2024 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir, Feb 29 - Mar 02

[Fluido]

1.6sec faster than second team, I dont understand why ferrari and merc dont switch to 2026 car?
They will just loose money and never catch up RB..

[f1isgood]

1.6sec faster than second team, I dont understand why ferrari and merc dont switch to 2026 car?
They will just loose money and never catch up RB..

There's no guarantee they'll do any better in 2026. Ferrari had the most time and resources for 2022 and were competitive for about 10 races before a technical directive ended their competitiveness.

[DGP123]

Max did say that the RB car was in a better shape given the wind direction change b/w Q and R. That indicates a potential weakness of the car.

Really scraping the barrel for any positives now.

I dont understand why ferrari and merc dont switch to 2026 car?

Rule change dictates no work can be done on 26’ car until January? Correct me if I’m wrong.

[Formula 1 fan]

I heard somewhere that Mercedes is planning a really important improvement package for Imola, if that's true and after that improvement they won't be competitive for at least one victory, I think that immediately after that they should shift all focus and all resources to 2026.

[sport777]

some verified Italian media say the same thing, that Merc sometimes lost up to 0.7 per lap, the truth is somewhere in the middle it’s about 0.5 per lap, I think this is true, you need to wait a few races, in my opinion the W15 is a good car, which is interesting that the media Italy was told that Russell's problem started on lap 4 of the race, if you look at his lap before the problems it was a solid 1:36.4, then the pace dropped sharply to 1:37.7 in one lap the tires don't wear out that much considering they only completed 7 laps , so the problem was clearly

when merc had 1:36.4 how much RB had?
I am interesting how much is merc slower than RB

In my opinion, Russell’s 2-3 lap was 1:36.6, then overtook Leclerc was 1:36.4, then sharply 1:37.7, Verstapenn was 1:36.296 then 1:36.7!
At the same time, Russell on laps of 1:36 had the first sector in the range of 30.9-31.0, then sharply 31.6, 31.4, so you can download for sure there were problems with the engine and they cost Merc a lot

[dia6olo]

When it comes down to it Max's advantage was about 4 tenths over the race, looking at stints doesn't tell the whole story, it points to the better car/driver but margins can and often are misleading.
Max could have very well been taking it easy but so could have the chasing pack for various reasons, Leclerc's car was handicapped, Sainz could have likely gone quicker but because of last years tyre deg drove more conservative than he needed to.
Red Bull still have a significant advantage especially with Max but it is nowhere near as big as some race stints suggest, not even close.

[Fluido]

When it comes down to it Max's advantage was about 4 tenths over the race,

If that is case, that mean merc is very close if dont have problems.
My opinion is that no body have even small chance against RB.

Will see on next race when merc drive with 100% power.

[dia6olo]

When it comes down to it Max's advantage was about 4 tenths over the race,

If that is case, that mean merc is very close if dont have problems.
My opinion is that no body have even small chance against RB.

Will see on next race when merc drive with 100% power.

It's hard to say, I think Ferrari are about 4 tenths off maybe even a shade less.
I think Mercedes are a little further adrift, 2 tenths or so behind Ferrari.
I know Mercedes had issues but for me they are massively exaggerating how much it was costing them...

[chrisc90]

When it comes down to it Max's advantage was about 4 tenths over the race, looking at stints doesn't tell the whole story, it points to the better car/driver but margins can and often are misleading.

I’d say more than 4tenths easily. Even across the race.
I think it would be fair to compare the 1st and second stints of them all and work out the pace from there. Since there was same fuel, same tyres.
RB data is slightly skewed given the soft hard soft run with the soft run at the end.

[Vettel165]

[dia6olo]

When it comes down to it Max's advantage was about 4 tenths over the race, looking at stints doesn't tell the whole story, it points to the better car/driver but margins can and often are misleading.

I’d say more than 4tenths easily. Even across the race.
I think it would be fair to compare the 1st and second stints of them all and work out the pace from there. Since there was same fuel, same tyres.
RB data is slightly skewed given the soft hard soft run with the soft run at the end.

At 4 tenths based on Bahrain, max would have to finish ahead by some 23 seconds and a good chunk more if "more than 4tenths easily", that is not going to happen once the dust has settled, in fact it wouldn't surprise me if the pack, Ferrari in particular are a lot closer than 4 tenths when the dust settles.

[chrisc90]

Well it was 25 seconds to sainz. Which over the race is 0.440 a lap average.

[dialtone]

Much closer in final stint, but Max was probably on 1/2 throttle mode.

So, one should judge degradation to figure that stuff out.

MAX had worse deg in stint 2 and 3 than SAI, your graphs show that well too.

Max was 0.8s/lap faster in stint 2, between laps 17 and 32, Max avg pace was 1.35.444 and SAI was 1.36.238, from the telemetry I saw of the average lap, a LOT of time was lost by Sainz in T6-7 and T11-12-13, corners that LEC simply also gaining time to SAI, but had to deal with the brake issue. But even SAI could have probably gone faster had he wanted to use his tires more, but I suppose was never concerned with beating MAX as he was anyway out of reach.

It makes sense that the real gap is somewhere around 0.5s/lap on that second stint.

Deg-wise SAI also did great in the first stint considering how far behind he started. On the last stint SAI was just not fast being just 0.1s/lap faster than LEC from lap 36 to 57 who had brake issues and had to brake early in practically every corner with clear traction issues in T11 as a result of lacking front braking.

Max, while certainly managing, always had worse deg than SAI so I'd question the 1/2 throttle narrative, he probably has more in the tank certainly but 1/2 throttle is not it.

[dia6olo]

Well it was 25 seconds to sainz. Which over the race is 0.440 a lap average.

It was 25 seconds, but Sainz started P4 then slipped to P5.
Had he gone into the first corner in P2 he would have been closer by a good few seconds.
If Leclerc who did go into the first corner in P2 had not had the brake issues he would have also been closer.

[dialtone]

Adding further to my post, comparing LEC against VER in the 2nd stint is very unfair, despite the brake issue, LEC was 0.6-7s/lap faster than RUS but couldn't attempt a pass, and had to spend the whole stint behind RUS losing him a lot of time.