Earlier, Hamilton had a strong lap going and then lost all pace in S3, so he may have backed off a little in S1 in order to keep the tires alive for the whole lap. These tires seem prone to quickly overheating.Artur Craft wrote: ↑12 May 2017, 16:48In the end, we can just speculate and your post summed it up!
Funny that Verstappen was faster than Hamilton on S1 and, with Ricciardo's S3, he would've been similar to Vettel.
Given the gaps of the top two to the other cars, I think they are hiding their pace but maybe so is RB and they could be quite close.
It was the suspension ban that hurt them. Newey more or less confirmed this in an AMUS interview today.Artur Craft wrote: ↑12 May 2017, 18:10What is the source for the alleged problems that Red Bull is said to have with correlation?
Season is pretty much done now. Even Ferrari or RBR would need 2-3 month to bring an update that big. Let alone midfield teams... Mercedes has a huge development lead. Due to their dominance in the past seasons they had the opportunity to throw all their ressources on the next car as soon as possible.Artur Craft wrote: ↑12 May 2017, 18:10Mercedes brought a big package and was 1.2s faster on the race sim, so that is completely out of reach. We need to see how big Renault's PU upgrade will be, on Canada. The best they can do with the current one is be a threat to Ferrari, who seems to have fallen behind Mercedes, considerably.
gandharva wrote: ↑12 May 2017, 22:20It was the suspension ban that hurt them. Newey more or less confirmed this in an AMUS interview today.Artur Craft wrote: ↑12 May 2017, 18:10What is the source for the alleged problems that Red Bull is said to have with correlation?
The comparison to Renault, on qualifying, is very misleading, imo. Red Bull is an awful lot faster than Renault on the race. About the Renault PU being just "slightly off", I suggest you to check out this link here to see how much Hulkenberg car loses to Mercedes and Ferrari, on the straights of Melbourne. And you can't blame it on higher downforce/drag because the Renault is terrible on the fast corners.Quantum wrote: ↑12 May 2017, 22:31The discrepancies in loss of time to Mercedes and Ferrari from last year cannot be the PU, even though the PU is slightly off the leading Merc/Ferrari units.
My reasoning on this is comparing the the times in fastest trim(Qualy) to the Renault factory team. A margin of around 2 seconds, has been reduced to something like 0.3 seconds.
You can postulate on terminologies if you like, I'm indifferent. The message is clear, the chassis and aero are bigger factors in Red Bull's deficit at this moment in time.Artur Craft wrote: ↑12 May 2017, 22:51The comparison to Renault, on qualifying, is very misleading, imo. Red Bull is an awful lot faster than Renault on the race. About the Renault PU being just "slightly off", I suggest you to check out this link here to see how much Hulkenberg car loses to Mercedes and Ferrari, on the straights of Melbourne. And you can't blame it on higher downforce/drag because the Renault is terrible on the fast corners.Quantum wrote: ↑12 May 2017, 22:31The discrepancies in loss of time to Mercedes and Ferrari from last year cannot be the PU, even though the PU is slightly off the leading Merc/Ferrari units.
My reasoning on this is comparing the the times in fastest trim(Qualy) to the Renault factory team. A margin of around 2 seconds, has been reduced to something like 0.3 seconds.
Well, the qualifying on an aero/chassis demanding track quite convincingly proved that the message was not clear and, in fact, the reality is closer to what I was saying(sorry, I'm forced to pathetically brag myself a bit now ).
It was an impressive time by Verstappen, but we'll see if they can maintain this in the race. What can be said is that Red Bull have made a clear step forward in relation to everyone, with their upgrade making the difference. Renault in fairness did only bring some new bargeboards.Artur Craft wrote: ↑13 May 2017, 16:17Well, the qualifying on an aero/chassis demanding track quite convincingly proved that the message was not clear and, in fact, the reality is closer to what I was saying(sorry, I'm forced to pathetically brag myself a bit now ).
Renault factory car was nowhere and slower than most Mercedes-powered, Haas and even Toro Rosso and Mclaren/Honda
Red Bull was there, right where I predicted, within 0.5s off pole
Is 1.7s faster than Renault and 0.5s from Mercedes/Ferrari proof enough for you guys to believe that with a competitive PU, Red Bull would be fighting for pole/wins, at the very least on some tracks? I dare say they would even dominate the field on a few tracks, given the best PU