Topic: Motosport General discussion tread --- Formula1, MotoGP, WTCC, ETCC, DTM..... - page 432. (Read 144020 times)

Another opportunity to have a "nicer" race here is if the tires will struggle for the hot temperature.
Friday some teams got problems with the tires.

The hotter it will be, the better Mercedes will do.
The silver arrows seem to love the hot temperatures with the car of this year.

Verstappen needs a very good start and if he managed to pass Hamilton he got a chance to win it. Otherwise it would be another Hamilton 1 and Verstappen 2 if nothing weirda happen.

Agree. This circuit could bring a show only with a safety car or drivers own mistakes as besides this , Barcelona never offered good shows even back in Schumacher era. I just checked the weather and they are almost zero chances to rain tomorrow but I would not count this just because a rain could always happen in Barcelona out of nowhere.

Regarding the start , I think Max has the 1st chance as I've watched F3 today and the guy who was on 2nd had the 1st entry point to the first corner which is on the right so pretty much an advantage of Max doesn't screw his start.

we already starting to have press conference questions about Russell to Mercedes.
Russell is overperforming with the Williams and if they keep pushing he will take the Bottas seat during the season. IMO

Sainz is already fast in the Ferrari, after only 4 races he managed to be often near LeClerc and we already know that Leclerc is not weak.

The only person who managed to go under 1.18 was Verstappen so I think he looks like the fastest in the practice runs, Bottas seemed very well and I believe the talks about how "Hamilton needs a better partner" is finally getting to him and he is racing very aggressively, he is literally racing on the cutting edge, one mistake and he is done and out of the race type of risky racing but that allows you to have a faster speed as long as you do not make any mistakes.

I believe the first 3 will stay as Bottas-Hamilton-Verstappen today, with top 5 probably having Lando Norris as well dude is amazing so far this season and I believe he can keep it up. However this is just qualifier, if those top cars do not end up at the bottom for some penalty or crash, that means they are going to be at the top but the race is still undecided and pole position is meaningless.

Another pole position per Hamilton and now he is even more in history.
100th pole position, 1st man in the world to achieve this result.

About the race, it will be boring if nothing unexpected like rain or safety-car will happens.
This is one of the most boring tack in the circurs.

Hamilton 1m16.741s, Verstappen 1m16.777s... 3/100ths of a second... that's hardly conclusive evidence of Mercedes superiority. Looks to me like they're quite evenly matched in qualifying pace. Of course race pace may be a different story, but we will see tomorrow. Disappointing from Perez again, not helped by that spin. We need 2x Red Bull up at the front with 2x Mercedes so that no team has a strategic advantage coming into the pit stops.

BTW 100 pole positions now for Hamilton!

I feel like we’ve been had by the F1 sports journos.  It’s obv looking like Merc is still the team to beat, not like how they made it look like RBR had the fastest car.  But we’ll see.  Lots of races left.

Anyway..  Here are the results for quali.  HAM VER BOT, get used to it. 

F1 Spanish GP Qualification Results

1   Lewis Hamilton   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team   1m18.245s   1m17.166s   1m16.741s
2   Max Verstappen   NED   Red Bull Racing   1m18.090s   1m16.922s   1m16.777s
3   Valtteri Bottas   FIN   Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team   1m18.005s   1m17.142s   1m16.873s
4   Charles Leclerc   MON   Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow   1m18.041s   1m17.717s   1m17.510s
5   Esteban Ocon   FRA   Alpine F1 Team   1m18.281s   1m17.743s   1m17.580s
6   Carlos Sainz   ESP   Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow   1m18.205s   1m17.656s   1m17.620s
7   Daniel Ricciardo   AUS   McLaren F1 Team   1m18.264s   1m17.719s   1m17.622s
8   Sergio Perez   MEX   Red Bull Racing   1m18.203s   1m17.669s   1m17.701s
9   Lando Norris   GBR   McLaren F1 Team   1m17.821s   1m17.696s   1m18.010s
10   Fernando Alonso   ESP   Alpine F1 Team   1m18.281s   1m17.966s   1m18.147s
11   Lance Stroll   CAN   Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team   1m18.241a   1m17.974s   
12   Pierre Gasly   FRA   Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda   1m18.190s   1m17.982s   
13   Sebastian Vettel   GER   Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team   1m18.289s   1m18.079s   
14   Antonio Giovinazzi   ITA   Alfa Romeo Racing Orlen   1m18.549s   1m18.356s   
15   George Russell   GBR   Williams Racing   1m18.445s   1m19.154s   
16   Yuki Tsunoda   JPN   Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda   1m18.556s       
17   Kimi Raikkonen   FIN   Alfa Romeo Racing Orlen   1m18.917s       
18   Mick Schumacher   GER   Uralkali Haas F1 Team   1m19.405s       
19   Nicholas Latifi   CAN   Williams Racing   1m19.431s       
20   Nikita Mazepin   RUS   Uralkali Haas F1 Team   1m20.560s       

Max was still happy with the first day and he didn't got a good chance to set a good lap in FP2. Lets see what today brings.

Bottas could win the qualify for what I saw this afternoon but we already know he has like an 80% of fail in the GPS.

He is the perfect second driver nothing more, he will lose 99% of the time versus hamilton in a 1 v 1 situation.

4.1 are nice odds.

^  Betting markets are up.  If the RBR’s are really slow and not sand bagging this weekend, what do you think of Bottas to win quali at 4.1?  Seems like it’s a lot of value to me since Bottas at times look like he has more single lap speed than Hamilton.

Strong performance by Leclerc.
I'm not sure if Ferrari is the 3rd team here.

I can see a weaker Redbull and a strong Alpine/AlphaTauri in this track.

Probably Mercedes and Redbull are hiding something and they have more horsepower in their engine otherwise if will end like this I will start doubting the strength of Redbull for competing for the title.

I feel like RBR and the McLaren guys are sand bagging.  It would be interesting to see what the lines are like when the F1 betting market opens.  Hope to see some value go towards Norris and Ricciardo in points finish market.

F1 Spanish GP FP2 Results

1  Lewis Hamilton   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team   1m18.170s
2  Valtteri Bottas   FIN   Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team   1m18.309s
3  Charles Leclerc   MON   Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow   1m18.335s
4  Esteban Ocon   FRA   Alpine F1 Team   1m18.466s
5  Fernando Alonso   ESP   Alpine F1 Team   1m18.518s
6  Pierre Gasly   FRA   Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda   1m18.593s
7  Yuki Tsunoda   JPN   Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda   1m18.619s
8  Carlos Sainz   ESP   Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow   1m18.674s
9  Max Verstappen   NED   Red Bull Racing   1m18.785s
10  Sergio Perez   MEX   Red Bull Racing   1m18.918s
11  Sebastian Vettel   GER   Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team   1m18.947s
12  Lando Norris   GBR   McLaren F1 Team   1m19.092s
13  Antonio Giovinazzi   ITA   Alfa Romeo Racing Orlen   1m19.122s
14  Lance Stroll   CAN   Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team   1m19.134s
15  Daniel Ricciardo   AUS   McLaren F1 Team   1m19.195s
16  Kimi Raikkonen   FIN   Alfa Romeo Racing Orlen   1m19.213s
17  George Russell   GBR   Williams Racing   1m19.957s
18  Nicholas Latifi   CAN   Williams Racing   1m20.046s
19  Mick Schumacher   GER   Uralkali Haas F1 Team   1m20.326s
20  Nikita Mazepin   RUS   Uralkali Haas F1 Team   1m20.753

Yep for sure. Maybe already earlier but don't know if those rumours are really based on something.

In the meantime Bottas was again the fastest driver at FP1.

I also think that Russell will drive for Mercedes next year, he is definitely the future for the Mercedes team, just wait and see how long Hamilton will drive and how strong the car is after the rule changes. For me it will also be interesting how "greedy" Hamilton is in the contract negotiations and whether Mercedes wants to overpay that.

Not only so far.
He is the most wanted from Mercedes for 2 years now.

he won the f3 title in his 1st year, the f2 title in his 1st year...

Mercedes wanted him the last year over Bottas but Williams said no since they needed to keep the appeal for selling the team...

Next year he will race with Hamilton, mark my words.

Yeah, all he needs is a season or two under his belt and he would be better than Bottas right away, after that it is just about how Mercedes would have a racer to replace Hamilton when he retires, he will be that good.

Red Bull situation is different, Mercedes just has a much better car than anyone else and it is not that easy to suddenly spend money and be better, even if you inject 1 billion dollars cash, it is not sudden and they obviously are not doing that, so even if we will see an improvement, it is going to be gradual and tiny each season.

Russell is definitely a big up and coming name, he has been racing incredibly well so far. Last year he had just one race where he could show what he could do but obviously he was way too scared of the management so when he was asked to do something he did that and he was scared when racing as well so he didn't do as well as hoped.

However given enough time and experience that dude could become much much more than bottas ever was.

I already read some rumours that Mercedes wants to have Rusell in Bottas place during this season. They aren't that happy how Bottas performed in the last races.

https://www.planetf1.com/news/george-russell-replace-valtteri-bottas-rumours/

I really love the Brazilian GP. But we also know that how much terrible the covid-19 condition there is. They don't want to take a big risk by letting the race happen, of course. There are still 6 months though. Maybe we can see it happening if things get much better at Brazil in time.