Topic: Motosport General discussion tread --- Formula1, MotoGP, WTCC, ETCC, DTM..... - page 137. (Read 141568 times)

I think it is already over this as a season when the second runner up is 53 points behind with just 8 races being done so far.The fact that Mercedes improved is a good sign for them but they were still far away from Redbull,it was all about tires in this race so we could not see a challenging race as the tires were being consumed a lot faster than in other tracks.Ferrari I think missed the strategy with Carlos,they needed to be on the podium yesterday and with a better strategy they could very much achieve it.They need to improve also on their race strategies and also in their car development but in this season there is nothing left for them at this pace Redbull most likely will win all races.

The race started quite interesting, but from the half to the end it was quite boring as it was predictable that Verstappen would lead and the duo of Mercedes drivers had the advantage. As for Norris, it was quite sad for him because he had to end up in P17, even though he initially had good performance but unfortunately there was an incident that ruined his race. And finally we are back to a quite boring race, Verstappen even finished without any resistance from other drivers, the only fun thing is racing at P8 and below, especially when Zhou and Yuki compete for a good position, it's quite fun to watch.

This race wasn't much more exciting than Monaco, even with that chican in 3rd sector removed, Barcelona is still quite boring track. Max is simply racing in other league. With few bad races in a row for Perez, Max lead against him is already 53 points. All talks that he can give fight for Verstappen is over now.
That was very solid double podium for Mercedes. They were so confident today and nobody weren't able to challenge them. And Ferrari just being Ferrari, as usual.

Verstappen has a car which goes on like it is on rails. There is just no competition for him compared to other teams. And combining this powerful car with a very talented driver like Verstappen results in this. It was a very easy work for Verstappen. He was even so comfortable to go for fastest lap by pitting for fresh soft tyres. He must be getting bored all alone so we sometimes hear him talking to the team about some things. 

It was really good to see a big performance by Mercedes drivers. But I still can't be sure about whether this performance would be consistent from now on. Because we see quite different results on different tracks for them.

You can see and feel that Leclerc is really trying to make things work, though unfortunately his machine isn't really up to par with the rest of the big names and he's always getting dnf or just a bad beat in general. I think the frustration is creeping up to him because Sainz managed to finish at a respectable placing behind Perez. The Mercedes are also slowly creeping back up with a close rivalry with the Aston Martins, and I think that's the only interesting match up right now since we now know Red Bull will take the trophy anyway.

Redbull will be Champions again this season as you cannot undo all those wins that they got in these 8 races which they won it all,I believe 6 Verstappen and 2 Perez which shows a full supremacy of this team.The commentators of CBS sport where I watch the races said one nice joke when Sainz told his team in the radio "Please find a way to beat Checo" and those commentators said "the best way to beat Checo is to hire Adrian Newey but unfortunately he is not moving from Redbull and he still is the best aerodynamics engineer as of now" and this comment pretty much conclude what this season will continue to look like.I hope Mercedes improves further but they still seem far away from Redbull performance.

Verstappen doesn't even seem to have to put in much effort to win these kinds of races. Ferrari doesn't seem to be able to get anywhere close either. Could this be a mechanical problem at Ferrari, or is Leclerc just not good enough to compete for the world championship? I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The fact is that RedBull already holds the title, and I am curious what teams will do next season to try to reduce the differences with RedBulle. At least Mercedes showed that it was the best of the rest today. That should be the first step. None for 2nd place, and then trying to close the gap with RedBull, if at all possible.

Another easy win for RBR without even pushing at 100%.
Good recovery from Mercedes but they are still probably almost 1 second slower then RBR in a single lap in the race.

Disaster Ferrari as usual.

For Mercedes, this is perhaps the highlight of the season. They also know at Mercedes that the world championship is impossible to win, but they will mainly focus on the quality of the races and will try to raise the level every race with the aim of being able to compete for the title next season doing. You also wonder where things went so wrong at Mercedes, which for years managed to win the titles every year with playful ease and now don't even come close to the title in the World Cup. Or has redbull just done it much smarter?

There really wasn't much to it today. A race that was dominated by Verstappen all weekend, and today it was exactly the same from start to finish. It slowly seems that we will get a similar championship again just like last season. Nobody was waiting for that, but at Red Bull they are of course very happy because this is the ideal dream scenario. Another top day for Mercedes with a 2nd and 3rd place. That is the prelude to a fun season, but it will of course not be exciting for the title. It already seems to have been fought.

Once again Max got a very easy win and there wqs nothing anyone else can do. Hamilton was about 24 seconds behind when it ended and that is why Max was so easy to handle. Leclerc and Sainz getting shafted again by Ferrari, they seriously need to reconsider the whole team because they cant handle all of it, they will keep losing more and more if they keep the management same. Norris was very very unlucky, he didnt start well and that happens thats alright but he had an unfortunate damage and all of his race was ruined because of a small moment. In the end wasnt really an enteraining race when you look at it as overtakes there were ton of overtakes and it was fun if you like to watch midtable teams. That race for the last point was quite entertaining all race lpng and it was quite good to see cars racing so close as well, at the top of the list max is alone but at midtable cars are a lot more closer to each other and that was quite fun to watch without a doubt. Was awesome to watch Perez as well, definitely showed why he deserves his spot.

My conclusions about the TOP 5 of the GP of Spain:

It's okay that Verstappen led the race from start to finish, he's still a great driver but for me he wasn't the best. My honors in this GP certainly go to the Mexican Sergio Pérez After he started 11th and finished the race in 4th with an excellent recovery race with Red Bull.

Lewis Hamilton and George Russel indeed confirmed that Mercedes updates are a differential that is keeping it in the leadership positions.

I was also expecting more from Carlos Sainz, he did a good race and was very quick but I think he was really limited by Ferrari's performance difficulties.

Aston Martin seems like is really struggling in this track and that is the only knew unknown in this race so far.Mercedes drivers claiming they have quite a lot of pace on their tires despite having soft ones and are running more than 20 laps with them,most likely they will go with a single stop,Redbull most likely will do the same and so this race will end with Ferrari out of the podium as when Mercedes will come out they will have much fresher tires than Sainz which has already pitted from quite some time now.

A rain would do great deal to change the outcome of this race which so far seems linear without any retirements,crashes or something along these lines,a rain together with the safety car should make this a good one to watch,so far a boring one.

It was quite disappointing to see Alonso in P9 in this qualifying session, even though in FP2 he managed to improve his performance and was in P2, but unfortunately he was inconsistent and ended up in P9 in this qualifying. But what is quite interesting is that Norris managed to start at P3 in the racing session later. This is a very good performance from Norris and team McLaren. It seems that Norris and his team are very comfortable on the circuit and maybe they will show good performance in the race session later.

At this point they should start an event in bookies entitled “Will Verstappen’s car have issues?” especially when their qualifying went smooth and there isn’t much of a weather disturbance on race day. There’s just very few things that can take down Verstappen in a race. Heck, even if there’s some miscommunication in his team, they can just order Perez to pave the way and Max to claim the win.

All the weather report seems to have changed for tomorrow as well. There isn't any expectation of rain at race time according to my source either. This would just secure a win for Verstappen even more as long as he doesn't any issue with the car. Sainz and Norris captured the second and third positions in the qualifying maybe but I wonder what they will do in the race.

There is a big chance for Ferrari and McLaren both to be on podium this time but let's see. As overtaking isn't an easy task on this track these two drivers can turn it into an advantage for themselves. But pit strategies are also going to be very important in maintaining position.

Yup as predicted yesterday the weather was with a possibility of rain.

The weather is now cloudy but sunnier than before.

It could be no rain, at least at the start.

With the Aston Martin cars looking good as of late, podium finishes are to be expected with prolly a couple of wins.  That's I was asking if there was a race Alonso 'could win', will it be his home race where he'll prolly be a little more motivated.

And here's an interesting bit...  It rained at some point during FP3 with possibility of rain during quali.  I think it gives Alonso a bit more of a chance since he's known to be fast on wet tracks.

2023 F1 Spanish GP FP3 Results

1   Max Verstappen   NED   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m13.664s
2   Sergio Perez   MEX   Oracle Bull Racing   1m13.914s
4   Carlos Sainz   ESP   Scuderia Ferrari   1m14.072s
5   Fernando Alonso   ESP   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m14.240s
6   George Russell   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m14.264s
7   Charles Leclerc   MON   Scuderia Ferrari   1m14.278s
8   Valtteri Bottas   FIN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake   1m14.353s
9   Yuki Tsunoda   JPN   Scuderia AlphaTauri    1m14.360s
10   Lewis Hamilton   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m14.659s
10   Lando Norris   GBR   McLaren F1 Team   1m14.681s
11   Zhou Guanyu   CHN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake   1m14.681s
12   Nyck de Vries   NED   Scuderia AlphaTauri   1m14.693s
13   Lance Stroll   CAN   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m14.756s
14   Nico Hulkenberg   GER   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m14.988s
15   Oscar Piastri   AUS   McLaren F1 Team   1m15.105s
16   Esteban Ocon   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m15.266s
17   Kevin Magnussen   DEN   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m15.534s
18   Pierre Gasly   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m15.841s
19   Alex Albon   THA   Williams Racing   1m15.851s
20   Logan Sargeant   USA   Williams Racing   1m16.529s

2023 F1 Spanish GP FP3 Highlights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URCDSFJ3P_w

Honestly Alonso seemed inconsistent in the practice sessions. In Q2 he was definitely great but in Q3 there wasn't such performance by him. Verstappen was ahead by 0.6s. But qualifying sessions are nearly always trickier than practice sessions. Actually I don't see any drop in performance from Verstappen unless he has some problem with the engine or some other crucial part of his car.

Alonso still has a big potential to take the second position for the race. Maybe we might even see a similar fight he had with Verstappen for pole position in Monaco. But in the race I don't think an Aston Martin car can catch up with Verstappen under normal conditions. 

Unfortunately it seem so in the first look.However we are racing in a very technical track and errors can be made very easily in this track,I know Verstappen is a great driver and rarely make such errors but a Safety Car here should be guaranteed especially after we saw a Monaco race without Safety Car which was really really surprising to say the least.

You know what makes it even more boring,when we don't have competition even from the same team,Perez is a mediocre driver and really inconsistent while at Mercedes in 2016 we saw a great season despite that season being dominated completely by Mercedes.