Topic: Motosport General discussion tread --- Formula1, MotoGP, WTCC, ETCC, DTM..... - page 106. (Read 141539 times)

Hmmm..  Now wishing I went through with my prediction and made the bet on Leclerc to finish on the podium at 3.95.  :/  He's running the softs right now and might do a one stop and go for the hards.  Dunno...  But it looks like he's gonna finish second or third at least.  He'd be lucky to win it but Sainz seems faster.

Edit:  Leclerc was just on the radio and said that Sainz looks like he's slowing down.  Interesting to see how the Ferrari plays this beyond lap 20.  Would be funny if they botch it and get somebody else to finish first.  

Edit:  LOL FERRARI.

The race will most likely end with a winner from Ferrari or Mercedes unless rain starts pouring heavily. You don't normally see changes when racing conditions are good like in a dry race so I doubt Verstappen could manage. It will take a monumental error from other team's driver or pitstops for either of the Red Bull duo to finish in a podium.

I was really expectant about Verstappen's performance. I expected him to take pole position but he couldn't even get near that level. He was quite frustrated after Q2 finished. He was really nearly getting a grid penalty also but he must be relieved about not getting any. Because he was under investigation for 3 different actions if I'm not mistaken.

Now there are only 40 minutes to go for the race. Honestly I hope to see a win by Ferrari finally. It would be a huge morale boost for him if Leclerc win the race. He has potential I'm wondering his tempo against Sainz and Russell.

Finally we can watch an enjoyable race without a huge domination by Verstappen - hopefully. 

I could say that its going to be quite difficult to point this out since most people care about other stuff but Haas had a great weekend so far. Yes, Max not being in Q3 is the biggest news of the week and everyone will talk about that, but the improvement on Ferrari spilled over to Haas as well which tells me that it could be an engine thing as well. If ferrari did it all by themselves then I would have guessed it was something else, but Haas, a team that doesn't even really have enough money to keep being a team, ended up being in top 10 with both cars at the same time, when was the last time this happened? It must be an engine improvement for sure.

I was really not expecting Red Bull drivers to perform this badly honestly. Even Verstappen couldn't qualify for Q3. He was already signaling that the qualifying would be really challenging for them but this was too much. I thought both drivers would be in Q3 but maybe none of them would manage to take pole position at worst.

If we see some rain during the race as well then things can get even more interesting. I expect Red Bull drivers to climb many places but I'm not sure about winning the race. Verstappen is getting close to having another poor race in Singapore for now.

Of course FIA does not like such huge dominance as most people will stop watching races when they know that only one team is winning all the races and this translates to losing a lot of money for FIA and also a lot of prestige as one of the most prestigious sports in the world.I don't think though that with a single move FIA to be smart enough to stop Redbull even if the strength of Redbull came from such only one point in this grey area,I think that Redbull is strong overall and most likely they will adjust to the new regulations of the FIA.For tomorrow though Max is not hopeful at all for a good race.

You really can see that Singapore is really Max's bane. I wouldn't say struggling, but he's having some issues in terms of utilizing his car's full potential on this track. Perhaps there are some hesitations coming from him or he's just really not that confident in pushing the limits of the car in this track. Even with the change of wings if they complied with the FIA's ruling, RB19 is still the fastest and most efficient car in the season, so if it doesn't get the next wins, we know that it's Max still not getting the hang of this track.

As I was saying some days ago FIA can change the rules whenever they want.
This weekend they changed a rule for the control of the deflection of the wings, RBR needed to change them and we got bad results.

The next GP we will know if they removed the dominance of the RBR or if it was just a case.


And yes it was a grey area used mostly by RBR.

Only time when I didn't watched qualification this season, something interesting had to happen. Fact that Verstappen didn't even got into Q3 was difficult to predict. Not sure how it happened, did he made mistake or car was just slow?
Ferrari is looking very strong and now I'm not sure about Verstappen win, starting from P11 in Singapore is difficult task.

It looks like this race will be interesting tomorrow.I wonder what the odds will be for Verstappen to win the race as surely won't be that easy at all starting eleven in a track like that.It looked clear this time that Redbull lacked somewhat the pace here and I am sure that for tomorrow they will be working hard to fix things for the race.

Starting eleven is a really high risk starting position in a track like this one where accidents have happened quite a lot of times and you can get involved easily so if the odd is near 2 I am going to place a bet on Verstappen to see how it goes.

It's obvious that Singapore is a tough track that takes a lot of effort to be good, even the slightest mistakes cost too much time here, it is not like some of the other tracks like Barcelona for example or France where you could make a small mistake and it will not cost you too much and you can recover, at Singapore if you make even one bad turn, which could happen even for f1 drivers, that could lead to 1 second loss, just one bad turn, think about how much difference each lap will be for every driver.

I know Max has been winning for a long time now, what is it, 10 in a row? I think it is quite obvious that he is going to be amazing and there will not be anything that will change any time here neither because he is one of the best consistent ones.

What's with Sainz this weekend?  Didn't watch any of the practice sessions but looking at the results, Ferrari was sweeping all of them.  Somebody itt is prolly happy.   

Here are the results for FP3 and quali starts in 20 mins or so.  Gonna switch to that as this Wolves vs LFC match is kinda boring.  Wolves up by a goal against Klopp and his boys. 

2023 F1 Singaporean GP FP3 Results

1   Carlos Sainz   ESP   Scuderia Ferrari   1m32.065s
2   George Russell   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m32.134s
3   Lando Norris   GBR   McLaren F1 Team   1m32.303s
4   Max Verstappen   NED   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m32.378s
5   Charles Leclerc   MON   Scuderia Ferrari   1m32.381s
6   Lewis Hamilton   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m32.535s
7   Oscar Piastri   AUS   McLaren F1 Team   1m32.730s
8   Sergio Perez   MEX   Oracle Bull Racing   1m32.784s
9   Nico Hulkenberg   GER   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m32.896s
10   Yuki Tsunoda   JPN   Scuderia AlphaTauri    1m32.945s
11   Kevin Magnussen   DEN   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m32.970s
12   Esteban Ocon   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m32.979s
13   Fernando Alonso   ESP   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m33.051s
14   Lance Stroll   CAN   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m33.126s
15   Pierre Gasly   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m33.351s
16   Liam Lawson   NZL   Scuderia AlphaTauri   1m33.357s
17   Alex Albon   THA   Williams Racing   1m33.370s
18   Valtteri Bottas   FIN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake   1m33.540s
19   Zhou Guanyu   CHN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake   1m33.637s
20   Logan Sargeant   USA   Williams Racing   1m33.708s

Neither Ferrari is at max power on the free practice.
The question is very simple.

With the latest updates, Ferrari has become competitive in fast tracks and for a single lap.

When the drag is important like slow tracks or races RBR is just unbeatable.,

Yeah and each one of Sainz and Leclerc took the lead in the practice sessions. However it was a really small time gap between in both sessions. It looks like we are likely to watch a really competitive qualifying session. Verstappen is a little worried about the qualifying after seeing Ferrari's effort but maybe he might be bluffing as well. 

Because I don't believe that we have watched Red Bull's full power in these sessions. As usual they are keeping their real strength for the qualifying and race. It would still be good enough for Ferrari drivers if they manage to finish like 2-3 or 3-4 at worst.

Ferrari got the fastest time on the second practice too.

The new layout is a good thing for them, this track now has more Monza vibes, where Ferrari was competitive.

As always a race is a different thing and RBR will dominate.

I am not entirely sure if Ferrari car is good enough to be on the podium if you ask me. If you look at the pace of the car, the pace is not that great on a race long one, sure it may not be that bad on Saturdays but having one go all out lap versus having a whole race is a different thing.

We are talking about a situation where race pace matters and Ferrari doesn't have a car like that, at least so far we haven't seen anything that indicates they do have a car that is fast enough to be on the podium. Other teams went better and worse all season long, ups and downs, but Ferrari has proven that not so much, maybe a few games here and there, lately not too bad, but they need to do a lot better if they want to win some points.

2023 F1 Singapore Grand Prix - Free Practice Results (1)
Pos    Driver    Nat.   Team    Time
1   Charles Leclerc   MON   Scuderia Ferrari   1m33.350s
2   Carlos Sainz   ESP   Scuderia Ferrari   1m33.428s
3   Max Verstappen   NED   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m33.476s
4   Lando Norris   GBR   McLaren F1 Team   1m33.522s
5   Lewis Hamilton   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m33.540s
6   George Russell   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m33.695s
7   Sergio Perez   MEX   Oracle Bull Racing   1m33.725s
8   Fernando Alonso   ESP   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m33.974s
9   Yuki Tsunoda   JPN   Scuderia AlphaTauri    1m34.042a
10   Esteban Ocon   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m34.066s
11   Lance Stroll   CAN   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m34.568s
12   Pierre Gasly   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m34.639s
13   Alex Albon   THA   Williams Racing   1m34.657s
14   Valtteri Bottas   FIN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake   1m34.802s
15   Kevin Magnussen   DEN   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m34.887s
16   Liam Lawson   NZL   Scuderia AlphaTauri   1m34.894s
17   Nico Hulkenberg   GER   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m34.887s
18   Zhou Guanyu   CHN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake   1m35.456s
19   Oscar Piastri   AUS   McLaren F1 Team   1m35.474s
20   Logan Sargeant   USA   Williams Racing   1m35.778s

Results of the 1st hour, Ferrari ahead but the gap is very close.

https://www.crash.net/f1/results/1035711/1/f1-singapore-grand-prix-2023-friday-practice-results

FP1 is going to start in an hour. I think we will see a similar scenario in Free Practice to the one in Monza. Ferrari will seem really solid in these sessions once again. However I'm curious about what they will do in qualifying. The previous Singapore GP was really amazing for Ferrari drivers indeed. Leclerc got a pole as well.

But this time Verstappen should be well-prepared for the whole weekend. As long as Red Bull don't make any mistake I expect Verstappen to take pole position already. Verstappen will probably win the race as well unlike the poor performance in the previous race here.

Ferrari has always struggled to find a good link between its strategy and its drivers. Sometimes strategic teams make blunders which affect the performance of Ferrari drivers. When Ferrari finds solid ground in a race, sometimes they make blunders which make their performance inconsistent and disappoint the fans. Hopefully the Ferrari team doesn't make blunders in this race like they usually do in previous races because I expect a good performance from this team.

Here the video, it is after half of the track if you wanna see the difference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dugvLvCl9Y&t=100s