2021 Spanish Grand Prix - Catalunya, May 07 - 09

[El Scorchio]

Exactly. They all do this. Hell, Marko and Christian have been doing this all week in the press.

Yes, and it's almost a never ending source of amusement to watch people take the word of some people as gospel truth, and at the same time shouting lies damn lies at everything that other people say.

They are all at it. Every single one of them.

I think they all joke about it over drinks. Something like, Christian: “Toto, I’m going to say some crap to the media and get them all fired up”, Toto: “that’s hilarious”...

Not feeling especially creative today, but I bet it’s along those lines.

I think they very well may do. They all know at the end of the day it's not really personal, and they are only doing their jobs and politicking the best they can for the team they represent.

Occasionally it crosses a line (Horner/Abiteboul) but I don't see a lot of actual animosity between most of them.

[godlameroso]

The two Red Bulls seemed to have a very scruffy session for one reason or another. Whether they were keeping their powder dry, or just having a few issues? I'm sure they'll be right there at the sharp end in Q3.

Just had issues on fast laps and ran into traffic. Pace is good, Verstappen is a tenth and a half faster than Hamilton.

Based on what? Wolff just said it was their best Friday of the season and Bottas said their pace is strong enough to not warrant splitting setups of their drivers.

Judging by the midfield’s proximity to Merc, they haven’t even begun to turn up the PU wick either, so we don’t really have a true estimation of their ultimate single lap pace. Same goes for RB.

But Merc look very strong on race pace.

Eh...Hamilton only managed to break into high 22's at the start of his race run, he couldn't keep that pace, while Verstappen managed to do a high 22 at the end of his soft tire run. On mediums Hamilton couldn't go faster than mid 22's, Verstappen on his only race lap on mediums did a mid 22 right after his outlap.

This leads me to believe that Verstappen can consistently do mid 22's and possibly low 22's on mediums. That would put them slightly ahead of Mercedes.

[godlameroso]

The two Red Bulls seemed to have a very scruffy session for one reason or another. Whether they were keeping their powder dry, or just having a few issues? I'm sure they'll be right there at the sharp end in Q3.

Just had issues on fast laps and ran into traffic. Pace is good, Verstappen is a tenth and a half faster than Hamilton.

So that means the Red Bull car is three and a half tenths faster than the Mercedes.

.15 RB is ahead but not by much.

[LM10]

RBR only did a proper race sim on soft tyres, if I’m not mistaken. And that was (in the hands of Perez at least) as fast as both Mercedes on the soft tyres.
As for Mediums there don’t seem to be data to do direct comparisons, right?

Where does the narrative of Mercedes smashing opponent on race sim come from? Genuine question. I simply may have missed something.

[dans79]

Where does the narrative of Mercedes smashing opponent on race sim come from? Genuine question. I simply may have missed something.

I'd assume that's because mercedes was faster on the mediums and softs than Red Bull was on the softs.

[SmallSoldier]

Horner on Sky moaning about track limits and claiming the teams don't understand, and it should be crystal clear the line is the line and that's that. Every other team seemed to understand it pretty fine. Brundle pointed out to him the track limit info was written in bright pink on the director's notes.

And now he's contradicted himself live on air after Brundle pushed him on it by saying it's harsh on Verstappen because he was on the limit and only JUST went over, and it's fine margins....

It’s funny how he didn’t complained about it when Norris Lap was deleted at Imola for a “fine margin”
and potentially was the reason why they won that race (Norris would have started 3rd and Verstappen 4th... Doubt Verstappen would have made the move as he did on Hamilton from that position)


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[dans79]

[Tvetovnato]

Hard to trust any times at this stage anyway, whether low fuel or high fuel. At Portimao, Hamilton did high 23s while Perez did low 23s on a comparable stint in Fp2 on the same tyres, and we all know how the race panned out. I see absolutely zero evidence that RBR is ahead at this stage (on a track where their advantage was supposed to be greater).

[El Scorchio]

Is it just me, or is the headline on the FP2 report on the front page a little OTT?!

[godlameroso]

Hard to trust any times at this stage anyway, whether low fuel or high fuel. At Portimao, Hamilton did high 23s while Perez did low 23s on a comparable stint in Fp2 on the same tyres, and we all know how the race panned out. I see absolutely zero evidence that RBR is ahead at this stage (on a track where their advantage was supposed to be greater).

Did Hamilton do 48 laps on the same set of tires in the race?

[mkay]

Hard to trust any times at this stage anyway, whether low fuel or high fuel. At Portimao, Hamilton did high 23s while Perez did low 23s on a comparable stint in Fp2 on the same tyres, and we all know how the race panned out. I see absolutely zero evidence that RBR is ahead at this stage (on a track where their advantage was supposed to be greater).

Did Hamilton do 48 laps on the same set of tires in the race?

At no point in time in the race was Perez faster than Hamilton. Not even when Hamilton was about to pit. Merc could have left Hamilton out longer but they had to respond to Verstappen's undercut.

[Sharnlarry]

Hard to trust any times at this stage anyway, whether low fuel or high fuel. At Portimao, Hamilton did high 23s while Perez did low 23s on a comparable stint in Fp2 on the same tyres, and we all know how the race panned out. I see absolutely zero evidence that RBR is ahead at this stage (on a track where their advantage was supposed to be greater).

Lewis was slow on the practice race runs in Portimao due to some damage which meant that Bottas looked quicker but we saw what happened in the race.

[PlatinumZealot]

So, do we know if any upgrades have arrived on the W12?

I am also curious, why the RedBull upgrades haven’t seem to have impacted its general pace over a Mercedes car still lacking in ultimate pace in a direct comparison. I know the differences are minute but, when a car has ultimate pace, upgrades should technically make an impact.

Good.

Our two experienced drivers are making the difference now.

Perez is experienced but not with RedBull.

[godlameroso]

Hard to trust any times at this stage anyway, whether low fuel or high fuel. At Portimao, Hamilton did high 23s while Perez did low 23s on a comparable stint in Fp2 on the same tyres, and we all know how the race panned out. I see absolutely zero evidence that RBR is ahead at this stage (on a track where their advantage was supposed to be greater).

Did Hamilton do 48 laps on the same set of tires in the race?

At no point in time in the race was Perez faster than Hamilton. Not even when Hamilton was about to pit. Merc could have left Hamilton out longer but they had to respond to Verstappen's undercut.

Yet here, Perez was within a tenth of Hamilton's pace on softs. Do you really believe Verstappen is .3 slower than Perez? It could be that Perez suddenly adapted that well to the car. I think that Verstappen is a bit faster than Mr.Perez, just by virtue of having the driven the car for so long.

[SiLo]

Did Hamilton do 48 laps on the same set of tires in the race?

At no point in time in the race was Perez faster than Hamilton. Not even when Hamilton was about to pit. Merc could have left Hamilton out longer but they had to respond to Verstappen's undercut.

Yet here, Perez was within a tenth of Hamilton's pace on softs. Do you really believe Verstappen is .3 slower than Perez? It could be that Perez suddenly adapted that well to the car. I think that Verstappen is a bit faster than Mr.Perez, just by virtue of having the driven the car for so long.

I'm pretty sure Hamiltons race sim posted above has an anomaly lap 23.9 there. I know you want Max to be fastest but at the moment he seems a tad behind on race pace.