Topic: Motosport General discussion tread --- Formula1, MotoGP, WTCC, ETCC, DTM..... - page 85. (Read 141509 times)

I'm going to make a bold prediction!

Leclerc to win the race and gather 1st position in the first couple of laps.

Piastri to finish second and consolidate McLaren even further and also a nice way to end the year as a rookie.

Max to not finish the race....a bit of karma for him for 2021 end of the season would be nice and fair.

Martin did exactly what he was supposed to do and Bagnaia scored important points. But Martin also has to win today, yesterday it was a bit close with Binder.

It will be an exciting race today where a lot can happen, at least the other riders will try to stay out of the fight and not attack the two too aggressively.

Should Bagnaia win, he would be the first rider after Rossi and Marc Marques to successfully defend his MotoGP title.

Lately the strategy of Ferrari in these recent races has been very good and they have been able to do much better in the race rather than in qualifying.I know that Mercedes are just a bit more favored to win that second place in the constructors Championship but Ferrari as I said in the last races have been doing much better than Mercedes and they have even been able to fight against Redbull for some fragments in a race,based on this I would bet a lot of money for Ferrari to be second in the constructors Championship yet I don't see this as a bet in my casino where I play.

The competition between Ferari and Mercedes to win the second place is quite fierce, because Lecrec is in P2 and Russel in P4 in the race later. But I think that Mercedes might be able to maintain their second place, because Mercedes drivers are in a good position (P4 and P11) compared to Ferari (P2 and P16). But I don't know, maybe Ferari could get a second place in the race later if the strategy team did not do the blunder as they used to do.

Bagnaia lost points today.

Everything will be decided tomorrow, he just needs to end in 5th position to be the champion regardless of what Martil will be able to do.

Maybe what happened to Martin in Qatar will not happen again in Valencia, but tomorrow is quite an important day for Bagnaia in confirming his position. Because Martin will continue to appear persistent and will also use all his abilities to win the race, Bagnaia must be able to ensure that he finishes near the podium, such as in fourth position.

So tomorrow will be a decisive day for Bagnaia and Martin in their struggle for a full season in MotoGP this season so that tomorrow will be quite an important day for both of them and will be the day of their final fight this season for the championship title. And Bagnaia must not be too relaxed as he showed today in the Sprint Race.

The F1 race of tomorrow promises to be a good one judging by the places how the drivers are lined up,it is pretty disperse between them all with some good drivers like Perez and Sainz starting way behind,together with Hamilton.I think there will be no surprises unfortunately for tomorrow race as most likely Redbull is going to dominate the race,we know Ferrari is great at a single lap being a super fast car but rarely we have seen a Ferrari behaving well in the race except that time where Sainz won actually a race with Ferrari during this year.

Not just for Bagnaia, calm is also necessary for Martin in the final race tomorrow.
The pressure that Martin is facing could lead to risks for him because Martin's emotions after getting points in the sprint race will peak because the distance between Bagnaia and Bagnaia is already small.

For Bagnaia, another important thing apart from avoiding accidents and not dropping out, is that the results of the sprint race must be used as an evaluation to get the desired results in tomorrow's race.
Pecco must forget the thought that he could already be world champion if he doesn't want to fail.

Bagnaia played very calmly in today's sprint and managed to finish fifth and Marti managed to reduce the points gap with Bagnaia to 14 and for today no one can blame Martin because he managed to get a podium for him, for tomorrow's race it will certainly be very interesting for us to see Whether Martin can get his first podium like today or whether the incident that happened in Qatar will happen again.

Bagnaia will just try to stay calm and not take too many risks that could harm him in tomorrow's Sprint and Race sessions, because from the qualifying session this is also the case where Bagnaia always enters the pit early and also always stops early even though he still has time for one more lap. Martin continued to blame the front tire for shaking, which made Michelin respond because all the tires were distributed the same and nothing was different in any way. And I will wait for the Sprint which will be held soon because maybe this Sprint will be really fierce.

With the qualification result, Pecco has a great chance to lock the world champion in the sprint race with some possible scenarios.
The best scenario is if Pecco win the sprint race while Martin finish on 3rd or even worse.
As long as Pecco gain 5 or more points than Martin in the sprint race, he will be the 2023 champion.
Without a doubt it is a big pressure to Martin as he has to play all out in the sprint race to finish in better position than Pecco or at least to finish behind Pecco if he want to keep his chance for the championship title.

Russell also topped FP3 with Hamilton lagging way behind.  It looks like Hamilton to finish the podium at 2.90 might not value at all.  Lol.  But let's see at qualifying...  That's when the drivers take it more seriously.  FP1 and FP2 are more for tweaking the cars.  FP3, they take it a tad more seriously and find out how fast they really are on the track.  Quali is when they take off the gloves are and pull out all the stops.  But then again if Hamilton was just sand bagging, he wouldn't be way behind in FP3.  Lmao.  

Anyway, last race of the season guys...  Hope it's a good one.

In any case, Bagnaia got the better starting position in qualifying. Martin now has even more pressure and has to attack, Bagnaia will take the race safely today and wait and see what happens, the important thing for Bagnaia is not to have an accident and not drop out.

Yeah but I didn't get surprised when I saw this many 3rd drivers on track unlike many people. Because it is the final race of the season so the teams want to give their 3rd drivers a chance to gain some extra experience. Apart from that I assume they are obliged to have their 3rd drivers on track in FP1 at least for once during a season.

I'm quite excited about the ongoing fight between Ferrari and Mercedes for the 2nd spot. That slight gap can surely be closed here so Mercedes had better be wide awake in Abu Dhabi. 

It was a story last week that may still be a question mark as to whether Martin was actually on very bad tires or not. However, this week Martin also has to focus more on the last round by no longer thinking about what happened in Qatar last week, because his target this week is to win the Sprint and Race sessions which will be quite important for Martin.

I also think like that and in two sessions (including the session I'm watching now) it was very clear that Martin really insisted on being at the front so he could get a better position during the Sprint and Race later. Now the Practice session is underway and there is still enough time for each rider to set the best time to enter Q2.

1   George Russell   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m26.072s
2   Felipe Drugovich   BRA   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m26.360s
3   Daniel Ricciardo   AUS   Scuderia AlphaTauri   1m26.433s
4   Valtteri Bottas   FIN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake   1m26.453s
5   Oscar Piastri   AUS   McLaren F1 Team   1m26.631s
5   Lance Stroll   CAN   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m26.665s
7   Carlos Sainz   ESP   Scuderia Ferrari   1m26.676s
8   Robert Shwartzman   ISR   Scuderia Ferrari   1m26.703s
9   Pierre Gasly   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m26.720s
10   Yuki Tsunoda   JPN   Scuderia AlphaTauri   1m26.725s
11   Logan Sargeant   USA   Williams Racing   1m26.742s
12   Frederik Vesti   DEN   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m26.815s
13   Jack Doohan   AUS   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m26.865s
14   Theo Pourchaire   FRA   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake   1m27.093s
15   Patricio O'Ward   MEX   McLaren F1 Team   1m27.114s
16   Jake Dennis   GBR   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m27.208s
17   Isack Hadjar   FRA   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m27.244s
18   Zak O'Sullivan   GBR   Williams Racing   1m27.460s
19   Kevin Magnussen   DEN   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m27.462s
20   Oliver Bearman   GBR   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m27.569s

Source: https://www.crash.net/f1/results/1041750/1/f1-abu-dhabi-grand-prix-2023-friday-practice-results

Many 3rd drivers in this 1st hour of practice.

The track will also improve a lot cause sand is on track here always every year in the 1st hour.

The last two seasons here I have seen Mercedes doing better than Ferrari and most likely this will be the same in this weekend too so I would be surprised if Mercedes does not win the second place,of course taking into consideration that they will do well as in the last 2 seasons.If Ferrari performs like last race and also Mercedes performs that badly as they did in the last race then most likely Ferrari will get the second spot,I am curious to see if the bookies offer a market for this as it would be a good one to have a bet to enjoy the weekend,we cannot enjoy Verstappen winning every race.

Oooh, you're right.  Without including Red Bull in the mix as they have good down force and will be fast on these turns, I guess it's safe to say that Mercedes has the slight advantage over Ferrrari?  If so then there could be value in Hamilton to the podium at 2.90.  The books are giving Norris and Perez the edge over Hamilton but not really sure how those guys fare this weekend and usually they're not really worth the line they're given by the bookies.

And here's where the books contradict themselves...  They give Perez an edge over Hamilton but in the Red Bull both cars to finish in the podium market 'No' is at 1.72.

Mercedes will surely go balls to the wall with this one in order to snag the second place. They have to prove that they are still a good racing team than Ferrari who has had a lot of reliability issues in their car for the season. While Sainz is driving pretty good for Ferrari and often times step up when Leclerc is having problems, Hamilton is still a good driver that knows how to push his car to the max when needed. With these many curves and bends, Ferrari better take the lead from Mercedes early on and keep a comfortable gap specially during the straights which Ferrari is very good at.

We are really close to finish this season in Formula 1. There is still a competition between Mercedes and Ferrari for the second position in the constructor standings. The point gap is only 4 now. This big competition must be the main reason why Toto Wolff complained about Sainz's not getting a grid penalty first in Las Vegas. 

Sainz still showed a great performance and finished ahead of both Mercedes drivers. Here Ferrari will need to stay ahead of Mercedes once again if they want to capture the position just at the end of the season. This track isn't like Las Vegas though but let's see.