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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Ferrari have always been strangely better at this track than they usually are anywhere else. Was in 2016 where Vettel absolutely walked away with it at the front and everyone though the Ferrari was able to challenge the Merc until normal service was resumed next race. Whats the temps out there? Ferrari tends to get better in the heat.
 
Magnusson has certainly found his mojo in the Haas. A very strong performance today to carry on from Australia.
 
Apparently there is an emergency meeting Mclaren had to explain where all the pace went

Bahrain GP: Ferrari on fire and McLaren's emergency meeting

I don't want to say this appears to be a knee jerk reaction but being slower than a Toro Rosso with its former engines as well as barely escaping Q1 in front of its major investors has landed with real egg on their face:facepalm:

Suggestions are all the senior bosses reputation are on the line from Brown, Neale and Bouillier. It seems Bouillier is the one going to take the flak if things don't improve
 
True but as we know they just ruin kimi on pit strategy As the pount of no return was passed in hungary when clearly shown how they would rather finish 1st & 3rd with a vettel win than kimi wins a ferrari 1-2
 
Maybe Kimi should do it and say nobody told me we weren't allowed to race or I think I deserved victory comment

It is not like Seb would hold station if he was told to anyway:whistle:
 
If Kimi wanted to be the favoured driver maybe he should have pulled his finger out at some point over the past decade?

He's been fast for these two races, but does anyone seriously expect that to continue? Ferrari are trying to win championships.
 
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If Kimi wanted to be the favoured driver maybe he should have pulled his finger out at some point over the past decade?

He's been fast for these two races, but does anyone seriously expect that to continue? Ferrari are trying to win championships.

That is a good point because for the last few years have been quite a number of races where kimi might as well not turned up so anonymous. But then you have sympathy because the weeks when he has rolled back the years & shouldve won ferrari be crafty & secretly ruin him like monaco/Hungary 2017 & Austraila 2018. So surely times he must thought why bother he's seemingly allowed to win up until the point he can
 
Hamilton was waiting his pit stop, detaining Vettel for a couple of seconds,
to the detriment of himself and to help Bottas.
But it is not fact that he could fight for win
 
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