F1 Fanatic

“Hard to see how come so many believe Mercedes will be THE engine”

Probably because energy recovery will be far more important next year, and they seem to have had the best KERS system for a […]

Consider how long it took Lotus to get their steering set up to Raikkonen’s satisfaction last year, and what happened at Monaco in 2012:
“As has been well-reported, Kimi made a single out-lap in Thursday morning […]

Hamilton didn’t lack quali pace – this weekend, he lacks pace full stop.
Up until Q3, he’s been significantly slower than Rosberg since practice started on Thursday.

Given an overall lack of pace, to get […]

“Red Bull and Mercedes certainly wanting a change, Lotus and Ferrari clearly wanting to keep it as much as it is…”

I think Mercedes are a little more reasonable, as Toto Wolff said to Autosport:

“If you […]

And funnier.

Have you not seen the picture of his front tyre at the end of the race ?
Worn right through the tread.

You might argue that’s not comparing like with like.
So what about the winners’ Q3 times ?
Maldonado 2012 – 1:22:1
Alonso 2013 – 1:21:2

Still think nothing has changed since last year ?

“Alonso’s total race time was 7 seconds slower than Maldonado’s 2012 time. That’s 0.1s per lap.”

But the pole position time was a full second quicker this year.
Which demonstrates that during the race drivers […]

5/10
In contrast to many here, I’m quite happy to follow a tactical race – but when cars are four stopping and still having to nurse new primes just to get through the stint (eg Hamilton “I can’t drive any slower […]

Except the hard tyres weren’t any more durable.

“Today, it’s not the fastest driver… who wins…”

… but the one with the biggest budget.

Nice to see your concern for the purity of the sport, Dietrich.

“the change he felt in the car was too drastic to be attributed to the cooler temperatures ”

Switching from used options to new primes could well explain the difference.
I’m still puzzled by his running two […]

(Edit)
Hamilton’s second stint.
(Though Rosberg also used only two sets of the hard tyre).

Why did Mercedes run their second stints on the option ?
No other team did this, and it surely cost them lap time.

Gave it a 7.

Not a classic, as too heavily tyre determined, but full of incident.
Alonso did not put a wheel wrong, and Ferrari’s race strategy worked perfectly.

I’m far from sure that we saw Mercedes real […]

“I can only picture HAM giving Macca 2 big fingers to them”

Hardly.
He gave Button a hug after the race.

“It is the second time in six races Red Bull have had a car sent to the back of the grid for this reason.”

Setting aside ridiculous conspiracy theories (please), how can the best funded team in F1 repeat a […]

Hamilton looking very good for the win, as I don’t think Ferrari’s ability to run longer on the options is going to help them enough to compensate for their slower pace on the prime.

The Mercedes has enough […]

“I doubt very much they’ll be spending the summer break together or Christmas but that’s not what we pay them for.”

Obeying team orders, though ?

Massa seemed OKish on the soft.

Not an ideal tyre to start the race on, though.