2022 Spanish Grand Prix - Catalunya, May 20 - 22

[Spoutnik]

Easier to read

[wogx]

Super happy Lewis after FP2:

https://streamja.com/embed/NVqWm

[Mogster]

It’s new PUs in the cars for each driver.

https://twitter.com/fiagirly/status/152 ... t5DhayEdLg

Toto needs to be careful saying things like that about a reliability upgrade bringing immediate performance to the PU.

Aye, surprising he’d use those words. It’ll be interesting to see if he’s called out on it if Merc’s performance improvement is maintained throughout the weekend.

[InsaneX_Badger]

Still think the race pace of the merc is going to be much slower than the RB/Ferrari

What I'm thinking also. Only because RB and Ferrari have had stable cars to gain useful knowledge on setup while Merc are finally making ground on track. Be surprised if they can nail an equal setup for this weekend.

[Zynerji]

Oh, I hope it's a 6 way fingernail biter for pole!

[Seanspeed]

Looking at photos both Ferrari and Mercedes are at absolutely uber low ride heights, time to put up or shut up.

Have people not noticed that Mercedes have been running super low ride height for a couple races now?

They've not been compromising things that way since like Jeddah.

[F1Krof]

Merc's long run pace wasn't bad in Miami either. We all know what happened. Not counting any changes at the front. Qualy => Ferrari, Race => Max.

[PlatinumZealot]

Looking at photos both Ferrari and Mercedes are at absolutely uber low ride heights, time to put up or shut up.

Have people not noticed that Mercedes have been running super low ride height for a couple races now?

They've not been compromising things that way since like Jeddah.

The rear of the car is especially low but I think they have been compromsing on the ride height of the front wing.

[zibby43]

Merc's long run pace wasn't bad in Miami either. We all know what happened. Not counting any changes at the front. Qualy => Ferrari, Race => Max.

The difference is that they didn’t understand why they were competitive as the car felt no different.

Now, they do understand why (after a raft of changes), and the car is not porpoising on the straights (unlike Miami).

Mercedes conducted tests at Paul Ricard where they learned how to turn the porpoising on/off with the new upgrades.

If Ferrari don’t stop chewing up their tires, Mercedes will be faster in the race.

[Artur Craft]

Verstappen (and also to a lesser extent Perez) weas impressive on race pace.
As it stand, we can expect a Ferrari 1-2 on qualy but a very very difficult Sunday for them to keep the RBs behind.

Yeah. Ferrari will be on pole and Max will DRS his way into the win, again.

[Zynerji]

Verstappen (and also to a lesser extent Perez) weas impressive on race pace.
As it stand, we can expect a Ferrari 1-2 on qualy but a very very difficult Sunday for them to keep the RBs behind.

Yeah. Ferrari will be on pole and Max will DRS his way into the win, again.

Meh.

Vettel for pole!

[silver]

Merc's long run pace wasn't bad in Miami either. We all know what happened. Not counting any changes at the front. Qualy => Ferrari, Race => Max.

The difference is that they didn’t understand why they were competitive as the car felt no different.

Now, they do understand why (after a raft of changes), and the car is not porpoising on the straights (unlike Miami).

Mercedes conducted tests at Paul Ricard where they learned how to turn the porpoising on/off with the new upgrades.

If Ferrari don’t stop chewing up their tires, Mercedes will be faster in the race.

#Ferrari The updates worked right away, usually a good sign. The car has a lot of potential, the setup was wrong in FP2 but "some ideas" are clear to find balance and improve.

[gastonmazzacane]

Merc's long run pace wasn't bad in Miami either. We all know what happened. Not counting any changes at the front. Qualy => Ferrari, Race => Max.

If Ferrari don’t stop chewing up their tires, Mercedes will be faster in the race.

Yeah, thats not gonna happen.

[bas550]

How would you install banking on the side of a hill?

The problem with Barcelona’s final corner is the proximity of the main stand and the end of the pit wall. It was very dangerous previously, check some onboards.

Unless it's changed for this season, there's no grandstand immediately on the last corner that could harm people. Last time I was there you can walk there, so better fencing will soon fix that issue. In zandvoort the fencing is much closer (immediately on the edge off the track).

Why just a small banking, why not go full Zandvoort?

Even better!

The end of the main stand is directly in the firing line if you go off on the outside of the final corner. At 200mph it was much worse. Get it wrong on the inside and you have the end of the pit wall.

It's not going to be a 200mph corner, that's for starters.

The grandstand doesn't begin until 225 meters after the end of the corner in Barcelona. Google maps hasn't put the new bits on in Zandvoort but I know the track very very well (since I used to be on it every day), and it's roughly 155 meters after the end of the corner where the first grandstand is...and it's much closer to the track than the Barcelona one.

On top of that, Indy 500 has grandstands all the way around it, in the corners, with cars that drive much faster.

So with proper fencing I think it'll be just fine...

[Spoutnik]