2018 Spanish Grand Prix - Catalunya, May 11-13

[zibby43]

It seems that Max was more consistent on this tyres than Ricciardo. As Hamilton he may like the harder tyres because of this agressive driving style.

As it has been mentioned also before, Monaco will be interesting. Last year Ferrari was clearly better during the race but this year it won´t be so clear, though Ultrasofts should benefit the Ferrrari. I expect a RB to be on the pole.

Yep, Max had impressive pace, particularly considering his slightly compromised car later in the race. Danny Ric pumped in a fastest lap, but he didn't have that consistency, as you stated.

I'm looking forward to Monaco, especially after seeing some of the interesting, draggy/downforce-producing updates on display on some of the cars during testing earlier today.

I'll leave it at that so I don't venture too OT in this thread.

[zibby43]

Here is a photo of what happened to Ferrari today when they used the old tires:

Ferrari Blistering by Andrew R., on Flickr

What do you know? Massive blistering.

After the comparison between new and old tires, Vettel admitted that Ferrari's problems would have been worse with the old tires.

https://www.crash.net/f1/news/896086/1/ ... rmal-tyres

What does this ultimately mean? Pirelli actually inadvertently helped Ferrari this past weekend.

I must admit . . . I'm a little bit more impressed by Merc's pace and tire management now.

[Unc1eM0nty]

haha, it's all gone quiet now

[Sierra117]

haha, it's all gone quiet now

YouTube comments section is where the juicy stuff's at

[LM10]

Now, that's a surprise. My opinion was that the tyres helped Mercedes most among all teams. But they obviously helped every team, including Ferrari (that's the point I surely thought was not the case - apologies).

So it was Ferrari who seem to messed things up massively. I wonder how they managed to do that? 2 weeks ago they didn't have any problems whatsoever. I know, the tarmac in Barcelona is quite new, but still. It must have been their new upgrades which didn't work as they should have regarding tyre life at least?

[dans79]

So it was Ferrari who seem to messed things up massively. I wonder how they managed to do that? 2 weeks ago they didn't have any problems whatsoever. I know, the tarmac in Barcelona is quite new, but still. It must have been their new upgrades which didn't work as they should have regarding tyre life at least?

As I, and a bunch of other people mentioned right after the race, early 2018 is a lot like early 2012. No one fully understands how to get all the tire compounds into the correct operating window in a range of weather and track conditions.

[F1Krof]

Here is a photo of what happened to Ferrari today when they used the old tires:

https://flic.kr/p/2783zjQ Ferrari Blistering by Andrew R., on Flickr

What do you know? Massive blistering.

After the comparison between new and old tires, Vettel admitted that Ferrari's problems would have been worse with the old tires.

https://www.crash.net/f1/news/896086/1/ ... rmal-tyres

What does this ultimately mean? Pirelli actually inadvertently helped Ferrari this past weekend.

I must admit . . . I'm a little bit more impressed by Merc's pace and tire management now.

No, you don't say! I thought it was a conspiracy to trump Ferrari and favor the Mercedes.

Ohh well I was wrong.

[NL_Fer]

Spanish GP is pretty boring nowadays. Moving the race to September or October would increase the chance of rain and an exciting race for the spectators. I guess it would mess up allot with all the development planning and testing going on.

[fiohaa]

this race proved how disastrously dull F1 has got - the first race without lottery safety cars thrown in, and we finally see the status quo, 2 by 2, line astern, with probably the biggest gap back to midfield teams i've ever seen.
When was the last time everyone was lapped up to 6th on average? The early 90's?

on a track where performance should be usually closer due to the teams knowing the circuit well and having a good setup for it.

those 2019 changes can't come soon enough.

[nevill3]

Before the VSC Max was 8,5 second behind Bottas, after the VSC 12 seconds. And he was on the tail of Stroll (not allowed to overtake under VSC) how is that possible? Why was Stroll not keeping his delta. If the Ferrari pitstop for Vettel would have been faultless Vettel would have been back on the track before Verstappen (Stroll was smack death in front of him). Now (with 2 seconds lost during the pitstop due to the right rear wheel not getting on) with Vettel right behind him Max fully expected Stroll to accelerate to and through the chicane, just like when starting any qualy lap. He expected Vettel to be all over him so had nothing to spare there. Why didn’t Stroll accelerate. Just a misjudgement by Max, but I understand why he was so close to Stroll. Otherwise a great race by Max.

I thought each driver had to drive at 40% of their previous lap times. Maybe Stroll's 40% was a little bit less than Vaerstappens

[zibby43]

this race proved how disastrously dull F1 has got - the first race without lottery safety cars thrown in, and we finally see the status quo, 2 by 2, line astern, with probably the biggest gap back to midfield teams i've ever seen.
When was the last time everyone was lapped up to 6th on average? The early 90's?

on a track where performance should be usually closer due to the teams knowing the circuit well and having a good setup for it.

those 2019 changes can't come soon enough.

Respectfully disagree. The past few races prior to Barcelona were very exciting. Overtaking is very difficult at Barcelona.

I've enjoyed seeing McLaren and Renault battle it out with each other. Haas, STR, and FI are right there, too, even though they've all lost some points. Heck, even Sauber is starting to show up. Midfield has been exciting, in my eyes at least. Feel bad for Williams though. Yikes.

Whenever there seems to be any sort of performance convergence between the top teams and a separate convergence between the midfield teams, there's a reg change.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

OH MY GOD.............. FERRARI BOYS!!!

What now.

Respect to those who are gracious in understanding and accepting that they thought it wrong.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

It must have been their new upgrades which didn't work as they should have regarding tyre life at least?

@TAG already mentioned this..

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=27262&start=780#p765460

[JonoNic]

My Sunday theory about the tyres had lots of blisters. I'm happy to throw it out the Ferrari window.

[drunkf1fan]

I never understood where the confusion was with the tire situation. Ferrari get heat into tires quicker, Merc get theirs running cooler. Merc have amazing race tire life and mostly excellent qualifying performance. With Merc it's just strange conditions where the tires can't get in the window, Singapore last year and was it 2015 maybe they struggled, Mexico. RBR are somewhere between Merc and Ferrari imo in terms of getting heat into tires.

With blistering the issue is too much heat in the outer layer before the inner layer heats up to match. So with Ferrari in these conditions with more heat being generated quicker that would put them in a prime position to be most/worst effected by it imo.

Of course the fix was only removing a very thin layer of tread to get heat to the inner core faster. I'd have loved to see pictures of the supersofts after Ferrari/RBR qualifying runs in Q3 tbh, I wouldn't be surprised if the tires were blistering and giving up ultimate grip by the third sector.

Short term the issue is blistering but longer term the surface just had the tires too hot, I think part of the pace is down to simply tires running hotter than Ferrari needed to keep them working well, both wearing quicker and not giving the same level of grip but I'm not convinced that was the only reason for the race pace. My assumption would be after getting into 2nd, and having had an engine failure in free practice they decided to bank on second and turn the engine down. The second pit stop, safety for tires, not convinced. I think they assumed after China that everyone would try to fix their mistake in that race and pit and just got caught out with terrible strategy. Without that pitstop they were going to get a comfortable second, slow, but faster wouldn't have gained them anything beyond extra engine wear.


AS with last year, there are tracks Ferrari will get pole I think due to this ability to get heat into tires and some of them are difficult to pass tracks which will bring them wins, but other tracks where worse tire wear will cost them wins like Cota last year. Merc/Hamilton just had an ability to conserve tire life way beyond what Ferrari could.

The ability to get heat into the tires is also one of the reasons Ferrari are often so good off the grid.

I think Ferrari will have similar issues at France and Silverstone, Pirelli think the resurfaced tracks are going to also generate a shedload of heat and I don't see why Ferrari wouldn't have similar issues.