Formula 1 2019 - Round 3 – China

So much for all that speed that Ferrari had in preseason.

That was a bit of a stinker, which I guess we were due after the first 2 races.

astrofluff wrote: »

China is a power circuit. I think that's all that happened today; Merc have a better engine.

I think the Ferrari chassis and aero is better, and that all other tracks they'll dominate. Bring on the next race in Baku where engine power on the straight and a decent chassis on the tight track are mixed.

That's pretty much the opposite of what the experts (including Toto Wolf) are saying.

Ferrari has better straight line speed, mostly due to less drag/lower downforce but probably some advantage in engine power as well but Mercedes are much better in the high speed corners. Slow speed corners are less effected by that deficiency.

Wolf kind of confirmed it but then corrected himself on the issue of engine power, I reckon he didn't want to publicly state that they believe Ferrari have overtaken them on engine power.

Baku is a typical street circuit with mostly slower 90deg corners and also has that exceptionally long straight so should be better for Ferrari.

By the sounds of it they need to get more aero into that car to be competitive on the majority of circuits though. Hopefully they can because I don't think I can take another Merc whitewash season, especially after Ferrari threw away 2 decent chances of taking the title.

LIGHTNING wrote: »

I wish I was wrong with that prediction :pac:

It was the paint than done him

i wonder was it? I know painted lines in car parks can cause wheelspin.. he might have a point.. hamiltons car was up to speed before he hit the white lines..

bottas is all terminator this season but i can't see him beating hamilton over the season.. hamilton has started slow last couple of seasons but is already ahead this year.. was a boring race on the track yesterday. I think what will be interesing this year is nearly every track will have different outcomes..

Frankly, 3 races in the season Ferrari - and its exact level of competitiveness - is still pretty much a mystery.

The one and only known thing is that they're fast on the straights, but that's not nearly enough in F1; Yet, it's not really easy to pinpoint what the issue with the cars might be.

Looking at the Shanghai week end, there are however a couple of clues - first, the SF90 seemed able to consistently deliver a pace that was good but not enough to keep touch with the Mercedes during the race and trying to push anywhere past that resulted in a car that was recalcitrating and unpredictable (e.g. Vettel going deep into multiple corners when he tried to push after being let past by Leclerc).

The second and by far more important clue is how the relative pace developed over the week end - on Friday, Ferrari were the absolute class of the field, only to be reeled in and overtaken by Mercedes as the week end went by.

If you ask me, the problem is that the team doesn't fully understand how the SF90 behaves on track and they're struggling to get the setup right; Maybe they're getting data from the simulator / models that doesn't translate on track or vice-versa. In Bahrain, they happened to go the correct direction from the get go, in Shanghai not so much.

Compounding this with the appallingly bad decision making strategy wise, this unfortunately doesn't look too good for the season.