Just finished watching DTS, just to get in the mood.
As always, some drama played up for the show but overall, pretty well done.
Much more real than any movie ever made about the sport.

But it does shows they are massive pussies for completely ignoring Spa. God forbid we make ourselves look bad. That's for the teams to do!

FP2 for Bahrain.

Max 1st, Ferraris 2nd and 3rd. Russell 4th and Hammy 9th. Bottas in the Alfa was 6th, even though he sat out almost all of FP1 due to an engine problem.

Bottas in an Alfa beat Hammy in a Merc. Plus, MSC in a Haas was 1 place ahead of Hammy. I’ll let that sink in.

Looking like the Ferrari PU has some fight. We'll see what quali brings.

Just remember, none of this counts until Q1 starts. Then we’ll start to see who has what.
The first several races will have lots of development.
Kmag and Hulkenberg did pretty good and it sure mixed things up, at least for today.
One thing we won’t see there is rain.

After FP2 results:

5/6 Ferrari cars in the top 10

2/8 MB cars in the top 10
Bottom 5 all MB power

Fingers crossed for an anyone other than MB season. So far, so good.

I know that it is early in the season, but I was more than pleased with the Q3 results......Ferrari, Haas,RB.

Should be a spicy race tomorrow between Ferrari and RBR. Hammy could only manage 5th, but wait, who’s that next to him? It’s Bottas, but Bottas drives an Alfa now. His Merc replacement could only manage 9th. K-Mag, who hadn’t driven the car before yesterday morning is 7th.

Wasn't bad, unless cheering for Red Bull.

Should make for an interesting Monday there.

The cars could race well so that's good.
Great comeback run for KMag.
Some head scratching for the Honda/Red Bull powertrain guys.
Parts were exciting, others not so much. Wild at the end.

Good race, lots of tire strategy.

Both Alfa in the points.

Happy with the podium as it stood.

All of the MB cars looked be at a deficit on pace.

Not a good day for RBPT.

It was interesting to hear complaints about brakes from teams other than Macca.

They went through a bunch to tires in a hurry

Nice to see the cars be able to follow as if wake turbulence isn't a problem and the DRS seemed to be just about the right amount.
Too bad there isn't an easy fix for a place like Monaco.
I don't understand what went wrong at McLaren. Up until qualifying they didn't look too bad and Riccardo's lack of running didn't help but Hulkenberg and Magnussen didn't seem to have a big problem with no seat time.
Nice to see Magnussen's result but his best ever was his very first race if I remember right.

quote:

Originally posted by 9mmepiphany:
It was interesting to hear complaints about brakes from teams other than Macca.

They went through a bunch to tires in a hurry

Who is Macca? I’ve been following F1 for over 20 years and have never heard that term.

quote:

Originally posted by Dwill104:

quote:

Originally posted by 9mmepiphany:
It was interesting to hear complaints about brakes from teams other than Macca.

They went through a bunch to tires in a hurry

Who is Macca? I’ve been following F1 for over 20 years and have never heard that term.

Guessing McLaren?

That was as good as an IndyCar race. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen an F1 race as good. Supposedly, Red Bull had a fuel pump failure that took out Verstappen and Perez, and might have caused Gasly’s retirement. I’m really looking forward to Saudi Arabia with it being a much tighter track. This will be a really good test for the new cars.

quote:

Originally posted by DanH:
Supposedly, Red Bull had a fuel pump failure that took out Verstappen and Perez, and might have caused Gasly’s retirement.

I've only had time to skim some comments so only so informed but yeah, the fuel pump was a known issue from at least qualifying and that pump is one of those sealed units controlled by FIA. Finger pointing to come I guess.

That said, the announce team's negativity toward RB was suffocating. Nothing new about that but jeez, guys, take a pill.

I loved Toto's comment after the race when they asked him about going to hard tires. "Yeah, we stuck our hand in the toilet on that one."

Another change I didn't know about was mentioned after a pit stop. The tire blanket temperature has been lowered some from last year.

I think it was when Hamilton came out on the hards and was sliding around a lot. They said they are intending to get rid of the warmers all together at some point.

Indycar does fine without them so I don't see why they don't just ban them. They are only a benefit when the first teams started using them and once universal, just another needless expense.