2021 Austrian Grand Prix - Spielberg, July 02 - 04

[falonso81]

RBR with that skinny RW again. They will be hard to pass.

[Pyrone89]

RBR with that skinny RW again. They will be hard to pass.

But will hurt them in the rain. So if you support RB, Max you will want a dry race.

You can see that the less straightline speed from Mercedes is coming from them running a massive rear wing relative to RB. This suggest that the Mercedes engine is still clearly class of the field, or they would not be able to run this wing and still be as competitive as they are on the straights.

[Just_a_fan]

RBR with that skinny RW again. They will be hard to pass.

But will hurt them in the rain. So if you support RB, Max you will want a dry race.

You can see that the less straightline speed from Mercedes is coming from them running a massive rear wing relative to RB. This suggest that the Mercedes engine is still clearly class of the field, or they would not be able to run this wing and still be as competitive as they are on the straights.

Comment by one of the talking heads in FP3 suggests the predicted rain is now no longer likely. That's going to please Red Bull.

[f1316]

https://twitter.com/tonisokolov1011/sta ... 43363?s=21

Gap of last week completely closed.

Thanks for posting.

My first observation is the Red Bull’s runs - especially that of Perez - are a little bit longer, so I think that will obviously skew the average in favour of the shorter runs.

Ferrari’s race pace seems strong - equal with Perez (but again on a shorter run) and only 2-3 tenths off the leaders. The question is whether the one lap pace shown in FP1 is genuine - and they were just focusing on longer runs for FP2 - or if they had to compromise one lap pace in order to achieve this race pace, explaining the poor quali sims in FP2.

I think we’ll get a clearer picture on the latter in FP3 but last week’s race seemed to indicate (albeit on different compounds) that the race pace here will be fine so long as they can run in clear - combining the two is obviously the hard part

From looking at Charles latest lap - with a purple S3 on his third flying lap attempt on softs, and having gone into the gravel a bit on the second attempt- is that the one lap pace is much better than last week for Ferrari.

Edit: same for Sainz

[Stormblessed]

Williams' steering wheel dashboard looks like my bike's odometer.. in terms of size of course not function.

[Mogster]

In F1 terms it is significantly cooler, especially the track: 19°C Air and 31°C Track ... last week the lowest track temp was 43°C and the air was at least 2°C warmer
______

Whatever happened to the expansion plans?

Shelved due local opposition I seem to remember, which was a massive shame.

Yea i looked it up, it was locals, environmentalists, bureaucratic hurdles and even the FIA (safety reasons) who wasn't too keen on having an expanded track.

It’s very sad, the plans for making use of the old track with the new looked good. You don’t really get the feel of it on the TV but the current layout is a tiny track in F1 terms.

[pantherxxx]

Again, Verstappen is 5 tenths up to Mercedes. Nothing changed.

[nzjrs]

Apparaently, according to the article, F1.com has access to fuel levels and their pace predictions already include it.

FWIW I would bet a lot of money this isn't true.

[f1316]

I think Mercedes are a lot closer than they seem (or they’re struggling more than usual, but I think that’s doubtful). I say that because the gap from Max/RB to the best of the rest seems the usual size - and Mercedes are much closer to the rest of the field - so I suspect they have more margin left (fuel, engine modes etc) than other runners.

[Sieper]

Again, Verstappen is 5 tenths up to Mercedes. Nothing changed.

Plus, it was much less than 5 tenths now already:
Lewis had 2 moments I his first hotlap, the second (older tires) was only 3 tenths off, but he had a track limit T10 (minimal). Hopefully Max can put it on pole again.

[JordanMugen]

Again, Verstappen is 5 tenths up to Mercedes. Nothing changed.

Well that's great, isn't it?

Verstappen's championship challenge is far from certain, so Red Bull need every advantage they can find to deliver (potentially) this Red Bull - Honda title!

[RZS10]

The conditions were similar to FP3 last week, the fastest Ferrari, AT, Alpine etc ... they all did similar times, same as RBR but Merc are slower so the FP3 results probably aren't all that representative - unless they run a more conventional setup which cost them laptime.

[PlatinumZealot]

ham vs ver fp2 lap
https://streamable.com/fdz1cy


- by video hamilton is faster on first straight by half a tenth, even though top speeds are similar
- apex speed is 1 kmh lower for hamilton in T1 but he brakes later and has better exit it seeems, gains more than 1 tenth trough there
- verstappen gains negligible amount up to to T4, gains a bit trough T4 itself (purple mini sector)
- top speed again higher for verstappen but actually loses time on final drs straight, another half a tenth gone
- in S3 mercedes is faster trough fast left handers T6 and T7, they're more or less identical trough T9 and 10. Hamilton seems more on the limit in final corner whereas verstappen leaves some margin

overall mercedes clearly looks better so far. more stable trough corners and can hold higher apex speeds, faster on straights even. It was a similar situation last weekend in fp2 mind you, then red bull turned it around for saturday and sunday, so it's tricky to predict anything.

Pole in low-mid 1.03s. C5 is just a lot faster than C2 from last race.

Why was Max breaking almost 50 meters before Lewis, in almost all corners (except corner 3) ?

This is what I'm talking about! Good observations. Now we are talking. you are a man that knows motorsport. You are no propaganda pusher.

Max was braking later than HAM today in corner. Merc doesn't have the stability to approch the turn closer and get the same turn-in. Listening to Bonno this is where Merc is losing the biggest. So i dont know if RB told Max to hold back a little bit in that turn yesterday or what but he wasn't holding amything back today!

[Sieper]

ham vs ver fp2 lap
https://streamable.com/fdz1cy


- by video hamilton is faster on first straight by half a tenth, even though top speeds are similar
- apex speed is 1 kmh lower for hamilton in T1 but he brakes later and has better exit it seeems, gains more than 1 tenth trough there
- verstappen gains negligible amount up to to T4, gains a bit trough T4 itself (purple mini sector)
- top speed again higher for verstappen but actually loses time on final drs straight, another half a tenth gone
- in S3 mercedes is faster trough fast left handers T6 and T7, they're more or less identical trough T9 and 10. Hamilton seems more on the limit in final corner whereas verstappen leaves some margin

overall mercedes clearly looks better so far. more stable trough corners and can hold higher apex speeds, faster on straights even. It was a similar situation last weekend in fp2 mind you, then red bull turned it around for saturday and sunday, so it's tricky to predict anything.

Pole in low-mid 1.03s. C5 is just a lot faster than C2 from last race.

Why was Max breaking almost 50 meters before Lewis, in almost all corners (except corner 3) ?

This is what I'm talking about! Good observations. Now we are talking. you are a man that knows motorsport. You are no propaganda pusher.

Max was braking later than HAM today in corner. Merc doesn't have the stability to approch the turn closer and get the same turn-in. Listening to Bonno this is where Merc is losing the biggest. So i dont know if RB told Max to hold back a little bit in that turn yesterday or what but he wasn't holding amything back today!

I hope so as Mercedes clearly was.

[Wouter]

Honda put an end to controversial suggestions from Mercedes

Awesome. Sorry do you have a link for this Wouter?

Now I had some time and I found an English article.

https://racingnews365.com/honda-deny-cl ... power-unit

Honda deny claims regarding latest power unit

"I'm very happy if it is true, but it's not true," Tanabe told RacingNews365.com and other members of the media. "Under current regulations, any performance update is not allowed to be applied during the season.

"As a result, our second PU is the same as past PU in terms of specification and performance."

When asked if the performance of the current engine has been improved by advancements in reliability, Tanabe stated it came down to the hard work done by Honda, Red Bull and AlphaTauri.

"The current performance improvement is a result of the hard work from Honda and the teams," Tanabe added. "Under the current PU regulation we need to submit any changes, so [we are] only allowed to change for durability or cost reasons.

"We need to submit very detailed [reports] to the FIA first and they approve the changes. The FIA distributes all the documents to the other PU manufacturers. So we need to have approval from the other PU manufacturers to change any single parts and specifications.

"So we are very careful to [make] change to the performance and it is not possible to improve the performance during the season."