2015 Spanish Grand Prix - Circuit de Catalunya - 8-10 May

[PistoniRoventi]

What a good job Bottas did defending is position against Hamilton, that was the highlight of the race

[matt_b]

Nico was under no pressure so the win was expected, he earned that luxury with a great qualifying and start off the line. On this type of track along with Monaco (maybe Hungary) you cant afford a bad start or you end up stuck. Bottas once again so strong at holding off faster cars at the end of races.

[f1316]

I'd be interested to see a bit more on sector times. At the start of the race I had the perception from following the gaps that Vettel was closing the gap a bit in sector one only to lose a lot more than that on the next two sectors.

Might be off base, but I had the perception that Ferrari were pretty good in that setor, which has a lot of the longer corners.

[evered7]

Mercedes 1-2 which was in no doubt since FP2. Nico must be thanking his stars for the good start. Hamilton couldn't get past Vettel even with such a big pace difference.

Ferrari just can't solve the Williams puzzle. The straight line speed advantage proving to be the stumbling block this time.

STRs falling like a pack of cards in the race was funny to see. Went for glory in the Q's and relegated to the correct spots in the race.

Don't have high hopes for Monaco but Mercedes battle should be interesting unless Vettel manages to split them at the start there as well.

[oT v1]

hasn't Spain got some other tracks! I'm not sure Monaco is going to help with the TV experience either. Well done Nico and Bottas, not saying much though

[zeph]

Maldonado has the worst luck.

I feel asleep from lap 45 to 62 or so. Says it all, really. Well done to ROS and SAI.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

The BIG HYPE is busted. The 70% new car, only went backwards on both qualifying and race, with 0.8 second in quali and 45 seconds in race. Much hyped tyre advantage is also gone with the wind. Merc beat them on both strategies. Ferrari is slowly realizing that Merc has just been playing "Carrot and stick" game with them. Ferrari's upgrades failed to work as the gap on one hand to Merc increased, but on the other, the gap to Williams, remained pretty much what it was! The "Half a Second" is stuck somewhere in their wind tunnel, which has refused to come to track. Someone must tell Ferrari that, truck load of Metal and Fibre isn't called upgrades and making big statements isn't how they can make progress. Someone must surely take responsibility of the failure (No more firing please...), as much as the praise showered on Mr. Allison for Malaysia win. Alonso or Vettel, Ferrari engineers doesn't know how to make a car go faster. There is simply a big void in their creative thinking.

Merc is still using their first ICE compared to Ferrari, whose Second ICE has already done 3 races. Constructors' championship is almost reaching its destiny with Merc leading by 70 points. The driver's championship is surely settling into two horse race. Once again Mercedes proving their capabilities of resolving problems effectively, as the break by wire failure was nowhere in sight although Lewis was in Traffic most part of the race.

I am sure Ferrari and Ferrari supporters (I am an ex) understand that there is no miracle to ascend to pinnacle. The tower must be built with one brick at a time. Whether it was Ferrari's 2000 era, Red Bull's 2010 era or Merc's 2014 era, all have taken great deal of planning and step by step progress towards reaching the top. I remember in 2011, Christian Horner made a statement on Merc after Australian GP, "Mercedes must be happy that both their cars retired, because otherwise they would have known how slow they are". None from Mercedes camp made any noise and kept their head down and worked hard.

Ricciardo is the new Alonso for Red Bull and Ferrari should try to get this man and dump Kimi. I like him more than Bottas, although Bottas is equally good driver. =D>

[giantfan10]

Hopefully that made you feel better lol ...we knew mercedes were faster on the hard tire all weekend... we also know the driver leading after the first couple laps will more than likely win the GP... nothing unusual happened today ...

[SectorOne]

Hopefully that made you feel better lol ...we knew mercedes were faster on the hard tire all weekend... we also know the driver leading after the first couple laps will more than likely win the GP... nothing unusual happened today ...

They were faster on all tires. On all strategies, with better tire life.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Hopefully that made you feel better lol ...we knew mercedes were faster on the hard tire all weekend... we also know the driver leading after the first couple laps will more than likely win the GP... nothing unusual happened today ...

If you think, criticizing Ferrari's pathetic state of affairs and expecting better accountability from one of History's greatest teams, makes me feel better, i pity you.

[dans79]

The thing that's sad, is that Ferrari seems to have real problems in the areo department. It's been been their biggest weakness for going on 3 or 4 years now.

[ferkan]

GPR-A you sound pretty relieved with Ferraris performance. I dont think they should get as much stick you are giving them atm. They made no big claims about upgrades AT ALL. 70% of car changed is a matter of a fact, but no body said the car is 70% better for it. Gap that Merc had just doesnt evaporate that quickly, especially at the track they are best at. At least Ferrari kept them honest from beginning of the season in comparison to other teams that fall even further back.

Anyway, gap is big, especially in S3. Can they make good enough job by the end of the year to give Merc harder time it remains to be seen, but bringing this kind of update to track proves they mean business. Hopefully they can do something with it in comming race, but there is no point to expect miracles when no one from Ferrari promised them.

Best thing about all this is that it actually destroys a myth of Hamilton making W06 looking faster and out driving car, while Rosberg drives to its true capabilities. W06 is flat out track bully at this stage and its impressive Vettel was relatively good as he was with clearly much inferior machinery.

[henra]

If you think, criticizing Ferrari's pathetic state of affairs and expecting better accountability from one of History's greatest teams, makes me feel better, i pity you.

Come on, don't be so harsh that they didn't jump from 4th fastest to fastest in one season and with no rule Change.
Compared to where they were last year they have made huge Progress.
Yes, it is somewhat alarming that their huge visible upgrade didn't seem to yield the expected results. On the other Hand, if you change too many things at once this happens frequently. They should now use the test to run through the individual upgrades and evaluate where things went wrong. With the hard tyre the Problems seedmed to be significantly worse than with the Meds.
Indeed Aero wise Merc still seems to be massively in front. And it would be foolish to assume that Merc will loose all its epic advantage they had last year over the winter. Just look what happened to RB. Last year clear 2nd. This year 4th even threathened by their smaller sister Team TR. Compared to that Ferrari is doing a great Job. But No I don't expect them to fully catch up to Merc this year.
Edit:
Regarding the gap I wouldn't be too surprised if Seb backed off once Lewis passed him after the last stop in order to save the engine and components. Also his fuel consumption was pretty high when he was fighting with Lewis. There was a Point towards the end where the others around him had consumed 84,5kg and he 86 kg. Those two aspects are probably responsible for the final gap being much higher than it should have been also when looking at his performance earlier in the race where he could roughly follow Nico.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

but bringing this kind of update to track proves they mean business.

This has been the most frustrating aspect, isn't it? Year after year, their upgrades are not working. First they blamed the fault in wind tunnel, used a Toyota wind tunnel, changed their own but the results are still, failing upgrades or worthless upgrades. They have surprisingly made good progress over PU, but nothing really in terms of chassis and upgrades.

Compared to where they were last year they have made huge Progress.
Yes, it is somewhat alarming that their huge visible upgrade didn't seem to yield the expected results. On the other Hand, if you change too many things at once this happens frequently. They should now use the test to run through the individual upgrades and evaluate where things went wrong. With the hard tyre the Problems seedmed to be significantly worse than with the Meds.

Don't you think Ferrari's rise to the top is also heavily contributed from the fact that RBR have slipped down badly and William's lack of growth plus no hope situation of McLaren? Last year also, a lot of people were beating their chest and telling that, Ferrari have a great aero package but are struggling with PU. Now they have made progress on PU, but relatively stagnant on their chassis.
Ferrari seems to have got delusional based on early race results and went over ambitious to bolt on so many changes. Instead of remaining realistic of where they are coming from and where they want to be, they suddenly seemed to imagine that now they are championship contenders. The result is, there is so of much head scratching to do to understand what went wrong with their package, which means huge waste of time, allowing further progress for Merc. When will they ever learn?

[ferkan]

Not sure if they are not working. Theyve been 1-1.5 second behind in testing on this track. 7-8 tenths is alot, bu considering how much they lost in final sector (traction and slow corners) maybe problems are not solely on chassis side.

My point is that bringing that kind of update doesnt just mean progress without problems. Horner said the same thing yesterday. I guess Ferrari is agressive here in Barca so they can test updates on the two testing days as well. I just wouldnt be jumping the gun saying updates didnt work when Marc Gene and Vettel both said they did.

They bolted parts when they were finished. Merc changed FW and RW in China, Ferrari made no changes for first 4 races.