2018 Spanish Grand Prix - Catalunya, May 11-13

[foxmulder_ms]

Sure.
Here you are an example of how Mercedes did their homework in the past:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-moto ... JL20130621

Without this, you wouldn't be even talking.
RED BULL ACCUSES MERCEDES OF HELPING FERRARI IN FORMULA ONE

The "accuses" of Red Bull have no meaning.
We are speaking of an illegal tyre test made some years ago by Mercedes and declared illegal by FIa but not punished with a reprimand which is IMHO in topic since it is line with Pirelli decision to create tailored tyres following Mercedes demands (namely made to cure their specific problems) and to bring those tyres to this and other 2 GP with silly motivations.
And we see for the first time in ages that except for Mercedes (for whom this tyres has been made), 2nd best and 3rd best team have had to use the "slowest" tyre in Q3 to get some performance.
I do not remember of other cases in which in Q3 teams have had to use an harder compound.

haha,

Were you complaining last race when Merc did not improve with softer tire?

[Xwang]

Without this, you wouldn't be even talking.
RED BULL ACCUSES MERCEDES OF HELPING FERRARI IN FORMULA ONE

The "accuses" of Red Bull have no meaning.
We are speaking of an illegal tyre test made some years ago by Mercedes and declared illegal by FIa but not punished with a reprimand which is IMHO in topic since it is line with Pirelli decision to create tailored tyres following Mercedes demands (namely made to cure their specific problems) and to bring those tyres to this and other 2 GP with silly motivations.
And we see for the first time in ages that except for Mercedes (for whom this tyres has been made), 2nd best and 3rd best team have had to use the "slowest" tyre in Q3 to get some performance.
I do not remember of other cases in which in Q3 teams have had to use an harder compound.

haha,

Were you complaining last race when Merc did not improve with softer tire?

Last GP tyres were the standard ones, not the Mercedes requested ones of this GP.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Vettel was on Softs just 1 tenth slower than Hamilton on working Supersofts. A bit tricky to tell that Mercedes is the fastest car when both were on different tyres.

At the beginning of this weekend, there a wide expectation that Mercedes would rely heavily on Softs, due to their tyre choices. Look where things stand!

Ok and what's your point?

The point is, the performance difference between SS and S was different for different teams. It's not like, Ferrari being faster on S means they would have been even faster on SS. They realized that their car isn't behaving well in SS and went for S, whereas Mercedes realized their car works well on SS and went with that for Q3!

[cplchanb]

The "accuses" of Red Bull have no meaning.
We are speaking of an illegal tyre test made some years ago by Mercedes and declared illegal by FIa but not punished with a reprimand which is IMHO in topic since it is line with Pirelli decision to create tailored tyres following Mercedes demands (namely made to cure their specific problems) and to bring those tyres to this and other 2 GP with silly motivations.
And we see for the first time in ages that except for Mercedes (for whom this tyres has been made), 2nd best and 3rd best team have had to use the "slowest" tyre in Q3 to get some performance.
I do not remember of other cases in which in Q3 teams have had to use an harder compound.

haha,

Were you complaining last race when Merc did not improve with softer tire?

Last GP tyres were the standard ones, not the Mercedes requested ones of this GP.

dude did you not read the article on the f1 website? its from early april! its literally 1 race into the 2018 season when this change happened and its only for THREE RACES... also remember at the same time ferrari suddenly found 0.5 sec over merc from aus to bah. explain that!

[Wynters]

The point is, the performance difference between SS and S was different for different teams. It's not like, Ferrari being faster on S means they would have been even faster on SS. They realized that their car is behaving well in SS and went for S, whereas Mercedes realized their car works well on SS and went with that for Q3!

Possibly for different drives too. I suspect there is a reason Red Bull split their drivers (I think only Ricciardo went on Soft). Unless numerous people here think they were deliberately and openly sabotaging one of their drivers?

Tbh, I can't help but feel it was a mistake to run the Softs. Ricciardo was barely any faster, Vettel and Kimi made mistakes on their first run. Improvements between first and second runs are expected as the track evolves and the drivers push more with greater knowledge so all of them would have been noticeably faster on the SS anyway.

[Bill_Kar]

OMG, really? No one in F1 paddocks is talking about tyres, not even CHRISTIAN HORNER, but the Red trolls are making such a fuzz? It's only one pole, mates. Chill.

[Vasconia]

What a weird Q3, I just want to listen to what Ferrari has to say about this strategy because they looked faster in q2. This front row will make things easier for Mercedes because position is king here.

About the tyres controversy, I just want to think that is because Mercedes is particularly strong here and not because the "new" tyres Pirelli has for these 3 races.

We should see a great race tomorrow, this is the most important thing.

[GoranF1]

What tyre is Magnussen starting on?
Alonso did not improve in Q2 after all on Soft so he starts on SS.

[TAG]

Guys, guys stop with the conspiracy theories. Today was just Mercedes with the party mode.

[Just_a_fan]

We are speaking of an illegal tyre test made some years ago by Mercedes and declared illegal by FIa but not punished with a reprimand

Mercedes were banned from a three day test though. That's three full testing days in a season of only 9 allowed days. That's a much bigger punishment than a reprimand.

[Xwang]

haha,

Were you complaining last race when Merc did not improve with softer tire?

Last GP tyres were the standard ones, not the Mercedes requested ones of this GP.

dude did you not read the article on the f1 website? its from early april! its literally 1 race into the 2018 season when this change happened and its only for THREE RACES... also remember at the same time ferrari suddenly found 0.5 sec over merc from aus to bah. explain that!

It was pretty clear that in AUS Ferrari wasn't still able, maybe due to the reduced time in testing (do you remember the snow in the first week), to correctly setup this year car that has longer wheelbase and high rake (so pretty different design philosophy than last year one).
It behaved strangely at the beginning of turns and was pretty badly setup (after all it was only the first race and they have run it only in cold winter testing) and it was clear in TV footage too (especially in qualifying).
So according to me it was not a problem of lack of performance in the design, but wrong setup that wasn't able to extract the performance from the car.
Moreover it has been reported that a structurally revised diffuser/bottom bodywork has been made for the following races, so it is also possible that it was something similar to what happened last year to Mercedes who had to modify their diffuser/bottom bodywork because it wasn't sufficiently rigid.
This is how I explain the Ferrari 0.5s performance gain between AUS and following races.

[atanatizante]

Interesting to know who and when is turning up the wick ...
1. Here were drivers top speeds after Q1:



2. After Q2:



3. And after the Q3:



So Lewis just in Q3, Bottas from Q1, Vettel and Kimi from Q2, Ricci from Q1 and interestingly Max was increasing his speed on two phases (or maybe he got a good tow in Q2) ...

[Bill_Kar]

What a weird Q3, I just want to listen to what Ferrari has to say about this strategy because they looked faster in q2. This front row will make things easier for Mercedes because position is king here.

About the tyres controversy, I just want to think that is because Mercedes is particularly strong here and not because the "new" tyres Pirelli has for these 3 races.

We should see a great race tomorrow, this is the most important thing.

I always thought it was a bit of a paradox. Pole is one of the most important in the season, although the run to the first corner is the longest(I think?) .Even if you have a decent start, you can get yourself relegated easily.

[F1Krof]

Pole lap from 2014 was 1:25.232... almost 10 seconds slower.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1twrnq

[nirvaand]

I stand corrected, chance for rain tomorrow.

Praying to all the rain Gods to make it rain tommorow at 3pm at the Catalunya circuit.