The long wait to the first grand prix of the season is almost over.
Times:
Friday: FP1 - 12:00. FP2 - 15:00.
Saturday: FP3 - 12:00. Qualifying - 15:00.
Sunday: Race -15:00.
Bring! It! On!
A Haas with a hydraulic issue out Q’s a Mercedes’! This season is gonna be spicy
Leclerc and Verstappen could be fireworks. They both don't like to give an inch.
Russell made a bags of his final lap. Looks like he was sent out first all the time giving Lewis the tow. Looking forward to the race tomorrow now and to see how the Ferrari and Red Bull compare with full tanks.
Another I hated on release, but looks great in reality. Thank **** they’ve got rid of the red outfits for the rest of the team, Binotto in particular always looked like he was wearing a clown suit.
That was great, can’t wait for the race tomorrow.
Not a fan at all of the new graphics, and half the time the sector colours were all wrong (eg. All three drivers showing purple for same sector at a time etc)
Russell showing purple for sector one on his final run where he missed the first corner, has he found a new racing line?
The colours have been all over the place.
Brilliant quali simply for the setup tomorrow. Have no idea about which cars will have the better race pace(I suspect RB) but nonetheless it’s a big enough shift from previous seasons to be a really interesting start to the season. Can’t wait!
I was looking forward to the race but I cannot wait now. So many more drivers at the business end will surely make it seriously interesting,
Delighted for Haas
Even the compound of tires were wrong on the graphics showing mediums when you could clearly see there were on soft's. A few niggle bugs in the new system.
Russell interview was fairly revealing. Merc seem to have several big issues
F2 sprint race started off pretty exciting
degraded into nothing though. Complete procession now
I thought Russell s comments of trying something different and not working out doesn't really align with "Damage limitation" that Mercedes were talking about. One driver you don't want starting infornt of you is KMag , if you thing your faster than him it doesn't matter he is one of the best defensive drivers and the Haas this time around ain't half bad.
In fairness, the suit has little to do with that!!
Bottas and Magnussen should pick up plenty of points tomorrow. And if some of the drivers ahead have trouble, I wouldn't rule them out of possible podium finishes.
Magnussen had reliability problems during quali, and both teams have struggled more than most with issues throughout testing. Would love to see either of them on the podium all the same!
It will be interesting to see what red bull and ferrari tell checo and sainz what to do off the start as theyll be slipstreaming their team mates off the start and into T1, i dont think redbull will have any issue telling perez not to attack but I don't think Sainz would entertain such a request, one to keep an eye on
Just watching the highlights now, seems to be very few people there is that covid related or is there not much interest?
Looks normal enough to me anyway
That was a great qualifying session. Who would have thought it a Haas in Q3 at the first race of the season Delighted for them.
Delighted for Leclerc, Bottas and K Mag. Delighted for Mercedes too lol. Long may it last. Great to see Ferrari back.
Good to see Alonso in Q3 too. Hopefully he can get points in the race.
Mclaren still have a lot of work to do.
End was good again
Can anyone see perhaps at least one Merc retiring with some mechanical issue?? Might just happen...
Alonso needs to be fighting for podiums at least to keep his interest up for the season and into next year.
Aston Martin are nowhere. Vettel won't be happy with that.
And save a thought for Ricciardo.
And this is quite a nice picture:
Yeah found it strange that the strip on the left didn't show who was out at the end of each quali, like it used to do.
Jesus the purple sectors were all muddled.
I wonder did Hamilton say Alfa suites you Bottas or did he say anything at all?
Looked like Mercedes used Russell to give Hamilton a tow to try and get him as close as possible to the front and Red Bull tried to use Max's pace to help.tow Perez higher up the grid.
Great lap by Bottas and it'll be interesting to see how he does in the midfield with Alfa, even in the Merc he seemed to struggle to get past slower cars so not sure his race performance will match his qualifying.
Has the makings of a great race tomorrow
Excellent qualifying. Dare I say it it's starting to feel like the Formula 1 I knew and loved for decades before it was nearly killed off by the catastrophic hybrid formula might finally be back.
Obviously car development and other tracks will see things change, but hypothetically if we do see a season long battle between Max and the Ferraris, it could make for a very interesting dynamic. At Ferrari you've got Leclerc who looks faster but you've got Sainz who bags results more reliably on race day. In some ways their strengths and weaknesses are comparable to Prost and Senna. But the team will likely have to ultimately throw their weight behind one or the other if they're to beat the World Champion. We know Max will make the most of every opportunity, and RB will never drop the ball on strategy, unlike Ferrari. Very interesting to see how things play out.
Lots of other notable mentions through the field, KMag obviously stood out though I do hope to see Mick get up there too at some point to prove he can hold his own against a proven driver. Albon deserves a mention for putting in a great performance at Williams. Given that he trashed the other Williams by a much greater margin than Russell usually did, and George himself made a mess of qualifying, I think the penny will start to drop for many people this season that Mr Saturday was only ever really Mr flattered by Latifi.
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://w2.vanillicon.com/v2/282101dc2976956f9dfc87f7a2ef2413.svg)
