Topic: Motosport General discussion tread --- Formula1, MotoGP, WTCC, ETCC, DTM..... - page 100. (Read 141539 times)

The Mercedes duo showed their best performance in this qualifying, which they did not show in the previous race. But even though their performance is quite good, I'm not too sure that Mercedes can win the race since Max and RBR still have the upper hand. However, it is possible that Hamilton might overtake Perez in second place, because Perez has not shown his best performance recently.

No excuse for Perez and Stroll to perform this badly compared to their team mates.  I mean wtf..  I know their cars are maintained and tweaked by a different team of engineers but bottom line it's really the same car.  :/  Maybe I get Stroll performing that worse than Alonso.  But Perez?  He should be pulling his own weight and help the team get the points to win the constructor's championship.

Anyway looks like Hamilton and Russell were sand bagging the practice session.    Alonso looking good too. 

And what do you guys think of Sainz top 6 finish at 1.94?    Those odds could get chalkly after the sprints.

George Russell really stepping up on Qatar. That's still almost half a second difference but he can sure as hell come close to Max if he wanted to. Hamilton also comes in with a very good 3rd place in qualifying leaving the two Mercedes at the top of the food chain together with Max. If this continues until race day, both of these Mercedes drivers will have a chance to steal the win from Verstappen, although that's highly unlikely given how smooth the Red Bull's driver has been.

Mercedes were quite surprising to me in qualifying today. I didn't expect them to be in top places honestly. As Piastri's lap time was also deleted Hamilton went up to 3rd place. But we will see if Mercedes drivers can use this advantage really positively. Because qualifying and race are totally different things.

McLaren had a really poor day today. Norris could have started in 2nd place also but his lap time was also deleted as far as I was able to see. He will need to climb even more positions than Piastri as it was his only lap time. Sainz and Perez were also poorly performing drivers indeed but I think they will both gain many places during the race.

Mercedes definitely had a good run, didn't expected to see them there, but that's going to be great for the race. Tomorrow it could be the first time ever a drivers championship is decided with a sprint race if I am not mistaken. If Max does just a little better than Perez, which we all know that he will, Max will be the world champion even before the race on Sunday. Thats going to be quite weird, there isn't a champions place for a sprint race normally, and celebration before the race feels so weird however that's what its going to be like. I guess its quite important to make sure that everything is set up, and rest of the season will once again feel a little bit more empty. Its still quite good to watch second place fight though, every other team is fighting so great against each other, that will be great to witness.

Mercedes out of nowhere got a strong pace ? well , Perez do have to fear about his 2nd place in Championship because I have a feeling Lewis will have a word to say about this.

Great to see Oscar Piastri doing so fine once again and by all means , getting 6th place in Qatar qualifiers could be big for sprint race when I do expect him to gain at least 1 place.

Ferrari they let us down during this qualifying session as personally I had more hopes from them after they had 2 great races. 

2023 F1 Qatar Grand Prix - Qualifying Results
Pos.   Driver   Nat.   Team   Q1   Q2   Q3
1   Max Verstappen   NED   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m25.007s   1m24.483s   1m23.778s
2   George Russell   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m25.334s   1m24.827s   1m24.219s
3   Lewis Hamilton   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m26.076s   1m24.381s   1m24.305s
4   Fernando Alonso   ESP   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m25.223s   1m25.241s   1m24.369s
5   Charles Leclerc   MON   Scuderia Ferrari   1m25.452s   1m25.079s   1m24.424s
6   Oscar Piastri   AUS   McLaren F1 Team   1m25.266s   1m24.724s   1m24.540s
7   Pierre Gasly   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m25.566s   1m24.918s   1m24.553s
8   Esteban Ocon   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m25.711s   1m24.928s   1m24.763s
9   Valtteri Bottas   FIN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake   1m26.038s   1m25.297s   1m25.058s
10   Lando Norris   GBR   McLaren F1 Team   1m25.131s   1m24.685s   No Time Set
11   Yuki Tsunoda   JPN   Scuderia AlphaTauri    1m26.058s   1m25.301s   
12   Carlos Sainz   ESP   Scuderia Ferrari   1m25.808s   1m25.328s   
13   Sergio Perez   MEX   Oracle Bull Racing   1m25.991s   1m25.426s   
14   Alex Albon   THA   Williams Racing   1m26.118s   1m25.707s   
15   Nico Hulkenberg   GER   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m25.904s   1m25.783s   
16   Logan Sargeant   USA   Williams Racing   1m26.210s       
17   Lance Stroll   CAN   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m26.345s       
18   Liam Lawson   NZL   Scuderia AlphaTauri   1m26.635s       
19   Kevin Magnussen   DEN   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m27.046s       
20   Zhou Guanyu   CHN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake   1m27.432s


Qualifying results, pole position for MAx.


Tomorrow we will have the second qualify for the sprint race.

We have left the qualifying session behind in Qatar. Perez and Sainz had a really poor session unfortunately. Both of them were eliminated in Q2 already. Their times were both horrible compared to the 10th placed driver - 0.7 sec. But hopefully both of them will make up for this bad result in the race.

I expect more from Perez especially considering that he has a faster car than Ferrari. He is still an inconsistent driver recently. His performance in Japan was just horrible. It was like his mind was on something else during the race. 

Apart from that it was a really comfortable pole for Verstappen. The race should also be very comfortable for him.

2023 F1 Qatar Grand Prix - Free Practice Results (1)
Pos    Driver    Nat.   Team    Time
1   Max Verstappen   NED   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m27.428s
2   Carlos Sainz   ESP   Scuderia Ferrari   1m27.762s
3   Charles Leclerc   MON   Scuderia Ferrari   1m27.909s
4   Fernando Alonso   ESP   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m27.919s
5   Sergio Perez   MEX   Oracle Bull Racing   1m28.016s
6   Yuki Tsunoda   JPN   Scuderia AlphaTauri    1m28.027s
7   Nico Hulkenberg   GER   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m28.171s
8   George Russell   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m28.336s
9   Oscar Piastri   AUS   McLaren F1 Team   1m28.380s
10   Lando Norris   GBR   McLaren F1 Team   1m28.441s
11   Logan Sargeant   USA   Williams Racing   1m28.550s
12   Alex Albon   THA   Williams Racing   1m28.590s
13   Lewis Hamilton   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m28.679s
14   Lance Stroll   CAN   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m28.690s
15   Esteban Ocon   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m28.732s
16   Pierre Gasly   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m28.821s
17   Valtteri Bottas   FIN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake   1m29.041s
18   Zhou Guanyu   CHN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake   1m29.106s
19   Liam Lawson   NZL   Scuderia AlphaTauri   1m29.238s
20   Kevin Magnussen   DEN   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m29.502s


Free practice 1 resutls.

Source: https://www.crash.net/f1/results/1037464/1/f1-qatar-grand-prix-2023-friday-practice-results

Max and Ferraris on the top.

My eyes...  There's now really something wrong with them or is my subconcious playing tricks on me.  The first line I read and it registered in my mind like it was "Perez will leave Red Bull".  In my mind I was fist pumping 'yes'.  But then the second line mentions 'Ducati'...  Aw man.    I almost got excited.


How close?  Afaik it's still a couple of years off until those changes happen.  So it's a couple of years of watching a parade of cars lead by Max Verstappen.

And I'm late to the news.  I heard Lance Stroll is leaving F1 to play...  Tennis?    Wtf?  Lolol.

I agree with ERS too,having an average better speed,faster speed is much better than having it only for a short while,isn't racing after all about speed,we need to see more speed and more action,that is the beauty of racing which honestly in F1 is missing from a lot of years now,not only these last three years where Redbull dominance is noticeable but also since the time of Mercedes.

So this for me is a very welcomed change and which hopefully will bring more action in every race and the emotions will be back like in the time of fight between,McLaren,Ferrari and Williams in the early 2000 years before Ferrari starting to dominate at that time.

Yes, I think it is going to be great for the drivers. They will be able to overtake easily and they will also be able to take sharper turns. And I think we will see better speed as well because the drag from the Air is also going to be less. Because the width is getting less.

Having better speed for a longer period of time compared to having the best speed for a short period is definitely better in my opinion. So even though I think the top speed is probably not going to be the best that we have seen so far, the average speed is definitely going to increase.

Indeed, Marquez is no longer the same as before at the moment, or more precisely after he suffered a very serious injury at the start of 2020 with Honda. But there's also no harm in trying to move from Honda to riding another motorbike, even if it's not a factory motorbike, because some people still think that Marquez can still be competitive with other motorbikes, so Marquez should try this even though retiring is also a wise enough option for him.

As I said, Marquez needs to try with a motorbike that is not from Japan, because now it is very clear that new racers don't need long to become competitive on Ducati motorbikes even though they are not the same specs as the factory ones. Because apart from Marquez himself who started dying after the injury he suffered, Japanese motorbikes in the last two years have also been dying against European motorbikes such as Ducati and others.

With Max getting another title this season, we are closer to the new regulations and there are more and more information coming out. Turns out one of the most important ones will be that the cars will be smaller, I think about 20 cm less wider, which means that overtaking should be easier, your car will be smaller to go through smaller places and the other drivers will have smaller cars as well so they will not be able to close it all, so that width getting smaller definitely matters a lot on the overtakes without a doubt.

ERS will be much more important, we are going to have a lot bigger ERS that doesn't end too quickly, and the engine power will be reduced to balance that, so that means if engine power is smaller, cars will not go as fast normally as they are going now, but when you use ERS, it will have a higher period where it goes a lot faster, imagine having ERS for one full lap, that will change all of fastest lap points without a doubt.

I think he still should not take things for granted. That is the only way he will probably lose. Even though I actually agree with you and do not believe that he will lose to someone else. But still, he should not take things for granted.

Perez is not at his best performance right now. So probably it is not going to be a big problem for Max. I also believe that eventually, he is going to become the champion for the third time. And I also do not think that he is actually going to screw up badly or even screw up at all.

he's still 30 years old so it's too early for him to retire, especially since his performance isn't that bad. he just needs a good motorbike that can accommodate his performance and maybe after getting a good motorbike he can return to being more competitive, and it is not impossible that he can win the world championship again before finally retiring because all the possibilities are open to him.

I think if Ducatti are smart enough which for me they are,they should offer him a contract for another 2 years.I think he can be a good rider for at least another two years and since new riders are doing very well with the Ducatti bike,not only the main team but also the clients team it means that the Ducatti brand is in top performance in these recent years.

I am sure Marquez is "dying" inside to have a chance to race for Ducatti in the remaining on his career as I don't think the Japanese manufacturers will be able to come back dominantly in two years.

In my opinion , he should have retired after this year. I really love the guy and how the drives but for a couple of years the injuries kinda put a stop on his domination and he is nowhere near of how he used to be.

True , he is a beast when he gets a right bike but I really don't see him being a shiny star again even if Ducatti will provide him with their best bike.

Yeah and it most likely will be like this because he just needs to score 3 points more than Perez to achieve this.No one can stop him,Perez is a super mediocre driver as of lately so I doubt he will be winning the battle with his team mate that he has consistently lost throughout the whole season until now.

I think Max is not worried even if he screws up as he knows that no one can take the Championship from him and he will surely be Champion for the third time in F1 in the end of this season.

It is more likely that he will join Ducati, which is not a manufacturer, and according to several rumors, Marquez will team up with his younger brother in a new team next season.

Currently, the Ducati concept seems to have changed, because most of the riders recruited by Ducati are young riders and Ducati does not hesitate to release older riders even though these riders have more experience with Ducati motorbikes. Likewise with Marquez, who is currently still being watched and considered by all parties, including Ducati, but Marquez himself will have to fight with a team that is not a manufacturer if he really goes to Ducati.

Maybe the meaning of KTM CEO Stefan Pierer who said that they were building their own racer was because there was no empty place there, unless KTM was willing to sacrifice one of their riders, as has been circulating through several news about the placement of Pedro Acosta in the KTM satellite team for next season with sacrificing Augusto Fernandez. So it is possible that the place that is still empty is at Gresini Racing, although at this time there has been no announcement regarding this.