The race winner at Bahrain was exactly who everyone expected as World Champion Max Verstappen led the Grand Prix from start to finish. Behind him the battle was closer but it was Perez who made it a perfect Red Bull result with Ferrari's Sainz completing the podium.
Is Mclaren the dark horse? Is this track particularly not great for them? Going to be very competitive in other races?Qualifying is not going to be the measure. The specific nature of qualifying makes the field closer than in the races. In qualy, more of the corners become flat on low fuel and new tires and the cars with more downforce don't take as much advantage. Any handling issues are masked by the grip of the new tire. The race itself really emphasizes the strengths of some cars, and punishes the weaknesses of others.
You should compare the fastest time in quali rather than just q3 for this comparison.matt_b wrote:So comparing Q3 to 2023
2024
Ferrari +0.228
Mercedes +0.306
2023
Ferrari +0.292
Mercedes +0.632
Ferrari closing the gap by 0.064 and Mercedes by a decent 0.326
Max was clearly faster in Q3, though.
Track evolution (for better or worse).
Max set his 1.29.3 in Q2 at the beginning of the session. So between the beginning of Q2 and end of Q3 Max found 2 tenths. Between the end of Q2 and the end of Q3 though, there was very little improvement from anyone
That’s fine but LEC had a faster lap in q2 and didn’t get a tow in q3. If you look at YoY gaps it’s weird to look at just q3 as if the conditions were identical in both years.organic wrote:Max set his 1.29.3 in Q2 at the beginning of the session. So between the beginning of Q2 and end of Q3 Max found 2 tenths. Between the end of Q2 and the end of Q3 though, there was very little improvement from anyone
Track conditions aren't the same during different sessions so Q2 doesn't matter. Even then, Verstappen didn't do a second run on new tires in Q2 so there is no comparison.dialtone wrote: ↑01 Mar 2024, 19:19That’s fine but LEC had a faster lap in q2 and didn’t get a tow in q3. If you look at YoY gaps it’s weird to look at just q3 as if the conditions were identical in both years.organic wrote:Max set his 1.29.3 in Q2 at the beginning of the session. So between the beginning of Q2 and end of Q3 Max found 2 tenths. Between the end of Q2 and the end of Q3 though, there was very little improvement from anyone
That did not age well
So they were all glory running in Fp3 then
