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Friggin' finally. Just a few short days from the Australian GP and the start of the season.

Let's see, the Ferrari hype train has been hilarious to watch--everyone's convinced they were sandbagging incredibly hard during the pre-season testing. Merc recently floated that they have added 70bhp to their power unit in the offseason. Red Bull has been fairly quiet, but remains optimistic. Force India is pink. Williams looks much better than it did last year. STR is back to using Renault power. McLaren is getting paid 100 million dollars to use Honda "power" and still wants to ditch them for 2018. Haas may be able to score points with both cars this year. Renault...hmm, they've been quiet too. And since Manor's gone, Sauber is the only thing between us and 3 car teams up front.

The new cars look sexy as hell. Now we just hope that the racing is as good.

Just read an article in BBC News about the new season. Interesting changes in handling characteristics; now let's wait and see how it plays out in an actual race.

Hamilton should be favourite. Bottas I see slotting in as a comfortable #2 driver. Who know he may surprise. The unknown is how good Ferrari are. If they've managed to get within a few tenths we should have a good fight on our hands.

Alferd Packer wrote:The new cars look sexy as hell. Now we just hope that the racing is as good.

I'm gonna disagree with you there. I hate all the barge boards and extra aero they stick on. When they streamlined the cars and cleaned up the aero, I thought they finally looked good again. They're just so busy with body work again, I feel they look distracting.

I think they look better then the old ones, but not by much, certainly is a bit busy looking. But they do need changes, I'm in the bandwagon of people who really just lost interest in the sport owing to constant technical changes and ugly ass cars in the great long term fallout from the end of cancer advertising. If the sport doesn't push limits and look good doing it then it's jut pointless.

I think the one of the problems is that open wheel motorsport has been orbiting around a distinct point for the last 20 years: the point at which a human being can drive the car as designed. Famously, CART (one of the precursors to IndyCar) had to scrap an oval race back in the late 90s because the drivers were pulling 6Gs for most of the lap and starting to black out after 5-10 minutes. So you change the regs every few years, and yes, you may make the car a few seconds faster or a few seconds slower, but it's not going to be world-changing. Any large change to the regs could result in an undrivabely fast car, so you oscillate around some kind of optimum. The FIA has swung back towards the fast side of the optimum, but probably have not overshot it. Ongoing development of the cars, however, may change that.

So Ferrari close, Grojean pulled off a nice lap, and McHonda managed to not explode an engine yet. Really loving the extra pips for the timing loops instead of just the three sectors. Some interesting big gaps between some teammates (Gro vs Mag especially).

Nice quali session all up.

atg wrote:So Ferrari close, Grojean pulled off a nice lap, and McHonda managed to not explode an engine yet. Really loving the extra pips for the timing loops instead of just the three sectors. Some interesting big gaps between some teammates (Gro vs Mag especially).

Nice quali session all up.

Yeah, that was a pretty wide gap. I mean, I'm sure some of it is getting used to the car, and some of it was that shit third sector that Magnussen had. I think the main thing Grosjean's performance shows is that the Ferrari PU is really strong this year--they are, after all, the only team other than the works team using the 2017 PU. Which, of course, is backed up by Seb squeaking through to second place.

Of more interest to me is Palmer and 2015 Le Mans winner Nico Hulkenberg. That's over 3 seconds difference in their quali efforts. Is Hulkenberg that good, or is Palmer that bad? Massa and Stroll make sense--Stroll's just a kid, and Massa is a tried and tested veteran. Still, a mixed up grid like this is going to make for a potentially fun race tomorrow. I'm actually debating staying up to watch it. We'll see...

As always, I hate Sebastian Vettel.

Ferrari confirmed they were definitely sandbagging in FP and they combined a fast car (I'm surprised tbh) with a great strategy (I'm shocked tbh). Mercedes has had it too easy for too long, it'll be good seeing Lewis and the Mercedes boys figure out how to win again.

Fuck Vettel, though.

Some "interesting" new colour schemes this year. Not sure I like the look of the toy car appearance of some of them, but the big pink lipstick (i.e. Force India) just looks weird.

Did anyone see what happened to Magnusson and Ericson (I think) right at the beginning, that made them go spinny-spinny off into the gravel? I don't think we ever got a replay.

SpottedKitty wrote:Did anyone see what happened to Magnusson and Ericson (I think) right at the beginning, that made them go spinny-spinny off into the gravel? I don't think we ever got a replay.

I think MAG turned in on him and they both got collected. Bad weekend for Haas, and a fairly high attrition rate overall during the race.

Phantasee wrote:As always, I hate Sebastian Vettel.

Ferrari confirmed they were definitely sandbagging in FP and they combined a fast car (I'm surprised tbh) with a great strategy (I'm shocked tbh). Mercedes has had it too easy for too long, it'll be good seeing Lewis and the Mercedes boys figure out how to win again.

Fuck Vettel, though.

It was a great race and I am just as surprised at Vettel's great performance (much better than Kimi). I am surrprised at how much trouble Hamilton had with Bottas.

I think the Mercs really got their setup wrong--that seems to the scuttlebutt, anyway--and they also had a bad pit strategy for Lewis. That said, great on Ferrari for capitalizing on those mistakes. Also, Seb was able to open up a 9 second lead at one point, so their car is definitely no slouch. I still think the safe money is on Mercedes and Hamilton, but it's definitely going to be more interesting this year.

Fernando Alonso is skipping the Monaco GP this year in favor of racing in the Indy 500.

Wow. Maybe allowing this excursion was the only way McLaren was able to keep him for the rest of the season.

I have to say that this season is far more exciting than last time.

Thanas wrote:I have to say that this season is far more exciting than last time.

So far, so good. I was encouraged by last week's GP. Even when the track dried out, there was still plenty of overtaking, and the Max/Daniel fight towards the end for the podium was great stuff.

I am a little concerned about the attrition rate, but that may just be down to the teams getting used to the new cars.

Alferd Packer wrote:I am a little concerned about the attrition rate, but that may just be down to the teams getting used to the new cars.

Nothing all that unusual, IMHO. Didn't the same sort of thing happen a few years back, when the dual-power designs were first introduced?

Yeah and any major rule change is going to break cars considering how restricted testing time now is.

GRANDE SEBASTIANO.

That was a fun GP. There is less passing overall, but the racing is much better, especially at the front. And the mere fact that you don't know who's going to win the race after the end of the first lap makes it soooo much better.

Some interesting clonks, too. Bad luck for Verstappen getting that brake failure, he was doing well. As for Stoll and Sainz... deary deary me...

Hamilton should be driver no.2 on his team, Bottas has been driving far better for weeks now. Hamilton just cannot save tyres, only can lead from front in mercedes.


Oh and Ted from BBC can just fuck off with his nico rosberg hate. Surprised Lauda hasn't murdered him yet...

Thanas wrote:Hamilton should be driver no.2 on his team, Bottas has been driving far better for weeks now. Hamilton just cannot save tyres, only can lead from front in mercedes.

You serious? Bottas spun out under the safety car in China and was far slower in Bahrain. Hamilton's had one bad race in Russia which seems to have been car related overheating, not driver related. Not sure where you are getting this 'cannot save tyres' from.

Yet another "deary deary me" for Alonso...

A good race from Bottas, though, I was hoping he'd be able to keep that Ferrari in his rear-view mirror.

SpottedKitty wrote:Yet another "deary deary me" for Alonso...

A good race from Bottas, though, I was hoping he'd be able to keep that Ferrari in his rear-view mirror.

Wonder what Sauber are thinking of their Honda move at the moment... Apparently Honda have said they'll have massive improvements by mid-season but we've heard that before.