2025 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, March 14 - 16

[CHT]

Yuki now 1.5 sec faster than Lawson with same soft tires.. Lawson may be under pressure.

[purestpurist]

Williams or racing bulls for pole...mclaren best of the rest with ferrari and aston martin close behind

[search]

Asked about Racing Bull's pace, Helmut Marko just said that fuel load and engine mode played a part there, but Hadjar's lap was good indeed.

Poor Yuki

[JPBD1990]

If you think MCL is in another league after that FP1, maybe we watched 2 different seasons... LEC actually had his lap with the car with a much lower engine mode.

https://i.imgur.com/Th6HeYj.png

Look at that back straight, on the onboard it even looks like he lifted mid straight, obviously LEC as well barely gets to the white line in T10. Lando also did his lap in the final minutes of the practice after plenty of track evolution.

Don't accuse me now of saying Ferrari will win and MCL will not, but that telemetry is not a car in another league.

This ^^

+ this:



Those saying McLaren is ‘in another league’, where is the evidence? What am I missing?

[Emag]

Ferrari really strong race pace. Initial laps lagging a bit behind Lando, but Charles upped the pace, setting a strong lap even after overtaking Max. It seems like both McLarens started the run with an 8-lap old Medium though.

Also strong pace from Mercedes, but them being on the hard makes it difficult to compare with the others. RedBull with Max doesn't look on the same pace with the top 2 at the moment, but its really close.

[dialtone]

Ferrari really strong race pace. Initial laps lagging a bit behind Lando, but Charles upped the pace, setting a strong lap even after overtaking Max. It seems like both McLarens started the run with an 8-lap old Medium though.

Also strong pace from Mercedes, but them being on the hard makes it difficult to compare with the others. RedBull with Max doesn't look on the same pace with the top 2 at the moment, but its really close.

Ferrari actually had 4 lap older tires than McLaren during that race sim. LEC placed that 1.20.8 with 20 lap old mediums.

[Emag]

Ferrari really strong race pace. Initial laps lagging a bit behind Lando, but Charles upped the pace, setting a strong lap even after overtaking Max. It seems like both McLarens started the run with an 8-lap old Medium though.

Also strong pace from Mercedes, but them being on the hard makes it difficult to compare with the others. RedBull with Max doesn't look on the same pace with the top 2 at the moment, but its really close.

Ferrari actually had 4 lap older tires than McLaren during that race sim. LEC placed that 1.20.8 with 20 lap old mediums.

I don't know because I didn't see the sessions live, but the data API I use reported a 0 lap tire age for Ferraris and 8 lap tire age for McLaren. There are conflicting sources online though, some claim 2 lap older tires for Ferrari, some say 4 (like you). Not sure if anyone managed to see it live if Ferrari came out the pits with fresh tires or not for their race sims.

[JPBD1990]

This is interesting. Could Ferrari actually already be locking in for a wet race? Or are the sandbags overflowing? That speed differential is not purely drag related surely? Unless they built a brick…

[dialtone]

Ferrari really strong race pace. Initial laps lagging a bit behind Lando, but Charles upped the pace, setting a strong lap even after overtaking Max. It seems like both McLarens started the run with an 8-lap old Medium though.

Also strong pace from Mercedes, but them being on the hard makes it difficult to compare with the others. RedBull with Max doesn't look on the same pace with the top 2 at the moment, but its really close.

Ferrari actually had 4 lap older tires than McLaren during that race sim. LEC placed that 1.20.8 with 20 lap old mediums.

I don't know because I didn't see the sessions live, but the data API I use reported a 0 lap tire age for Ferraris and 8 lap tire age for McLaren. There are conflicting sources online though, some claim 2 lap older tires for Ferrari, some say 4 (like you). Not sure if anyone managed to see it live if Ferrari came out the pits with fresh tires or not for their race sims.

I did watch live, they didn’t go out with fresh mediums. They went out with older than 10. 3 or 4 laps older depending on when you looked at the lap as both were ahead of mcl in their race sims.

Aside from lec slow first few laps, and the laps behind max there is no doubt the pace was strong and deg very low. Mcl is right there, not an easy race for either.

[search]

Ferrari actually had 4 lap older tires than McLaren during that race sim. LEC placed that 1.20.8 with 20 lap old mediums.

I don't know because I didn't see the sessions live, but the data API I use reported a 0 lap tire age for Ferraris and 8 lap tire age for McLaren. There are conflicting sources online though, some claim 2 lap older tires for Ferrari, some say 4 (like you). Not sure if anyone managed to see it live if Ferrari came out the pits with fresh tires or not for their race sims.

I did watch live, they didn’t go out with fresh mediums. They went out with older than 10. 3 or 4 laps older depending on when you looked at the lap as both were ahead of mcl in their race sims.

Aside from lec slow first few laps, and the laps behind max there is no doubt the pace was strong and deg very low. Mcl is right there, not an easy race for either.

Ferrari's tires were two laps older. They did 10 laps on Mediums before, McLaren 8:



Here are the other long runs as well, btw:

[Emag]

Ferrari actually had 4 lap older tires than McLaren during that race sim. LEC placed that 1.20.8 with 20 lap old mediums.

I don't know because I didn't see the sessions live, but the data API I use reported a 0 lap tire age for Ferraris and 8 lap tire age for McLaren. There are conflicting sources online though, some claim 2 lap older tires for Ferrari, some say 4 (like you). Not sure if anyone managed to see it live if Ferrari came out the pits with fresh tires or not for their race sims.

I did watch live, they didn’t go out with fresh mediums. They went out with older than 10. 3 or 4 laps older depending on when you looked at the lap as both were ahead of mcl in their race sims.

Aside from lec slow first few laps, and the laps behind max there is no doubt the pace was strong and deg very low. Mcl is right there, not an easy race for either.

Yeah I checked the raw output to make sure, but maybe there's some glitch with the Ferrari tracker. Still saying 0 lap old for the long Medium stint. Either way, Ferrari had a really strong FP2, both in 1-lap pace and race pace. Cars are much faster than this time last year >=1 second.

It's unfortunate it will rain on Sunday. Makes the race almost completely unrepresentative. Wanted to see how these FP2 trends would have panned out in the race. Last year in FP2, Lando Norris had a much better race sim than both Ferraris but then on the actual race, he was lacking a little to both.

Can't always take what comes out of free practice sessions at face value.

[JPBD1990]

Albon knocking out a 22:0 average? Okayyyyy

[venkyhere]

If you think MCL is in another league after that FP1, maybe we watched 2 different seasons... LEC actually had his lap with the car with a much lower engine mode.

https://i.imgur.com/Th6HeYj.png

Look at that back straight, on the onboard it even looks like he lifted mid straight, obviously LEC as well barely gets to the white line in T10. Lando also did his lap in the final minutes of the practice after plenty of track evolution.

Don't accuse me now of saying Ferrari will win and MCL will not, but that telemetry is not a car in another league.

Those timing charts from FP1 where Mclaren is faster from T6 to T11 is due to smaller rear wing than the Ferrari, not because Ferrari are running significantly derated engine mode than McLaren. Plus, Ferrari look faster in the slow turns, esp T13 and T4, but McLaren was not too far behind, despite a smaller wing (needs earlier braking). Not just that, we can see Norris doing a 'lift off' through T12 (due to lower wing).

This ^^

+ this:



Those saying McLaren is ‘in another league’, where is the evidence? What am I missing?

Even otherwise, not everything is gleaned "just from data" - the way Norris was driving was by leaving lots of margin. Even in FP2 with a larger rear wing, the Norris McLaren looked 'more relaxed' compared to LeClerc's Ferrari. Piastri's car looked more 'nervous' esp through T13, but that is down to talent deficiency compared to LEC/NOR.

[Tvetovnato]

We are in for an absolutely i n c r e d i b l e season, as expected.

[DJ Downforce]

It's too close for me to tell right now. I want to see Mercedes on mediums do a long run too.

Hamilton a few tenths off but expected