2024 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix - Imola, May 17 - 19

[DGP123]

Redbull strategy and Max would have done something incredible (or just luck) if he finishes on the podium tomorrow.

[dialtone]

Piastri is under investigation, and it would be quite surprising if he doesn't get a +3 penalty

I doubt they will punish a podium contender and "spoil the fight up front" because somebody held up a Haas. I remember many years ago, on Silverstone, either 2015,16 or 2017, when Hamilton massively held up somebody but they obviously didn+t take his pole away. The track was packed with people wearing t-shirts of "Hammer time" and etc.

F1 is show before being a sport. That said, yeah, maybe they will punish Oscar to give Ferrari a chance to be on the podium for the tifosi

It will be punished without doubt. It’s not even funny how badly he impeded. It’s a show but there are still rules. I’ve never seen a clearer impeding penalty in my life.

[CHT]

Disappointing for the Tifosi to see Ferrari missing out on the front row and Hamilton again qualifying behind GR.
Hope that the race tomorrow will be better for the red cars

Max has once again demonstrated why he is a champion. 8 poles in a row now ties with Ayrton Senna.

[PlatinumZealot]

Nice one Venkyhere! It's gonna be a cruise tomorrow, trust me. Q3 showed that when the temperature dropped only RedBull improved. It's going to be big factor in the second stint. Race pace should put Max comfortably ahead. McLarens are quick but I just don't see them hanging onto it. Car looked more unstable compared to Ma's RedBull.

[search]

Updated tire list. Unconfirmed, but should more or less be correct:



Going by the way Ferrari approached Qualifying today, I guess they don't believe to need any more than 1xM and 1xH. Could have easily saved those mediums (or a set of softs) if they wanted to.

[Hammerfist]

Not a verstappen fan but for him to be on pole today was super impressive. Today I’m afraid it was the driver that made a difference. I expect the mclarens to give him hell tomorrow though. We shall see….

[bananapeel23]

Updated tire list. Unconfirmed, but should more or less be correct:

https://i.imgur.com/GzeJgIW.png

Going by the way Ferrari approached Qualifying today, I guess they don't believe to need any more than 1xM and 1xH. Could have easily saved those mediums (or a set of softs) if they wanted to.

Ferrari had 4 new softs going into quali and only ran mediums in Q1. With the additional set you get from getting into q3, they should have one new set?

[TeamKoolGreen]

Annual Perez collapse is starting. Out qualified by BOTH Vcarbs, Ferrari's Mclarens and Mercedes. Totally unacceptable.

[search]

Updated tire list. Unconfirmed, but should more or less be correct:

https://i.imgur.com/GzeJgIW.png

Going by the way Ferrari approached Qualifying today, I guess they don't believe to need any more than 1xM and 1xH. Could have easily saved those mediums (or a set of softs) if they wanted to.

Ferrari had 4 new softs going into quali and only ran mediums in Q1. With the additional set you get from getting into q3, they should have one new set?

they did 2 runs in Q2 and 2 in Q3. All on new tires. I just checked Leclerc's onboard.

edit: the "Q3 set" is one of those 4. There are no additional tires for anyone.

[bananapeel23]

Updated tire list. Unconfirmed, but should more or less be correct:

https://i.imgur.com/GzeJgIW.png

Going by the way Ferrari approached Qualifying today, I guess they don't believe to need any more than 1xM and 1xH. Could have easily saved those mediums (or a set of softs) if they wanted to.

Ferrari had 4 new softs going into quali and only ran mediums in Q1. With the additional set you get from getting into q3, they should have one new set?

they did 2 runs in Q2 and 2 in Q3. All on new tires. I just checked Leclerc's onboard.

edit: the "Q3 set" is one of those 4. There are no additional tires for anyone.

So that seems to confirm that they have a new set of softs, since they came into quali with 4 new softs and got an extra set from getting into Q3, unless the Q3 rule has been changed?

[avantman]

Nice one Venkyhere! It's gonna be a cruise tomorrow, trust me. Q3 showed that when the temperature dropped only RedBull improved. It's going to be big factor in the second stint. Race pace should put Max comfortably ahead. McLarens are quick but I just don't see them hanging onto it. Car looked more unstable compared to Ma's RedBull.

what are you talking about mate? what red bull? you mean Max? why you said he was the only one who improved, as both Piastri and Norris were a lot faster than Q2 and improved significantly on their respective 2nd runs of Q3.

the boss of your fav team said after fp3 Mclaren are big chuck ahead of anyone on race pace according to their data/calculations

[search]

Ferrari had 4 new softs going into quali and only ran mediums in Q1. With the additional set you get from getting into q3, they should have one new set?

they did 2 runs in Q2 and 2 in Q3. All on new tires. I just checked Leclerc's onboard.

edit: the "Q3 set" is one of those 4. There are no additional tires for anyone.

So that seems to confirm that they have a new set of softs, since they came into quali with 4 new softs and got an extra set from getting into Q3, unless the Q3 rule has been changed?

there are no additional sets for Q3, and there have never been. One set of softs needs to be kept for Q3 (and returned afterwards), but it's one from the normal allocation.

[Silent Storm]

Brazilian reporter said several Senna Tshirts brought by Seb were stolen including Valtteri and Max hence why they were not wearing them.

[ringo]

Not surprised, the Redbull did get things sorted all of qualifying. Quite comfortable pole.

RedBull seemed more planted as usual.

The above two snippets must be the understatements of the century. The RB20 isn't a match on the Mclaren or Ferrari this weekend, we will see it in the race. The car was understeering like hell and looked terrible in S2, especially with how much margin Max was leaving in T11.
The driver drove the nuts off the car and got pole. We have to call is as we see it, and keep our bias aside. Credit where credit is due. He showed the flash-of-genius that great drivers keep showing once in a while. The S1 from the two Q3 runs reminded me of that famous S3 in Q3 monaco 2023.
Redbull strategy and Max would have done something incredible (or just a luck safety car or some such) if he finishes on the podium tomorrow.

I think the bias lies with you.
The car looked good from the first lap in Q1. The lap wasnt pulled out thin air.
I think some were analyzing engine modes and so on in practice and noted the RB20 was not fully unleashed. Of course the engine and chassis are two different things. But the car looked miles better than Ferrari come qualifyung.
I would say equal with Mclaren but a hint of more stability than the MCL38.
I'm not taking away anything from Max, he is a car control genuis hence his precision on the white lines, but i think we are so used to not having any competition for him that we are overplaying his abilities when he does get run close by competitors. Formula 1 got a touch of what it used to be when there was competition.
I would love to see the Lando and Piastri laps vs Max, but Max had it all sorted out in sector 1 all day, leaving less margin of error for Oscar and Lando.

Now as for my other argument, the race pace. Maybe I never learn, but i genuinely think Max wont scamper off 20 seconds up the road. I think Norris will give him trouble on high fuel.
Also Mclaren does warm the tyres quickly, so Max will get pressure from Norris during the pistops on the outlap.

I humbly accept being wrong if tomorrow is a blow out by Redbull and even Perez finds the podium.

[atanatizante]

Verstapen got Hulkenberg’s slipstream at the start-finish straight hence his difference in top speed and pace!
340 for Max vs 330 for Leclerc and 332 for Piastri!




Classic “oh what a mega lap” pole by Verstapen…

I`ve watched the live speed data on MultiViewer and VER since Q2 he always managed a 336kph top speed until he got that tow from HUL when he recorded a 338kph, at least as the software told us. On Sky F1 they said it was only 8 hundreds of a second gain which was enough to take the pole here ...

Nonetheless, being 2 tenths faster than everybody in the S1 it seems that VER opted for a lower downforce rear wing, which will benefit him both for defending and attacking on this hard track to overtake. But this could backfire on him on the tyre ware front thus why he needed to get the pole just to run into free air and manage them better. The reason behind this strategy was that in the eventuality one Macca driver would have got the pole he could have had a bigger chance to pass them in the race, which was in line with what RB predicted knowing after qualy that NOR managed 334 and PIA only 332kph top speeds and most of all they have a 3kph lower DRS delta than him ...

Tomorrow it`ll probably be an M-H one-stop race as Pirelli predicted, but it`ll be interesting to see which of the top 6 cars will start on the soft tyres. My bet is on both Ferrari drivers that could do this strategy. They`ll have a short first stint on these soft tyres and then switch earlier to a longer second stint on the M tyres. I am based on both the fact that they optimized the car around this latter tyre for this track (just see the race sim lap times in FP2) and last but not least the fact that they have the best management tyre, using them easily for 24 laps on that session, which is almost half the race by the way ...