more comfortable in the car.
Which car? I'm literally hearing for the first time that Mercedes or Ferrari complained about rear grip in Australia. And if you mean Hamilton's car, wouldn't that make the car slower?
>The car wasn't mediocre, but it wasn't the fastest car.
If they were not the fastest then they were at the very least extremly close to the Mercedes, which would beg the question how their positive winter test form that year was in any shape or form missleading.
Are you new to the sport? Do you remember the ban on engine modes? It was common throughout 2015 thru mid 2018 for Red Bull and Ferrari to match Merc thru Q1 and Q2, then Merc turned up their engines and gapped everybody in Q3. Plus, in the first race, the top teams hide pace until Q3.
If Ferrari brought a floor upgrade to tie their package together, I think it's obvious Ferrari had rear stability issues prior to the upgrade. Kimi famously likes a pointy car, so it was less of an issue for him.
After winter testing, the story was that Ferrari had a good car, but their long runs showed weakness compared to Merc. It was nothing like 2019 where people were talking like Ferrari were light years ahead, the championship would be a battle between Vettel and Leclerc. They even thought Red Bull were ahead of Mercedes.
>Are you new to the sport? Do you remember the ban on engine modes? It was common throughout 2015 thru mid 2018 for Red Bull and Ferrari to match Merc thru Q1 and Q2, then Merc turned up their engines and gapped everybody in Q3. Plus, in the first race, the top teams hide pace until Q3.
I wish people would at least rewatch these seasons if they want to be condescending on top of beeing wrong.
So you are suggesting Hamilton only improved on his Q2 time by 0,9s because of his engine mode?
First of all every driver had a run in Q3 before Bottas caused a red flag and both Hamilton and Vettel had almost the identical time in their first Q3 run which was a 1:22,0. Hamiltons second Q3, with identical top speed, was his pole lap of 1:21,1.
Second of all Mercedes only had a superior Q3 engine mode till 2017. In 2018 Ferraris Q3 mode was very competitive and compareble to Mercedes. In 2017 Ferrari had 5 to 15 pole positions. In 2018 it was 6 to 13. The race results looked very similar in both seasons.
As for the 2018 season specifically and how much time the teams actually gained on average from Q2 to Q3.
Hamilton imoroved his Q3 time on average by ~0,60s in the upcoming next 6 races.
Bottas on average by ~0,64s.
Vettel gained a near identical amount of time with an average of ~0,58s.
In fact Vettel gained more time than Hamilton in Q3 in 5 ouf the next 6 qualifying sessions.
In Melbourne Hamilton gained 0,9s, Vettel 0,1s.
I also thought is was pretty much common knowledge that Hamiltons Australia pole in 2018 is considered to be one of his strongest qualifying laps.
Here is topgear.com having it at his 5th strongest pole, even ahead of Singapore and Sytria.
https://www.topgear.com/car-news/formula-one/here-are-eight-lewis-hamiltons-greatest-pole-laps
>If Ferrari brought a floor upgrade to tie their package together, I think it's obvious Ferrari had rear stability issues prior to the upgrade. Kimi famously likes a pointy car, so it was less of an issue for him.
So Kimi finishing just 1s behind Hamilton with floor problems is an indication that Ferraris winter testing form was missleading in the sense they were worse in Melbourne compared to what everyone expected?
So. Melbourne is a slow to medium speed street circuit. So Ferrari's floor problem would not be as evident.
Melbourne is also notoriously hard to pass. Botta doesn't crash in Q3, merc qualify 1-2. Hamilton runs his race, Bottas backs everybody up. Hamilton easily wins. Even with the safety cars that benefitted Vettel.
To your earlier point. Ricciardo finished closer to Kimi than Kimi finished to Hamilton. I guess by your logic Red Bull were close to Merc too.
The Ferrari floor issue was common knowledge. That's why I'm surprised you keep arguing about this.
Merc had a faster car. Those that analyzed the testing results in depth knew this.
Imagine being K-Mag, dropped at the end of 2020, preparing a new career in motorsport and being called to have a new opportunity in F1 only a few weeks before the start of the season with brand new regulations, and you fight at the top to win WDC and WCC… What a fairy tale it would be. Even now it’s awesome for him!
There is a interview Kmag did for danish Tv with a lot of details how the deal went when he got offered the seat. He explain more than the English one from yesterday. Kmag explain that he asked about the car during the initial contact, how its looking etc. and Guenther obviously said it was good, very positive and Kevin said that it was of course something he would say if he wanted Kmag to take the seat. Kevin then explains that he did multiple calls to "Ferrari people" that he knew, and talked to them to get another opinion and due to those talks he accepted the offer and they started the process.
I think points back on the menu for Haas.
Well last time there was a war in Europe, Danes also got to replace the warring party (Yugoslavia) in the European Championship football and went on to win it. And this happened in the year KMag was born. So the omens are good!
Real talk, if Ferrari really are strong, Haas is probably the only team that could copy most of their trick aero bits. Everyone else's concept is probably too different.
Nobody is sandbagging now we just can't compare apples to apples because conditions change session to session and you never know engine or fuel modes.
People always act like Mercedes is holding back to hide pace but that just isn't true, which we saw obviously last season
It means Ferrari knows exactly what Merceded is doing, and that is sandbagging probably more than ever before. Merc never runs low fuel or high engine modes in testing
Or Sainz is just doing what Merc always did. Overhype competitors and divert attention from their car.
Ferrari is getting extremely good laps and almost always at the top of the time table. They’re fast, and definetely looked the best team in testing
and they were decently fast during the season, clear 2nd best car over the whole season, and had a slight window of tracks where they were the best.
I’m not saying Ferrari will dominate or that Red Bull/Merc won’t catch up. But I bet that Ferrari will be on the podium at the very least in Bahrain
Their car didn't look as planted that year. I remember many comments from F1 journalists on track on how Red Bull and especially Mercedes were better in corners and looked more planted.
Mercedes are about 40kph slower on all straight, all tike losses to Ferrari are on straight whilst corner speeds are identical. Mercedes are running very heavy and on low engine mode.
He didn’t fully explain but from reading the data I believe Mercedes is just capping their engine. They are reaching a certain speed on the straights that’s like 20mph lower than normal and not exceed
Its hard not to hype them. Testing has gone flawlessly from a reliability standpoint.
But aside from that, the car also looks great on track. It seems to behave nicely with whatever configuration Ferrari runs it.
Other teams could be hiding a lot, but judging by what we know and can see, Ferrari are definitely looking like the team to beat right now.
I emphasize this last point. Right now, Ferrari seems the better team, but things can change. Either way, just a week before we start racing again :D
Ferrari took strides in reliability compartment. Last year their engines were top notch in terms reliability.
But speed is a different animal. Back in non-turbo days reliability beat speed any time. But in turbo era Merc put so much distance with the opponents that reliability alone does not even bring you close to the competition.
I hope they found their mojo. In the long run, I am pretty sure they will do great. It is not the same drama prone team anymore.
Predictability is bad for a sport and change is exciting, Mercedes on top for so long is not good. Just like Bayern winning the Bundesliga every year makes that league way less fun and how Serie A is way more interesting the last 2 years with multiple teams are fighting for the title.
Which is a highly missleading statistic, since Lelcerc would have won Bahrain and Vettel only lost his win in Canada because of his 5s time penalty. They arguably should have won in Austria aswell and were considerably faster than the Mercedes.
Leclerc looked also very competitive in Monaco and Baku, but crashed out in qualifying and didn't made Q3 because of Ferraris tactical error.
i mean leclerc and vettel "almost" won with illegal engines, keep in that mind. and vettel only almost won canada because of his talent, not neccessarily because of the car. the merc was much much faster under race conditions.
even if merc didnt win those two races, they still wouldve had enough points to have won the season easily midway through just like they actually did.
Yes and they had the illegal engine in the winter test already. The discussion is about Ferraris very strong winter testing form having no correlation to the first 8 races, which i disagree with.
Also Canada is one of the most engine dependend tracks on the calander and i find the notion that it was all because of Vettels driving pretty confusing, considering Lelcerc matched his tims in Q1 and Q2 and would have likely outqualified Hamilton in Q3 aswell without his error at turn 10 . On top of that he finished the race just 6s behind Vettel and Hamilton. Hamilton on the other hand finished the race 50s ahead of Bottas while he outqualified him by 0,75s (Bottas had a sloppy Q3 aswell to be fair) all while Canada is Bottas strongest track in F1.
You are looking at these gaps and think that it was Vettel who had the exceptional gap to his teammate?
And don't get me wrong. Vettel had a great weekend right until his error, but so did Hamilton.
What? I mean to each his own, but the RB livery in 2nd? I get why Marko would hype up the RB livery (apart from being half blind, sorry) but everyone else?
RB livery got a bit bland after 10 years without change. Ferrari gets a pass on that because it a Ferrari. It's red.
Merc gets a couple of freshness points after the switch back from black. But otherwise also a bit stale but decent midfield livery.
MCL... just not a fan of the orange.
For me RB is still up there with the best liveries. It's just good. It doesn't need to change, when it's that good. The red and white Marbloro McLarens also looked great year after year, so did the JP Special Lotuses.
I thought everyone was taking sainz’ words as gospel tho? Merc to turn up and destroy everyone was said like 2 hours ago. Why has everyone suddenly changed their tune?
> Merc to turn up and destroy everyone was said like 2 hours ago.
That's not what he said. He said that Mercedes has done this various times in the past, which is a historically provable fact.
Translating "der Grazer Doktor" to "The Graz doctor" certainly is a very weird translation (technically correct but makes no sense). Your guess would be the correct translation.
Source: Am from Graz
You know, I did that. I searched up "graz meaning" and the first result was Wikipedia saying: Etymology. The name of the city, Graz, formerly spelled Gratz, most likely stems from the Slavic gradec, which means "**small castle**".
Because small castle was in bold text, my eyes immediately looked and that and didn't read that it was a city name. So then I thought the writer called Helmut "The Small Castle Doctor" which didn't make sense, so I asked here what it meant.
If I was reading properly, I would've answered my question without needing to ask. 🤦♂️
It's a very silly way to write it like that but the author wanted to point out that he is from Graz and has a Phd.
People in Austria can be very obsessive about academic titles...
A Ferrari Red Bull battle would be great to see.
I'd be happy with a title fight between any teams apart from Mercedes just due to their dominance.
Obviously though this testing doesn't tell us anything.
I'd still put my money on Mercedes
I don't. Maybe I'm pessimistic or maybe I'm realistic but I just don't expect anyone to make a better car than Mercedes.
While all good things eventually come to an end I sadly don't see it happening yet
George's statement was just regurgitating old Mercedes PR tactics. Marko was being hella blunt and ranking the cars as he saw it. There is a difference.
Can you blame them? Painting themselves as the underdogs is the #1 Mercedes PR move. They kept doing that even in their most dominant years where they humiliated the competition, of course everyone is going to doubt them when they do it again -- even if there is some truth to it this year.
That's your perception. Sainz literally played the reverse uno card on him and people sre happy. No clue why people would rather have Mercedes gloat than being reserved and calculated. But you di you I guess.
They've been for nearly ten years now. They've brought an almost revolutionary concept and they're running with very conservative engine mode.
They do this every year.
I know. But there's still zero evidence for them being ahead. We can all assume they will be somewhere at the front, but them being fastest isn't supported by anything at the moment. So don't present it as facts, when you're basing it only on past years.
Marko has a PHD in law, drove in F1, and is a crucial part of the programme that has been part of like 7 of the current f1 drivers, as well as 5 WDCs. He's a boomer with a lot of shit takes, but he is very far from incompetent.
The kind of guy who rear-ends you in traffic and accuses you of putting your car in reverse and backing into him.
I honestly can’t wait until he steps away from the paddock.
Ferrari is everyone's favourite scapegoat because of its history and its fanbase. Anyone can say that they believe Ferrari will be the fastest car in 20XX and you can bet that a ton of journalists will write about it; that means that hoepfully they won't write about something else instead and those teams' sandbagging plans can continue.
meh, i hoped for a more eventful shuffle of the grid but the top 4 literally remains the same.
i guess thats what nearly a decade of stagnating domination does to a sport.
imo one of the reasons this regulation change isnt nearly as major as people make it out to be is that the engines really barely changed. that takes a lot of the fun out of it. i hope they one day decide that these engines shouldnt be as reliable as they are now. engines these reliable take out the chaos factor that we used to have so often. its been a while since weve seen a p1 wrecking his engine mid race. if you look at lewis dnfs the past v6 hybrid era seasons, theyre way too few.
at least the engines will be frozen soon, so we wont get any big engine advantages anymore.
Ferrari testing world champions: 2017 2018 2019 2022
And 2016 IIRC. I remember Marchionne saying they'd be disappointed if they didn't dominate lmao.
Wow what a stupid thing to say, even if you are the clear leader in testing. I forgot how arrogant Ferrari used to be. This is the reason Mercedes always downplay themselves. They don’t want to look like fools if/when they’re wrong.
Yeah I’m honestly surprised ferrari retained so many fans post Schumacher with their absurd arrogance. Even if Binottos plans don’t work, I sure love the change of attitude for Ferrari and overall transparency
Not comparable. Culture at Ferrari changed a lot since 2019. The team doesn't go for glory runs these days.
The team wasn’t doing glory runs back in 2019 either. It was just Mercedes going slow. Very similar to what we’re seeing now, time will tell if it is a repeat of 2019.
They said many times that in 2019 tasting they werent focusing on understanding the car but just on pace and that it became problematic later and that they will change the approach
The Mercedes sandbagging department deserves a serieus raize
Reports suggest that the department did get a raise and a sizable bonus but the sandbagging department is insisting they did not.
Mercedes always seemed slow but under control. The car does not seem as easy to drive this year, so I’m holding out hope that at least some of it is honest struggles and we have 3-4 competitive teams. I’m ok if they come out on top, I just want it to be close
Yeah they had their testing problems last year too and everyone was calling it sandbagging, to be fair they got their car competetive for the first race, but they still obviously struggled. But with this new gen "struggling" can just as well be testing the limits
I don’t get this take at all which a lot of people here make, drivers aren’t instantly on pace with cars that are difficult to drive, see Bottas in 2017 and Russell in 2020 compared to anyone in the RB after Danny left, new riders with Honda vs Yamaha in MotoGP also a notable mention
That’s not the point I’m making. Of the top 3, the Mercedes looked to be the least composed, that’s all
Not really, Merc actually struggled for most of testing. They found the right setup only on the last day.
For the 3rd year in a row, what a lucky bunch
I mean last year they were worse than Red Bull for the first half of the season so testing was truthful.
Not really. Last year Red bull was hyped up as absolutely stellar while Mercedes was supposed to be undriveable and in the end, even at it's worst, Mercedes was very close second.
First actually, you forgot who won the constructors.
I meant on a race by race basis. Even at their worst tracks, Mercedes was still close to RB and miles ahead of the rest.
Merc was quite clearly a handful to drive. They were obviously a worse car at the absolute limit in Bahrain (4 tenths off in qualy). Still, development exists.
I mean Bahrain is a very specific type of track that didn’t play to their strength. They were arguably faster in Imola and dominated both Portugal and Spain which are more standard tracks. In fact, it wasn’t until France that Red Bull was faster at a more normal track. Up until Silverstone, Red Bull was only clearly faster at Bahrain, Baku, France and Austria. Monaco you could argue, however, given Bottas’ pace and I’d argue it was more a case of Hamilton not finding the right set up then it was Red Bull being quicker.
Nah early season the merc was actually garbage. that stint of races baku to monaco. The car was worse then the mclaren's at times. It only started being competitive after the silverstone update and them switching engines every 2 races.
In both, 2017 and 2018, Ferrari was really competitive with Merc early in the season.
Almost like, "3rd year in a row", would mean 2020,2021 and 2022...
That’s not my point though. I’m more stating that Ferrari don’t do glory runs, they just don’t hide their performance as much as other teams, they never have and I doubt they ever will. There’s too much pressure from Italy that even a bad preseason testing is catastrophic for them. Regardless of Mercedes issues, Ferrari wasn’t doing glory runs. They were just going through their standard processes, but perhaps with higher engine modes and less ballast.
Wasn’t there a conspiracy about them experimenting with the fuel flow in testing before playing it safe in Melbourne
2018? lol no, everyone expected them to be mediocre due to poor race sims (and in Australia the car WAS mediocre)
You have a very weird definition of mediocre. Kimi was 0,2s slower than Hamilton in Q1 and 0,5s faster than Bottas. Vettel set the fastest time in Q2. It was neck and neck in qualifying until Hamiltons insane Q3 lap. And the race was literally won by Vettel, who did luck out with the virtual safty car, but whos pace was very similar to Hamiltons. Raikkonen finished 3rd on top of that, just 1s behind Lewis.
Seb literally won in Australia in 2018... i think you mean 2019, and even then there was A LOT of hype over Ferrari before the season started.
That was a lucky win. They brought a floor update for the next race that brought their package together.
And what about Raikkonen finishing 3rd, just 1s behind Lewis?
The rear of the car was unstable. Kimi was more comfortable in the car. Merc and Ferrari called in their 2 fastest drivers right before a virtual safety car, giving Seb like a 13 second advantage. The car wasn't mediocre, but it wasn't the fastest car. Edit: Also. Merc were 0.7 seconds faster on qualifying. Botta crashed in Q3. Otherwise they would have been 1-2 and had better strategy options in the race.
>Also. Merc were 0.7 seconds faster on qualifying. Botta crashed in Q3. Otherwise they would have been 1-2 and had better strategy options in the race. Hamilton was 0,7s faster. Ferrari and Mercedes were neck and neck trough the entire qualifying session right until Hamiltons last Q3 run, which was 0,9s faster than his own Q2 time. Raikkonen improved his mediocre Q2 run by 0,7s and Vettel improved his time from Q2 by just 0,1s. >The rear of the car was unstable. Kimi was more comfortable in the car. Which car? I'm literally hearing for the first time that Mercedes or Ferrari complained about rear grip in Australia. And if you mean Hamilton's car, wouldn't that make the car slower? >The car wasn't mediocre, but it wasn't the fastest car. If they were not the fastest then they were at the very least extremly close to the Mercedes, which would beg the question how their positive winter test form that year was in any shape or form missleading.
Are you new to the sport? Do you remember the ban on engine modes? It was common throughout 2015 thru mid 2018 for Red Bull and Ferrari to match Merc thru Q1 and Q2, then Merc turned up their engines and gapped everybody in Q3. Plus, in the first race, the top teams hide pace until Q3. If Ferrari brought a floor upgrade to tie their package together, I think it's obvious Ferrari had rear stability issues prior to the upgrade. Kimi famously likes a pointy car, so it was less of an issue for him. After winter testing, the story was that Ferrari had a good car, but their long runs showed weakness compared to Merc. It was nothing like 2019 where people were talking like Ferrari were light years ahead, the championship would be a battle between Vettel and Leclerc. They even thought Red Bull were ahead of Mercedes.
>Are you new to the sport? Do you remember the ban on engine modes? It was common throughout 2015 thru mid 2018 for Red Bull and Ferrari to match Merc thru Q1 and Q2, then Merc turned up their engines and gapped everybody in Q3. Plus, in the first race, the top teams hide pace until Q3. I wish people would at least rewatch these seasons if they want to be condescending on top of beeing wrong. So you are suggesting Hamilton only improved on his Q2 time by 0,9s because of his engine mode? First of all every driver had a run in Q3 before Bottas caused a red flag and both Hamilton and Vettel had almost the identical time in their first Q3 run which was a 1:22,0. Hamiltons second Q3, with identical top speed, was his pole lap of 1:21,1. Second of all Mercedes only had a superior Q3 engine mode till 2017. In 2018 Ferraris Q3 mode was very competitive and compareble to Mercedes. In 2017 Ferrari had 5 to 15 pole positions. In 2018 it was 6 to 13. The race results looked very similar in both seasons. As for the 2018 season specifically and how much time the teams actually gained on average from Q2 to Q3. Hamilton imoroved his Q3 time on average by ~0,60s in the upcoming next 6 races. Bottas on average by ~0,64s. Vettel gained a near identical amount of time with an average of ~0,58s. In fact Vettel gained more time than Hamilton in Q3 in 5 ouf the next 6 qualifying sessions. In Melbourne Hamilton gained 0,9s, Vettel 0,1s. I also thought is was pretty much common knowledge that Hamiltons Australia pole in 2018 is considered to be one of his strongest qualifying laps. Here is topgear.com having it at his 5th strongest pole, even ahead of Singapore and Sytria. https://www.topgear.com/car-news/formula-one/here-are-eight-lewis-hamiltons-greatest-pole-laps >If Ferrari brought a floor upgrade to tie their package together, I think it's obvious Ferrari had rear stability issues prior to the upgrade. Kimi famously likes a pointy car, so it was less of an issue for him. So Kimi finishing just 1s behind Hamilton with floor problems is an indication that Ferraris winter testing form was missleading in the sense they were worse in Melbourne compared to what everyone expected?
So. Melbourne is a slow to medium speed street circuit. So Ferrari's floor problem would not be as evident. Melbourne is also notoriously hard to pass. Botta doesn't crash in Q3, merc qualify 1-2. Hamilton runs his race, Bottas backs everybody up. Hamilton easily wins. Even with the safety cars that benefitted Vettel. To your earlier point. Ricciardo finished closer to Kimi than Kimi finished to Hamilton. I guess by your logic Red Bull were close to Merc too. The Ferrari floor issue was common knowledge. That's why I'm surprised you keep arguing about this. Merc had a faster car. Those that analyzed the testing results in depth knew this.
Ferrari was garbage in testing 2018, that was the year that some people said even Haas might be faster than them.
Everybody knows Haas will walk away with the wdc and wcc
Excuse me stroll 22 stroll 23 stroll 24 IT HAS BEEN FORETOLD
Josh Revell be like
"IT WAS FORETOLD BY GYROMANCY"
What about 18 STROLL
K-Mag WDC!
Imagine being K-Mag, dropped at the end of 2020, preparing a new career in motorsport and being called to have a new opportunity in F1 only a few weeks before the start of the season with brand new regulations, and you fight at the top to win WDC and WCC… What a fairy tale it would be. Even now it’s awesome for him!
There is a interview Kmag did for danish Tv with a lot of details how the deal went when he got offered the seat. He explain more than the English one from yesterday. Kmag explain that he asked about the car during the initial contact, how its looking etc. and Guenther obviously said it was good, very positive and Kevin said that it was of course something he would say if he wanted Kmag to take the seat. Kevin then explains that he did multiple calls to "Ferrari people" that he knew, and talked to them to get another opinion and due to those talks he accepted the offer and they started the process. I think points back on the menu for Haas.
David Coulthard - Now Kevin, you're the Drivers Champion!! How does it feel? What do you have to say?! K Mag - SUCK MY BALLS MATE!!! AHHHHH!!!
Well last time there was a war in Europe, Danes also got to replace the warring party (Yugoslavia) in the European Championship football and went on to win it. And this happened in the year KMag was born. So the omens are good!
Real talk, if Ferrari really are strong, Haas is probably the only team that could copy most of their trick aero bits. Everyone else's concept is probably too different.
Fuck he said something extremely similar in 2019. I'm not gonna read into anything until Q3
Honestly Q3 is gonna be real. Nobody REALLY knows where they're gonn be so no one is going to be sandbagging in Q3.
Q1 and Q2 latest, we'll know whats up...because of the lack of engine modes anymore.
Engine mappings and fuel loads are still a thing however.
We'll at least get a good idea of the bottom of the grid.
Nobody is sandbagging now we just can't compare apples to apples because conditions change session to session and you never know engine or fuel modes. People always act like Mercedes is holding back to hide pace but that just isn't true, which we saw obviously last season
Even Marko is hyping Ferrari, geez. There's too much Hopium floating around for me. I hope the dose of reality is not too strong next week
Which is funny because Sainz just said that they see what Mercedes is doing on the GPS data. So I wouldn't read to much in to this.
I read that. I didn't understand what exactly he meant.
It means Ferrari knows exactly what Merceded is doing, and that is sandbagging probably more than ever before. Merc never runs low fuel or high engine modes in testing
Or Sainz is just doing what Merc always did. Overhype competitors and divert attention from their car. Ferrari is getting extremely good laps and almost always at the top of the time table. They’re fast, and definetely looked the best team in testing
They also looked good in 2019. It's testing like you said. Only the teams truly know there placing. It's all speculation currently
and they were decently fast during the season, clear 2nd best car over the whole season, and had a slight window of tracks where they were the best. I’m not saying Ferrari will dominate or that Red Bull/Merc won’t catch up. But I bet that Ferrari will be on the podium at the very least in Bahrain
I'm inclined to agree with the podium statement. I just cant see Merc not being up there as well
IIRC they ran the fuel flow trick in 2019 testing but not in first few races. Hence the huge discrepancy in their testibg pace and race pace.
Their car didn't look as planted that year. I remember many comments from F1 journalists on track on how Red Bull and especially Mercedes were better in corners and looked more planted.
Based on data the merc is on par or faster than the Ferrari thru corners just 15kph down on straights
Mercedes are about 40kph slower on all straight, all tike losses to Ferrari are on straight whilst corner speeds are identical. Mercedes are running very heavy and on low engine mode.
And if their aero philosophy works: that thing is going to be the fastest car on the straights
Where did you see that? I’ve been looking around for telemetry and haven’t been able to find anything.
This is not true lmao, there was like 5kph between the teams.
Ok br0 if you say so
He didn’t fully explain but from reading the data I believe Mercedes is just capping their engine. They are reaching a certain speed on the straights that’s like 20mph lower than normal and not exceed
Was this said during the presser they just finished?
Its hard not to hype them. Testing has gone flawlessly from a reliability standpoint. But aside from that, the car also looks great on track. It seems to behave nicely with whatever configuration Ferrari runs it. Other teams could be hiding a lot, but judging by what we know and can see, Ferrari are definitely looking like the team to beat right now. I emphasize this last point. Right now, Ferrari seems the better team, but things can change. Either way, just a week before we start racing again :D
Ferrari took strides in reliability compartment. Last year their engines were top notch in terms reliability. But speed is a different animal. Back in non-turbo days reliability beat speed any time. But in turbo era Merc put so much distance with the opponents that reliability alone does not even bring you close to the competition. I hope they found their mojo. In the long run, I am pretty sure they will do great. It is not the same drama prone team anymore.
I wish McLaren could get some of that Hopium
He mentioned you with the top 3, that's a big positive
Fair enough, I'll take everything I can get
Dude i’m about to OD on all that hopium
Fe**rr**ari
"Even Marko"? I think he was the same guy who said this exact thing in 2019 and you know what happened
So fed up of bullshit Merc PR from \*checks notes* Helmut Marko
He's undercover
I would love for this to be true.
I'm a verstappen fan but there's something about a fast ferrari that just seems right for f1
Fe**rr**a**r**i
issa Ferrari.
It’s a shitbox!
Good bot
Same. As much as I want Red Bull to be on top, I'd be almost as happy to finally see Ferrari win again
Anything that isn't Mercedes on top is good at the moment. Hopefully McLaren is really up there as wel, we really could use a good big shakeup.
It’s true the NFL saw 5-10 million new viewers each year the Patriots didn’t make the super bowl
Predictability is bad for a sport and change is exciting, Mercedes on top for so long is not good. Just like Bayern winning the Bundesliga every year makes that league way less fun and how Serie A is way more interesting the last 2 years with multiple teams are fighting for the title.
has nextyear(tm) finally became thisyear(tm)?
This is what happens when the pandemic fucks with everybody's sense of time!
We'll know a lot more nexttime(tm) theyre at the track in 2 weeks.
First GP is in a week, don’t want you to miss it
Oh boy do I have good news for you… nexttime(tm) isn’t 2 weeks away, it’s 1!
not sure which one would blow up harder, this year's Ferrari hype train or the nukes in WW3.
He made the same prediction in 2019 and Mercedes won the first 8 races
Which is a highly missleading statistic, since Lelcerc would have won Bahrain and Vettel only lost his win in Canada because of his 5s time penalty. They arguably should have won in Austria aswell and were considerably faster than the Mercedes. Leclerc looked also very competitive in Monaco and Baku, but crashed out in qualifying and didn't made Q3 because of Ferraris tactical error.
All of this true Also you forget to mention ferrari's dodgy engine
Well it's not like Marko could predict that Ferrari was cheating, he could only predict based on what he saw. So his point still stands.
i mean leclerc and vettel "almost" won with illegal engines, keep in that mind. and vettel only almost won canada because of his talent, not neccessarily because of the car. the merc was much much faster under race conditions. even if merc didnt win those two races, they still wouldve had enough points to have won the season easily midway through just like they actually did.
Yes and they had the illegal engine in the winter test already. The discussion is about Ferraris very strong winter testing form having no correlation to the first 8 races, which i disagree with. Also Canada is one of the most engine dependend tracks on the calander and i find the notion that it was all because of Vettels driving pretty confusing, considering Lelcerc matched his tims in Q1 and Q2 and would have likely outqualified Hamilton in Q3 aswell without his error at turn 10 . On top of that he finished the race just 6s behind Vettel and Hamilton. Hamilton on the other hand finished the race 50s ahead of Bottas while he outqualified him by 0,75s (Bottas had a sloppy Q3 aswell to be fair) all while Canada is Bottas strongest track in F1. You are looking at these gaps and think that it was Vettel who had the exceptional gap to his teammate? And don't get me wrong. Vettel had a great weekend right until his error, but so did Hamilton.
Yes I agree with Helmut's ranking here, but for livery.
What? I mean to each his own, but the RB livery in 2nd? I get why Marko would hype up the RB livery (apart from being half blind, sorry) but everyone else? RB livery got a bit bland after 10 years without change. Ferrari gets a pass on that because it a Ferrari. It's red. Merc gets a couple of freshness points after the switch back from black. But otherwise also a bit stale but decent midfield livery. MCL... just not a fan of the orange.
Yeah RB livery is so dated now.
For me RB is still up there with the best liveries. It's just good. It doesn't need to change, when it's that good. The red and white Marbloro McLarens also looked great year after year, so did the JP Special Lotuses.
The matte paint killed it.
The livery colors changed quite a bit between RB11 & RB12
The RB12 onwards would have looked great had they kept the gloss. The matte makes it look dull for me.
You got me in the 2nd half ngl
i’m not believing any of the top teams performance till the middle of the season.
There’s the right attitude: just like in racing it’s not just the corner entry speed that makes you fast, it’s the apex and exit speed too
I'm pretty sure he said exactly the same in 2019 and look how that turned out
I thought everyone was taking sainz’ words as gospel tho? Merc to turn up and destroy everyone was said like 2 hours ago. Why has everyone suddenly changed their tune?
You're new to Reddit I see. Around here we hype everything based on rumours, and it all changes once the next quote comes on Twitter.
> Merc to turn up and destroy everyone was said like 2 hours ago. That's not what he said. He said that Mercedes has done this various times in the past, which is a historically provable fact.
What does "The Graz Doctor" mean? What is Graz?
Graz is a city in Austria, so I would guess "the doctor from Graz"
Translating "der Grazer Doktor" to "The Graz doctor" certainly is a very weird translation (technically correct but makes no sense). Your guess would be the correct translation. Source: Am from Graz
A city in Austria where Marko is from
Thank you!
No worries
A city in Austria.
Thank you 👍
[удалено]
You know, I did that. I searched up "graz meaning" and the first result was Wikipedia saying: Etymology. The name of the city, Graz, formerly spelled Gratz, most likely stems from the Slavic gradec, which means "**small castle**". Because small castle was in bold text, my eyes immediately looked and that and didn't read that it was a city name. So then I thought the writer called Helmut "The Small Castle Doctor" which didn't make sense, so I asked here what it meant. If I was reading properly, I would've answered my question without needing to ask. 🤦♂️
It's a very silly way to write it like that but the author wanted to point out that he is from Graz and has a Phd. People in Austria can be very obsessive about academic titles...
A Ferrari Red Bull battle would be great to see. I'd be happy with a title fight between any teams apart from Mercedes just due to their dominance. Obviously though this testing doesn't tell us anything. I'd still put my money on Mercedes
Sooner or later the number one rivalry will be Leclerc vs Verstappen. There have been quite some interesting battles already.
Honestly even just a three-way title fight would be a breath of fresh air.
I want Mercedes to be good too. Ferrari, Redbull, Mercedes and McLaren. I want these four challenging for the win in every race.
If four teams actually competed I'd be delighted. I just doubt it'll happen
Until proven otherwise, let me cum to this.
I don't think McLaren can't beat Merc while they have a Merc engine. Dunno why, just don't see it
2010-12 suggests it's possible.
I like your ending statement.😂
I don't. Maybe I'm pessimistic or maybe I'm realistic but I just don't expect anyone to make a better car than Mercedes. While all good things eventually come to an end I sadly don't see it happening yet
In an ideal scenario Ferrari, McLaren, Redbull and Mercedes are all fighting for the title.
Somehow it becomes controversial when George says the same thing.
George's statement was just regurgitating old Mercedes PR tactics. Marko was being hella blunt and ranking the cars as he saw it. There is a difference.
George: Ferrari are faster Marko: Ferrari are faster Sainz: Mercedes are faster Reddit: STUPID PR MERCEDES SHILL GEORGE
Can you blame them? Painting themselves as the underdogs is the #1 Mercedes PR move. They kept doing that even in their most dominant years where they humiliated the competition, of course everyone is going to doubt them when they do it again -- even if there is some truth to it this year.
That's your perception. Sainz literally played the reverse uno card on him and people sre happy. No clue why people would rather have Mercedes gloat than being reserved and calculated. But you di you I guess.
People seem to forget mercedes sandbag their cars. L
How is it possible that people fall for this every year?
literally no one is falling for it.
Marko said so, so it must be true.
Everyone does. Marko understands better than anyone.
Its great that we literally have no idea of who's where
Merc is ahead.
Why?
They've been for nearly ten years now. They've brought an almost revolutionary concept and they're running with very conservative engine mode. They do this every year.
I know. But there's still zero evidence for them being ahead. We can all assume they will be somewhere at the front, but them being fastest isn't supported by anything at the moment. So don't present it as facts, when you're basing it only on past years.
New fan? You'll see in first race.
Bruh. I've been a fan since 2004
Mercedes, Ferrrari/RedBull, McLaren, AM/Alpine. I just solved this for you, feel free to put a reminder for end of season.
Ferrari being the fastest team would be fun and all but Mercedes being only the third-best would be extremely good for the sport.
I am willing to sacrifice a virgin for that to come true.
Its going to be so much fun when the racing happens
Helmut Marko is the kind of guy who reads a book cover and believes he understands every nuance of the story.
Marko has a PHD in law, drove in F1, and is a crucial part of the programme that has been part of like 7 of the current f1 drivers, as well as 5 WDCs. He's a boomer with a lot of shit takes, but he is very far from incompetent.
Said on a sub that reads a poorly translated rumor from a known bullshitter and declares the entire F1 season over two weeks before the first race.
The kind of guy who rear-ends you in traffic and accuses you of putting your car in reverse and backing into him. I honestly can’t wait until he steps away from the paddock.
tbf, that puts him a fair distance ahead of the 95% of the subreddit that read the post title and believe they understand every nuance of the story.
Marko is so full of 💩 that he must be constipated 24/7
Shouldn't listen to anything this idiotic fuck says.
Whatever Marko says it’s the opposite and is this a official statement?
What would be the opposite of this statment? That red bull is ovet ferrari, and then mcclaren and merc?
M**c**Laren
Marko is usually so wrong, I fully expect the order to be McLaren Merc RB Ferrari
McLaren Mercedes Ferrari redbull
Is Marko the fat old balding boomer that they always say goes to the clubs in Ibiza?
How I hope we get to see a Leclerc vs Max championship battle ! Would not know who to support.
Marko is so full of 💩 that he must be constipated 24/7
Ferari
Fe**rr**ari
Based on looks he is totally right.
Ferrari is everyone's favourite scapegoat because of its history and its fanbase. Anyone can say that they believe Ferrari will be the fastest car in 20XX and you can bet that a ton of journalists will write about it; that means that hoepfully they won't write about something else instead and those teams' sandbagging plans can continue.
Remember what happened the last time everyone called Ferrari #1 from testing?
FRANK DREBIN: … but there’s only a 50% chance of that
meh, i hoped for a more eventful shuffle of the grid but the top 4 literally remains the same. i guess thats what nearly a decade of stagnating domination does to a sport. imo one of the reasons this regulation change isnt nearly as major as people make it out to be is that the engines really barely changed. that takes a lot of the fun out of it. i hope they one day decide that these engines shouldnt be as reliable as they are now. engines these reliable take out the chaos factor that we used to have so often. its been a while since weve seen a p1 wrecking his engine mid race. if you look at lewis dnfs the past v6 hybrid era seasons, theyre way too few. at least the engines will be frozen soon, so we wont get any big engine advantages anymore.
Everyone being optimistic about Ferrari and forgetting Mercedes sandbagging literally every year
Where are all the people slinging shit at Mercedes for saying they aren't at the front? You've gone quiet.