2023 Aston Martin | Aramco | Cognizant F1 Team

[NAPI10]

Front row tomorrow. Not sure if Max can recover to the 1st 2 positions, so with some kind of luck with Perez, I'd definitely take the win

If Alonso gets him on the first corner unscathed; it will be a fascinating race

Not sure if that's enough, cause Red Bull seem to be on their own league.

I am hoping for some magic from Russell or Lance to help out Alonso

[CaribouBread]

There was quite heavy derating going on at the end of the final lap for Stroll. Hope they don't get deployment issues with all that drag. They're losing almost half a second in s3 but i think the race should still be competitive.

[KimiRai]

An even better qualy than Bahrain ahead of one Ferrari this time as Nuno Pinto and the simulator said, Carlos who did a mistake on his lap.

Clean lap from Fernando, no mistakes like the last corner in Bahrain, very well done. Maybe the tires were a little too cold as you could see him doing a little weavings on the main straight as he was starting the lap and it could be the reason why there wasn't much improvement from Q2, he probably would have benefited from a second warmup lap if the team had sent him a minute earlier. Regardless very good job by Fernando. This is one of the qualys of the season where he isn't at his best (Ocon beat him twice in 2021 and 2022) yet he finished ahead of Stroll, and without being 100% adapted yet as you could see from a small spin he had.

About Lance, great job as well by him. He was visibly pushing a lot much more than Fernando and he was closer on one lap but when you push so much there can also be consequences and they happened with that mistake he had. Also it's possible he pushed a little too much on the first part of the lap (purple sector) and perhaps the tires were a little cooked by the end, but well done still.

Fernando will be on the "bad" side of the grid tomorrow so I don't have huge expectations for the start and Russell could prove to be a problem if he has a great launch but only in the first laps. I'd say the objective is to be P3 again as Max will very likely catch up and maybe even win the race. I think Fernando should be able to stay ahead of Leclerc/Sainz if all goes well.

[NAPI10]

Alonso is keeping excitement in check & unlike last week, focusing on scoring points rather than fighting for the podium. He said, "Our main goal is to come away from this race with as many points as possible".
Podium will be a surprise; looking at the straight-line speed of the car.

[Mansell89]

IIRC, LeClerc give it a right good go with superb speed in the twisty sections of the lap before Maxs straight line speed finally won him the duel last season?

Hoping Fernando can go well again and try to secure a podium.

We’re gonna need to figure the Red Bull trick out soon because this sort of pace difference indicates a classic Newey “interpretation” of the rules I reckon!

Superb work from Dan Fallows so far though - excited to see if we can continue the development curve!

[Zynerji]

How long until Mercedes announce Lewis/best PU's to Aston Martin for the remainder of 23, while taking Lance in a short term trade?

[Alo_Fan]

An even better qualy than Bahrain ahead of one Ferrari this time as Nuno Pinto and the simulator said, Carlos who did a mistake on his lap.

Clean lap from Fernando, no mistakes like the last corner in Bahrain, very well done. Maybe the tires were a little too cold as you could see him doing a little weavings on the main straight as he was starting the lap and it could be the reason why there wasn't much improvement from Q2, he probably would have benefited from a second warmup lap if the team had sent him a minute earlier. Regardless very good job by Fernando. This is one of the qualys of the season where he isn't at his best (Ocon beat him twice in 2021 and 2022) yet he finished ahead of Stroll, and without being 100% adapted yet as you could see from a small spin he had.

About Lance, great job as well by him. He was visibly pushing a lot much more than Fernando and he was closer on one lap but when you push so much there can also be consequences and they happened with that mistake he had. Also it's possible he pushed a little too much on the first part of the lap (purple sector) and perhaps the tires were a little cooked by the end, but well done still.

Fernando will be on the "bad" side of the grid tomorrow so I don't have huge expectations for the start and Russell could prove to be a problem if he has a great launch but only in the first laps. I'd say the objective is to be P3 again as Max will very likely catch up and maybe even win the race. I think Fernando should be able to stay ahead of Leclerc/Sainz if all goes well.

I think Fernando could have improved and even taken the purple sector 1 himself on a second lap like Stroll did.

[organic]

Alonso is keeping excitement in check & unlike last week, focusing on scoring points rather than fighting for the podium. He said, "Our main goal is to come away from this race with as many points as possible".
Podium will be a surprise; looking at the straight-line speed of the car.

I think p3 is very much possible. Mercedes can't challenge AMR and Charles is unlikely to come all the way through and pass Alonso. Verstappen is the only one that Alonso has to watch out for in his mirrors IMO. A variation of Ver/Per/Alo is likely again to me

[zoroastar]

An even better qualy than Bahrain ahead of one Ferrari this time as Nuno Pinto and the simulator said, Carlos who did a mistake on his lap.

Clean lap from Fernando, no mistakes like the last corner in Bahrain, very well done. Maybe the tires were a little too cold as you could see him doing a little weavings on the main straight as he was starting the lap and it could be the reason why there wasn't much improvement from Q2, he probably would have benefited from a second warmup lap if the team had sent him a minute earlier. Regardless very good job by Fernando. This is one of the qualys of the season where he isn't at his best (Ocon beat him twice in 2021 and 2022) yet he finished ahead of Stroll, and without being 100% adapted yet as you could see from a small spin he had.

About Lance, great job as well by him. He was visibly pushing a lot much more than Fernando and he was closer on one lap but when you push so much there can also be consequences and they happened with that mistake he had. Also it's possible he pushed a little too much on the first part of the lap (purple sector) and perhaps the tires were a little cooked by the end, but well done still.

Fernando will be on the "bad" side of the grid tomorrow so I don't have huge expectations for the start and Russell could prove to be a problem if he has a great launch but only in the first laps. I'd say the objective is to be P3 again as Max will very likely catch up and maybe even win the race. I think Fernando should be able to stay ahead of Leclerc/Sainz if all goes well.

I think Fernando could have improved and even taken the purple sector 1 himself on a second lap like Stroll did.

its kinda give and take with the tires though. you saw how stroll was off the pace by the end of the lap. i think alonso was pretty close to what could be expected. he could have probably beat leclerc but perez is out of touch in quali on this track. alonso doesnt always improve in q3 from q2 pace, but hard to argue that hes not getting the max out of it unless a teammate starts beating him from time to time

[yinlad]

An even better qualy than Bahrain ahead of one Ferrari this time as Nuno Pinto and the simulator said, Carlos who did a mistake on his lap.

Clean lap from Fernando, no mistakes like the last corner in Bahrain, very well done. Maybe the tires were a little too cold as you could see him doing a little weavings on the main straight as he was starting the lap and it could be the reason why there wasn't much improvement from Q2, he probably would have benefited from a second warmup lap if the team had sent him a minute earlier. Regardless very good job by Fernando. This is one of the qualys of the season where he isn't at his best (Ocon beat him twice in 2021 and 2022) yet he finished ahead of Stroll, and without being 100% adapted yet as you could see from a small spin he had.

About Lance, great job as well by him. He was visibly pushing a lot much more than Fernando and he was closer on one lap but when you push so much there can also be consequences and they happened with that mistake he had. Also it's possible he pushed a little too much on the first part of the lap (purple sector) and perhaps the tires were a little cooked by the end, but well done still.

Fernando will be on the "bad" side of the grid tomorrow so I don't have huge expectations for the start and Russell could prove to be a problem if he has a great launch but only in the first laps. I'd say the objective is to be P3 again as Max will very likely catch up and maybe even win the race. I think Fernando should be able to stay ahead of Leclerc/Sainz if all goes well.

I think Fernando could have improved and even taken the purple sector 1 himself on a second lap like Stroll did.

its kinda give and take with the tires though. you saw how stroll was off the pace by the end of the lap. i think alonso was pretty close to what could be expected. he could have probably beat leclerc but perez is out of touch in quali on this track. alonso doesnt always improve in q3 from q2 pace, but hard to argue that hes not getting the max out of it unless a teammate starts beating him from time to time

Lance had a mistake at turn 22 which is where the time went away

[bingaboy]

I think Fernando could have improved and even taken the purple sector 1 himself on a second lap like Stroll did.

its kinda give and take with the tires though. you saw how stroll was off the pace by the end of the lap. i think alonso was pretty close to what could be expected. he could have probably beat leclerc but perez is out of touch in quali on this track. alonso doesnt always improve in q3 from q2 pace, but hard to argue that hes not getting the max out of it unless a teammate starts beating him from time to time

Lance had a mistake at turn 22 which is where the time went away

lance and alonso, both had issues with oversteer too… feel like a tenth could’ve been gained by nando, and 2 tenths by lance, had they had a clean lap

[Big Tea]

How long until Mercedes announce Lewis/best PU's to Aston Martin for the remainder of 23, while taking Lance in a short term trade?

Now that is something I had not considered. Does Angela dislike the Strolls or does not feel combatable moving to AM?

[diffuser]

How long until Mercedes announce Lewis/best PU's to Aston Martin for the remainder of 23, while taking Lance in a short term trade?

Announce ? There has not been any announcement to date that there is a difference.
That story about Hamilton's PU having 3Kw more power, was that confirmed by Merc?
No, the article doesn't say where the writer got that information from. It doesn't say that he got the information from an anonymous Merc insider. It doesn't reference rules that say that FIA thinks that a 3KW power difference is acceptable. He just says it's always been that way...Which isn't true. Prior to the PU reg change the works teams could do whatever it wanted and was under no rule to make sure the Customer team had like power. Now there are a ton of FIA sensors on the PU, MAPS and Fuel has to me shared.
Could it be BS? Wouldn't be the first time.

The article said Merc have 2 races to prove themselves, I presume that's from after Bahrain.

[diffuser]

How long until Mercedes announce Lewis/best PU's to Aston Martin for the remainder of 23, while taking Lance in a short term trade?

Now that is something I had not considered. Does Angela dislike the Strolls or does not feel combatable moving to AM?

Angela ?

[nowaysthatsreal]

Great chance to go for a win all depends on tyre deg and how close/faster they can be in S1 and S2 to the cars near them, hopefully get to play drs on straights. But max was crazy fast on the hards so it all depends. But I feel Alonso will finish ahead of checo