Topic: Motosport General discussion tread --- Formula1, MotoGP, WTCC, ETCC, DTM..... - page 246. (Read 144020 times)

^  You know if Sainz had something to fight for in this qualifying I think he'd be getting the pole imho.  Sainz is faster than Leclerc at FP2, FP3 and during Q2 at qualifying.  It's too bad he'd be starting at the back of the grid no matter which spot he ended up with.

Anyway it's LEC - VER - PER.  The first 10 laps should be interesting with two Red Bull cars behind Leclerc's tail.  I feel like Verstappen will be in villain mode starting this weekend til the end of the season.

1   Charles Leclerc   MON   Scuderia Ferrari   1m31.727s   1m31.216s   1m30.872s
2   Max Verstappen   NED   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m31.891s   1m31.990s   1m31.176s
3   Sergio Perez   MEX   Oracle Bull Racing   1m32.354s   1m32.120s   1m31.335s
4   Lewis Hamilton   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team   1m33.041s   1m32.274s   1m31.765s
5   Lando Norris   GBR   McLaren F1 Team   1m32.672s   1m32.777s   1m32.032s
6   George Russell   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team   1m33.109s   1m32.633s   1m32.131s
7   Fernando Alonso   ESP   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m32.819s   1m32.631s   1m32.552s
8   Yuki Tsunoda   JPN   Scuderia AlphaTauri   1m33.394s   1m32.836s   1m32.780s
9   Carlos Sainz   ESP   Scuderia Ferrari   1m32.297s   1m31.081s   No Time Set
10   Kevin Magnussen   DEN   Haas F1 Team   1m32.756s   1m32.649s   No Time Set
11   Daniel Ricciardo   AUS   McLaren F1 Team   1m33.404s   1m32.922s   
12   Esteban Ocon   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m33.346s   1m33.048s   
13   Valtteri Bottas   FIN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Orlen   1m33.034s   1m33.052s   
14   Sebastian Vettel   GER   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m33.285s   1m33.276s   
15   Alexander Albon   THA   Williams Racing   1m33.423s   1m33.307s   
16   Pierre Gasly   FRA   Scuderia AlphaTauri   1m33.439s       
17   Lance Stroll   CAN   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m33.439s       
18   Guanyu Zhou   CHN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Orlen   1m33.674s       
19   Mick Schumacher   GER   Haas F1 Team   1m33.701s       
20   Nicholas Latifi   CAN   Williams Racing   1m33.794s       

Pole position for Ferrari with a super team play from Sainz.

It will be a hot race


Source: https://www.crash.net/f1/results/1008366/1/f1-2022-french-grand-prix-full-qualifying-results

Hamilton is getting better indeed and Russell are still keeping his general condition even though he got unlucky in the recent times. The qualifying session is going on right now and we are in Q2. While there are less than five minutes left for the end of it we see Hamilton at the 9th and Russell at the 12th positions. This is a bit alarming for them of course but they still have time to make a bigger effort to have higher positions. I don't expect any surprise honestly. We should be able to see both of them in Q3.

Is it just me, or are we seeing Lewis getting a bit better again? I mean Mercedes already had a "decent" car at the start of the season, they didn't started out like aston martin or something, they actually started as the third team directly. However, they seem to be seeing something changing these days, for the past 2 days its getting even more obvious, they are actually looking like getting in there. Meaning, we won't see just 1-2 ferrari red bull and whoever left from them at 3-4, somewhere in there would be Lewis or Russell in there somewhere between 1-4 and that would be a cool thing. I mean having a three good teams is always better, its definitely more entertaining that way.

I guess racing isn't all gambling. Ferrari and Red Bull are by far the best, and on a normal day there is no one who can come close to either team. Hamilton doesn't stand a chance either. That LeClerc or Verstappen will become world champion is 99.9%. And if that doesn't happen, then it's Perez or Sainz. I'm more curious with a view to next season what will happen to Mercedes and what Hamilton will do. Does it still want to drive this way if you're just filling? In the current state he is going to become world champion, and I don't see any significant changes taking place for the time being.

Considering the sessions so far I can say that Ferrari drivers have been in a much better condition. They have seemed a little stronger than Verstappen for example. It is important for Leclerc to turn this into an advantage in this race. It is a boring track first of all and I don't know how many nice overtakes we would be able to see. Hence winning the qualifying would play a big role for that driver. Leclerc has had a good momentum after the Austria GP and let's see if he will maintain it.

Even though we shouldn't see practice runs as anything important normally, it is still obvious that Red Bull and Ferrari will be the ones that will do better. The "funny" part is, this week Williams brought the new improvements on the new car to Latifi this week .

I think he will still be the last, at this point I feel like if they gave that seat to me or to you that wouldn't be something be shocking result, it is the same thing. I mean I would like to say that I would crash the car and can't drive it, but at the end of the day Latifi also crashes as well lol. As a big williams fan, it has been a very very tough few seasons for sure, but I am sure we will get back to being mid table soon.

This race will be gambling.

The strongest car we saw today are always Ferrari and RBR.

Ferrari seems to be faster in the single lap but it seems they also use more of their tires so for the race who knows if they can do the same amount of pit stops of RBR o they will need 1 more.

^  Yup it's getting there.  Pretty sure by Q1 at quali we get 1.31.  Maybe lower as the teams seem to like to use the softs mostly in this track. 

And it's looking good for Sainz.    It seems like Red Bull has no answer for the Ferrari upgrades.  They better have one before Italy or Leclerc is gonna start running away and rack up more points.

2022 F1 French GP FP 2 Results

1   Carlos Sainz   ESP   Scuderia Ferrari   1m32.527s
2   Charles Leclerc   MON   Scuderia Ferrari   1m32.628s
3   Max Verstappen   NED   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m33.077s
4   George Russell   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team   1m33.291s
5   Lewis Hamilton   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team   1m33.517s
6   Lando Norris   GBR   McLaren F1 Team   1m33.607s
7   Pierre Gasly   FRA   Scuderia AlphaTauri   1m33.906s
8   Kevin Magnussen   DEN   Haas F1 Team   1m33.928s
9   Daniel Ricciardo   AUS   McLaren F1 Team   1m33.984s
10   Sergio Perez   MEX   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m34.060s
11   Fernando Alonso   ESP   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m34.259s
12   Valtteri Bottas   FIN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Orlen   1m34.264s
13   Sebastian Vettel   GER   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m34.420s
14   Yuki Tsunoda   JPN   Scuderia AlphaTauri   1m34.540s
15   Lance Stroll   CAN   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m34.595s
16   Alexander Albon   THA   Williams Racing   1m34.653s
17   Guanyu Zhou   CHN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Orlen   1m34.654s
18   Esteban Ocon   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m34.660s
19   Mick Schumacher   GER   Haas F1 Team   1m35.195s
20   Nicholas Latifi   CAN   Williams Racing   1m35.412s

As always Ferrari and RBR, times will go down a lot, maybe 1.31?

We will see, incredibly hot.

I had FP1 on in the background but it just looked like FP1 was mostly dull and uneventful.  It felt like Verstappen wanted to make a statement esp after losing vs Leclerc in Red Bull's home turf.  But Leclerc took it down and I really feel like it's him who's gonna make a statement by winning all free practices and qualifying to boot.

But the race will be a coin toss if it's a Leclerc - Verstappen 1 - 2.  FP2 in a couple of hours...

Here are the results.

2022 F1 French GP FP1 Results

1   Charles Leclerc   MON   Scuderia Ferrari   1m33.930s
2   Max Verstappen   NED   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m34.021s
3   Carlos Sainz   ESP   Scuderia Ferrari   1m34.268s
4   George Russell   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team   1m34.881s
5   Pierre Gasly   FRA   Scuderia AlphaTauri   1m34.979s
6   Sergio Perez   MEX   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m35.174s
7   Lando Norris   GBR   McLaren F1 Team   1m35.232s
8   Alexander Albon   THA   Williams Racing   1m35.414s
9   Nyck de Vries   NED   Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team   1m35.426s
10   Daniel Ricciardo   AUS   McLaren F1 Team   1m35.660s
11   Guanyu Zhou   CHN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Orlen   1m35.676s
12   Lance Stroll   CAN   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m35.810s
13   Esteban Ocon   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m35.828s
14   Sebastian Vettel   GER   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m35.851s
15   Fernando Alonso   ESP   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m35.875s
16   Mick Schumacher   GER   Haas F1 Team   1m36.022s
17   Kevin Magnussen   DEN   Haas F1 Team   1m36.104s
18   Yuki Tsunoda   JPN   Scuderia AlphaTauri   1m36.127s
19   Robert Kubica   POL   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Orlen   1m36.332s
20   Nicholas Latifi   CAN   Williams Racing   1m37.043s

If you see some good clip from McLaren F1 official Instagram page you will see that last year Norris did a lot of overtaking in the "Le Castlellet" part as they call it.I highly doubt though that any McLaren can fight for a win in normal conditions,dry conditions I mean because McLaren has already stopped further development of this year car with all the focus being shifted to the 2023 car where they have promised to bring massive upgrades.

Well that is also to be seen,as a lot of times they have promised massive upgrades for the next year season and 100% of the times in this decade they failed miserably to do that,they did not deliver.

According to the article, Ferrari already had a new rear wing in Spielberg and the autor think it's a big factor for the victory at Spielberg, and it is also assumed in the article that this has improved the top speed, especially when using DRS. According to the article, the new rear wing was tested for the first time in Canada and since Silverstone both cars use the new rear wing specification.

https://www.motorsport-magazin.com/formel1/news-278251-formel-1-ferrari-sieg-in-oesterreich-dank-wunderfluegel/

And yes a penalty is very possible.

First of all, we are going to see ALL teams have a hard time, ferrari, red bull, mercedes, all of them would have a hard time. It will not be about which team does best, it is going to be about which team does the least worst. I do not know if that makes any sense, but basically everyone will get worse, but whichever gets worse less than the other ones will win this.

The question will not be pace or anything like that, it is going to be about reliability. If we see a new winner, it is going to be about how other cars had to stop, and that's the problem, if a car gets DNF that leaves other people having a bigger chance. I am waiting on a shocking Norris win eventually, and maybe this could be the one? I don't know.

It will be a fun race between Red Bull and Ferrari. Those are the teams that normally call the shots and fight for the win. We should not expect too many things from Mercedes. I still don't understand how it is that Mercedes is so far behind Red Bull and Ferrari because of the new regulations? after all, they also had to adhere to the new rules and all teams seem to have become stronger and Mercedes weaker. Very weird. Maybe Toto Wolf mismanagement?

If he doesn't get a penalty all the other drivers will complain as when they changed the unit even when it was not their fault like in the case of Sainz they still got penalized from 5-10 positions below from the one they will make in the Pole Position.I doubt this will be different for Sainz.

Beside the back wing I think they will also have the upgraded engine where we saw it last race at Austria how great it was at Haas,don't know if Leclerc will get it but Sainz who is going to be penalized most likely should test it,it can be the winning factor in this track.

Ferrari will have a new back wing from this weekend.

Also Sainz will may take a penalty for using a new engine, nothing sure yet but it is possible.

Rins is an experienced rider in MotoGP. But when he starts with a new bike next year, I think he also needs a little more adjustment for himself because the character between the Suzuki GSX-RR bike and the Honda RC213-V is very different. And you can also see how many Honda riders are able to ride the RC213-V motorcycle well

Now I'm starting to find the answer where Alex Rins is prohibited from bringing Suzuki crew to his new team. In fact, he wants to wade through MotoGP 2023 with crew chief Jose Manuel Cazeaux. Maybe Cazeaux will reunite with Vinales. The signal is getting stronger along with Rins' confession, to Motorsport.com.

I think so too, it will be a problem for some teams, last season Mercedes always had problems in very high temperatures because of their slim design. Mercedes has a very reliable engine this year, let's see if the high temperatures cause them problems. With Ferrari, I'm not sure if they will have problems in high temperatures, but the Ferrari engine has not been very reliable lately.

RedBull is difficult to assess in the high temperatures, but the high temperatures are a big burden for man and machine this weekend.

this weekend will be an interesting one for the cars.

The temperature will be very hot maybe over 40°C, so the engines will be stressed out.

Also, the use of tires will be different with this temperature.