Topic: Motosport General discussion tread --- Formula1, MotoGP, WTCC, ETCC, DTM..... - page 152. (Read 143843 times)

Pos    Driver    Nat.   Team    Time
1   Max Verstappen   NED   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m27.930s
2   Carlos Sainz   ESP   Scuderia Ferrari   1m28.315s
3   Charles Leclerc   MON   Scuderia Ferrari   1m28.398s
4   Sergio Perez   MEX   Oracle Bull Racing   1m28.419s
5   Fernando Alonso   ESP   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m28.660s
6   Lando Norris   GBR   McLaren F1 Team   1m28.741s
7   Lewis Hamilton   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m28.858s
8   Lance Stroll   CAN   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m28.930s
9   Esteban Ocon   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m28.937s
10   Alex Albon   THA   Williams Racing   1m29.048s
11   Pierre Gasly   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m29.098s
12   Kevin Magnussen   DEN   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m29.171s
13   Zhou Guanyu   CHN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake   1m29.181s
14   Valtteri Bottas   FIN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake   1m29.189s
15   George Russell   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m29.216s
16   Oscar Piastri   AUS   McLaren F1 Team   1m29.339s
17   Nico Hulkenberg   GER   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m29.393s
18   Yuki Tsunoda   JPN   Scuderia AlphaTauri    1m29.613s
19   Nyck de Vries   NED   Scuderia AlphaTauri   1m29.928s
20   Logan Sargeant   USA   Williams Racing   1m30.038s

As predicted the track improved a lot and it will improve again more since they have a new asphalt.

Ferrari improvements seems to be real

Source: https://www.crash.net/f1/results/1025579/1/f1-2023-miami-grand-prix-friday-practice-results

FP1 results were quite interesting. Mercedes drivers had a really solid session and Leclerc was following right behind indeed. The time gap among the first a few places was so close really. Practice sessions can be deceptive most of the time but I mean it for the race especially. But as for qualifying session we can see some similarities in the places. This can happen after all practice sessions end and especially FP3 can be similar to qualifying.

FP1 and FP2 become quite different mostly unlike the usual. Red Bull don't show their real strength at first. But we should be seeing Verstappen having the last word in FP3. Red Bull drivers are already favoured to dominate of course. I will be wondering the fight among Ferrari, Mercedes and Aston Martin here rather than that. We can see some really good action among the drivers of those teams in this race.

1   George Russell   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m30.125s
2   Lewis Hamilton   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m30.337s
3   Charles Leclerc   MON   Scuderia Ferrari   1m30.449s
4   Max Verstappen   NED   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m30.549s
5   Carlos Sainz   ESP   Scuderia Ferrari   1m30.724s
6   Pierre Gasly   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m31.104s
7   Fernando Alonso   ESP   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m31.231s
8   Lance Stroll   CAN   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m31.337s
9   Nico Hulkenberg   GER   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m31.392s
10   Esteban Ocon   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m31.542s
11   Sergio Perez   MEX   Oracle Bull Racing   1m31.566s
12   Oscar Piastri   AUS   McLaren F1 Team   1m31.810s
13   Kevin Magnussen   DEN   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m31.853s
14   Valtteri Bottas   FIN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake   1m31.902s
15   Alex Albon   THA   Williams Racing   1m31.903s
16   Lando Norris   GBR   McLaren F1 Team   1m31.997s
17   Zhou Guanyu   CHN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake   1m32.134s
18   Yuki Tsunoda   JPN   Scuderia AlphaTauri    1m32.169s
19   Logan Sargeant   USA   Williams Racing   1m32.619s
20   Nyck de Vries   NED   Scuderia AlphaTauri   1m34.637s

1st hour gone! Mercedes ahead but the time is influenced by the fact the used the new tires at the end of the session while nobody did.

Source: https://www.crash.net/f1/results/1025579/1/f1-2023-miami-grand-prix-friday-practice-results

This is the current weather predictions for the weekend in Miami. But on some websites they show Sunday like it might rain. If it really rains then this race can get more interesting for us. I would like to see some action here to tell the truth after watching that mostly boring Azerbaijan GP. Rain might make difficulties for at least one of the Verstappen and Perez duo in this race. I still remember that Singapore GP under rain in which Verstappen had a really hard time climbing places and finished in 7th place.

But if we don't see anything different with weather in Miami then I will be expecting Red Bull to dominate the race as always.

Yup that or if somehow with some stroke of luck Leclerc is in the running to be in Red Bull because Verstappen couldn't drive anymore.  Lmao.  The Red Bull team is the best right now with the new specs and the sport hasn't even switched to the new engines yet.  Mercedes technically should still have the best engine on the grid.  But I wonder what's going on and why hadn't they produced a dominating car.

Anyway another ridiculous line for Verstappen at 1.12.  Makes Perez's 7 have some value imho.  The books should prolly start doing combo bets for Verstappen like to win the race and have the fastest lap for better odds.  :/

We are already now in the race weekend as it is Friday.Ferrari showed some improved performance in Baku compared to themselves but not much regarding Redbull pace as Redbull overtook Leclerc even without DRS at all in the big straight in this last week.They need desperately such massive upgrades in order to have a chance to start fighting back at Redbull but honestly I am not that optimistic as these upgrades will bring that much needed performance to beat Redbull because Redbull works to upgrade their car too.

Ferrari will soon bring updates to the SF-23, and I hope this brings some significant improvement to their cars. But for now, after a bad start to the season, only such "setup adjustments" could try to improve something in the race.
If I'm not mistaken, these updates can be applied as early as the Miami GP.
Will it have a positive result?

The original SF-23 was already coveted by many Ferrari enthusiasts, but it turned out to be far below the expected performance compared to the RedBull.

It's sad to be a Ferrari fan currently. You can see how Leclerc and Sainz has been putting their all but unfortunately, their car is really underpowered compared to Red Bull's. Only if they can come closer in the straights, but they're having that engine problem the whole season. The only way you can see Leclerc and Sainz in the podium is when something extremely unlucky happens, and that rarely happens with how well Red Bull's car performs. It will be a hard feat, but certainly not impossible as long as they make some much needed updates on the cars.

Nope, but they are speaking a lot of these updates.
In the today interview Leclerc spoken again about the big update and he said "we don't know yet if we can fight with them(Redbull)"

So I guess he is expecting a big big-time increase in performance or he could use other words.

At the test in Jerez, Honda tested a chassis from the small German manufacturer Kalex for the first time. It is actually shameful for a formerly very successful Japanese manufacturer Honda to let a small foreign company develop and produce the chassis in order to be able to compete again.



https://www.motogp.com/en/news/2023/05/04/jerez-test-tech-hrc-s-kalex-chassis-new-aero-more/454425

Other manufacturers also tested new things in Jerez, more details in the article.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/vasseur-miami-gp-the-start-of-ferrari-f1-upgrade-push/10464016/

They don't mention what kind of upgrades these will be for Ferrari and McLaren in the Miami GP. However it looks like we can see some increase in the current pace of their cars here. They had better make some improvement indeed. Because for example Ferrari's car is still far from being competitive against Red Bull's right now. If they don't make progress in this GP as well then not much thing would change about its result as well.

McLaren drivers have also been facing problems because of the car's being quite slow. McLaren still can't keep up with their rivals so they need this kind of upgrades more often to have a chance to get closer to them at least. Norris must be really disappointed about this because you know he is a really competitive driver. He can do amazing things with a faster car. It is Piastri's first season around here as well so I wonder how quick he can adapt to Formula 1 world too.

Ferrari brings updates again? Have you also heard in which direction the updates will be? On a fast lap at the slower circuits they are now back in front, but the top speed is still missing and for a full race distance they are still too slow. McLaren also need the updates urgently, they have been very disappointing this season.

The weather looks a bit stable except for the race day.

They will see, because so far Ferrari have not been able to conclusively deliver maximum performance and moreover they have not solved the problem with their tires and their main engine. Even to have to get into the top five, Lecrec and Sainz had to struggle to race their car and it seems that is their best performance. So my expectations for Ferrari to win this season and the next few seasons are not that high.

Ferrari and Mclaren are expected to have new things to test in MIAMI.

About the weather, the heavy raid is expected even if it is hot as someone above me said.

By the way we have another race weekend ahead of us in Miami. Temperatures would be really high here I guess so the teams had better be well-prepared for the track conditions. I think the difference between Red Bull and Ferrari can be even bigger here. Because Ferrari still can't do a very good job with tyre saving in harder conditions. Red Bull are like the opposite of them and they are actually the best team about that. I don't feel like we will see any other driver from a different team can make difficulties for either Verstappen or Perez here.

Perez is really dedicated right now so I will be expecting him to fight hard against Verstappen in this race also. If he can capture an advantage like he got in the Azerbaijan GP then he can even take the lead in the championship from Verstappen by the end of this race. 

It looks like the difference is huge enough that Charles failed to keep them at bay, and even when he was passed due to DRS difference, he wasn't capable of catching up to them back again with DRS, the difference is huge. Think about it this way, if you have drs and faster at straights, drs is at straights anyway, so you pass the other teams a lot easier, the difference becomes as much as 20-30 km per hour, but when you are faster and someone coming behind you with drs, the difference is 8-12 km per hour instead of 20-30.

This is why when it comes to red bull passing others, they are much faster and pass them much easier, but when it comes to defending, since they are faster, they can still defend better as well and not get caught up. Also lets not forget that their tire saving methods are better, so they can do laps consistently for longer.

I have seen a video explaining the current difference between Ferrari and Red Bull cars this season. It is explained like Red Bull have a car which is faster than their opponent at fast turns. But it is the opposite at slow ones. The Azerbaijan GP track was used as a reference to this but it is the case for the general of the season actually. Moreover Red Bull still can make up for their slow side by being faster than Ferrari on straights.

Ferrari need to bring a huge update package to their car to make their drivers be able to compete for wins. Otherwise they will continue to watch Verstappen and Perez from a long distance in every race. Leclerc was so desperate in the last race for example. Even after safety car Leclerc couldn't benefit from the advantage for a long time. This must be really annoying for him as Ferrari still can't make a competitive car for winning championships.

Of course, it depends a lot on the actually stand in the championship, but does RedBull want to go as far as they did with Hamilton vs Rosberg? For us spectators it would be very, very good, it seems at the moment that no other team could be a threat to RedBull for the whole season, I don't think so?
RedBull is still too dominant at the moment and in contrast to last season, the RedBull is also reliable.

@tokeweed I feel that Perez will stretch Max till the very final race, and it’ll be an epic rivalry between these two and while I feel that Max will prevail in the end but my gut say's that in the end Perez will stun Max, so be careful with your bets on either of them because it’s very difficult to pick a winner between these two. Also it’s pertinent to note that Hamilton who once used to be in the top 2 or top 3 drivers standing has fallen down from the top 3 spot and that’s another sign that he should call it quits and gracefully retire.

That would be something imho.  And it would show how good really Verstappen is and all the argument that it's just because of the car will come to a close.  It's pretty much the same point I was making about Vettel before during his RBR days.  If Vettel was a bad driver and just depended on the car then why can't Webber, who was a decent F1 driver himself, couldn't out race Vettel and make the competition between them close?

Anyway, it's starting to show that Perez might have other plans and wouldn't just play second fiddle.  The genius of Horner is he already got Perez's replacement ready...  Ricciardo.