Grand Prix 2018 Bahrain Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

I shall start you off with these quotes from the qualifying press conference at the Australian GP:

LH - “I can assure you we don’t have a party mode. I used the same mode from Q2 to the end of Q3. There was no extra button or mode I engaged in.”
SV - “What were you doing before then?”
LH - “I was waiting to put a good lap in and wipe the smile off your face.”

2018 Australian GP Result:

1st - Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari
2nd - Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes
3rd - Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari

It was a stunning lap from Lewis on Saturday, make no mistake, but someone needs to remind him that you don't win anything on Saturday. Vettel got lucky on Sunday with the timing of the VSC but then to win in F1 you always need a slice of luck. Pride can often preface a fall - ask Nigel Mansell in Canada in 1991.

So what have we learned in the first race of 2018? Mercedes have a very obvious qualifying advantage over all the other cars. This is a combination of the settings available to the works team and the quality of one of their drivers. Ferrari are a little behind Mercedes, sorry Lewis Hamilton, on race pace and Red Bull a little behind them. Haas have built a good car and despite everyone stating that it would be good to see another team mixing it at the front there is lots of moaning when a team takes a step foward.

Team Alonso have made some progress and, bless, Fernando would like his race engineer to be a bit more positive in his radio messages. His "safe space" has been set aside at the back of the pit garage should he get a bit stressed. Stoffel Vandoorne was also allowed to use one of the orange cars as long as he didn't take any publicity away from Fernando. Renault appear to have moved ahead of Force India and there were three other teams taking part but no one noticed. That said, Hartley did bring the Honda powered Toro Rosso home albeit a lap down even after the safety car.

So what to expect in Bahrain? Valtteri Bottas took pole last year but I suspect he has been reminded of his position in the team this year and to behave himself in Qualie. Vettel won last year, I was racking my brain as to why and then read an old report about Lewis playing silly buggers with Danny Ric in the pit lane and getting a 5 second penalty. Ah, yes.

I have visions of a 2010 type 2 x 2 procession as the cars chug round in the desert but who knows, we might have a freak thunderstorm half way through but, of course, this would result in the race being stopped as, as we all know, it's impossible to drive a car in the rain.

Hope I'm not bigging this up too much for you. We have a fight to see whether Hamilton or Vettel will win their 5th World Title this year, all the rest are also rans. Let's hope that there is some real racing to decide which of these two will match Fangio.
 
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Mercedes are not going to hold back this weekend after the VSC debacle. I wonder how big the margin to Ferrari and Red Bull will be and if Bottas can challenge Hamilton a litte bit.

McLaren were 1.8 secs off of the best Renault team, Red Bull, in Melbourne. I assumed they'd be behind Mercedes and Red Bull, didn't the Bigmouth Brown say they have the third best chassis? Let's see what they can do after getting the upgrades, but it already looks like he's going to have to eat his words, after all it is Adrian Newey who, after having completed his side projects, is diverting all his time and energy into making Red Bull a championship winning team again.
 
lets see if the upgrades will close the gap but Bahrain is one of Mclaren's bogey track. I think Mclaren can certainly get closer to the front 3 as they don't have to worry about whether the engine would start firstly

Renault were apparently running conservative engines so there is more to come from Mclaren
 
Wouldn't Renault have been running conservative engines for all its teams though? And therefore Isn't the advantage they would gain from turning them up negated?

Also Rutherford I heard in commentary at the Australian Grand Prix that Mclaren had THE best chassis on the grid apparently. Along with having THE best driver on the grid (and some other bloke) I'm expecting a podium.
 
Don’t McLaren always have the best chassis on the grid. Apparently. I thought their problems were always down to the engines, which, of course, they don’t make.
 
There was some talk in pre-season testing of the Ferrari drivers needing to lift and coast to complete a race distance simulation at Barcelona within the 105kg fuel limit.

Bahrain is the first circuit this year that will give us a clue whether that was correct or not (Safety Car periods notwithstanding).
 
Wouldn't Renault have been running conservative engines for all its teams though? And therefore Isn't the advantage they would gain from turning them up negated?

Also Rutherford I heard in commentary at the Australian Grand Prix that Mclaren had THE best chassis on the grid apparently. Along with having THE best driver on the grid (and some other bloke) I'm expecting a podium.
Uhhh, the best even... they should write it all over the car to remind people, I mean there's enough space...
 
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Raikkonen looking very good this weekend. Outqualified vettel in Melbourne & has always performed well around the circuit

So the question is how is will ferrari shaft him this week
 
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