2018 Belgian Grand Prix - Spa Francorchamps, 24-26 August

[GPR-A duplicate2]

It is intriguing practices yesterday. Mercedes and Ferrari sort of trying to measure each other. In FP3, after both Ferraris flew at the start on SuperSofts, Hamilton came out on softs and equal that time. Which sort of dragged the Ferraris to come out and show their hand. Ultimately the FP3 was very close. The contest went on till Q2, where the difference was lezs than a tenth.

How much more was available, remains a mistery for now. I was gauging the customer teams to see what we can find. Haas made half a second jump from Q1 to Q2 and FI made a full second jump in the same time frame. Andy Green from FI claimed that, Haas had fully turned on the engine in Q2.



https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... ergleich/

"The sector 2 delta remained fairly consistent throughout the training. In Sectors 1 and 2 we were able to catch up more and more as training progressed. It could be interpreted as meaning that we had more power in our hands than Ferrari. But that's just an assumption because we do not know how much Ferrari could have turned up in Q3, "a Mercedes man said. Force India technical director Andy Green drew a comparison to Ferrari's HaasF1 customer team. "According to our measurements, they turned on the engine in Q2. And there came a lot of power. "

[Fulcrum]

One more thing; Hamilton is a bit vulnerable alone at front without Bottas. Kimi could play into Vettels hands on strategy.

Vettel is pretty vulnerable himself, Ocon and Perez will be fast down the strait, and won't really care about crashing or the championship, just getting the best possible finish. Not to mention If Kimi has one of his typical starts he might get jumped by Max & Daniel and find himself in 8th or 9th by the end of the first lap. If that happens he won't be much of a factor unless the first stint is really short.

I think Kimi will overcompensate again, like Austria, and possibly have a 1st lap incident with Ocon/Perez/Grosjean. Net result being he loses places.

[iotar__]

One more thing; Hamilton is a bit vulnerable alone at front without Bottas. Kimi could play into Vettels hands on strategy.

Vettel is pretty vulnerable himself, Ocon and Perez will be fast down the strait, and won't really care about crashing or the championship, just getting the best possible finish. Not to mention If Kimi has one of his typical starts he might get jumped by Max & Daniel and find himself in 8th or 9th by the end of the first lap. If that happens he won't be much of a factor unless the first stint is really short.

I think Kimi will overcompensate again, like Austria, and possibly have a 1st lap incident with Ocon/Perez/Grosjean. Net result being he loses places.

What? Poor two front row starters with best cars by a mile and no competition , non existent from other teams and taken care of from theirs. How much more vulnerable can you get?

"Ocon and Perez will be fast down the strait, and won't really care about crashing or the championship, just getting the best possible finish"
Wouldn't crashing prevent that? FI will be also a car in a different league in every aspect, + 2 s slower and with a worse engine, what a danger to our heroes.

"Hamilton is a bit vulnerable alone at front without Bottas"
This one is not that bad but still. Pole and limited competition, what will the candidate for world championship do without his team-mate blocking the opposition? Plus Raikkonen starts sixth. This is the state of F1 .

[Justthatek]

I think it will either be boring as hell, or a TITANIC nail biter!

Maybe Ocon locking up into turn 1 and taking out the top 2 and giving Perez the win?

Grosjean taking everyone out in the first corner sounds more plausible.

[Gr1ff]

I hope one day Hamilton will drive for Ferrari so he will finally be appreciated.

Great qualifying. I hope there will be a good battle between Seb and Lewis tomorrow.

Hamilton doesn't need to be a Ferrari driver to be appreciated. He has driven an entire career at an incredible level. Formula 1 fans have a habit of being drowned in nostalgia and putting down current drivers. Once Hamilton and Vettel retire, we're going to appreciate what we're watching at the moment. It is the stuff of legends!

I’ve said that all along. The very second Hamilton (and Vettel) retire and we lose them and see the massive hole left behind they will be put up there with Prost, Senna, Schumacher, etc. By that point it will however be too late.

I’m enjoying the here and now. Others need to do the same. See this situation for what it is folks, please just watch the skill and actually enjoy it.

Couldn't agree more. I'm English and a Hamilton fan. So it's strange to be on the side of a sportsman who always seems to bring out the best in himself at the right times. Not something English sportsman are know for Can imagine that's what German football fans have felt days gone past.

[Morteza]

[Ringleheim]

Ferrari's pace is generally faster than Mercedes, so I'm not too worried about the actual race. Especially with DRS and being on a real race track where passing is easy. Vettel will be leading shortly after the race starts. He might be leading heading into Eau Rouge on Lap 1 given the Ferrari's excellent starts.

Ferrari definitely screwed up Kimi's qualifying. Not enough gas in the car maybe? He needed to be out there constantly as Vettel was as the clock wound down and conditions were changing constantly. They realized he didn't have enough time to get out and get around to the start/finish line before the clock wound down, so he just climbed out of the car. Stupid crap right there.

This sort of thing is still a weak spot for Ferrari at times. Reminds me of the dark years with Domenicali at the helm.

[Juzh]

Amazing
Anyone else flat through there?

Not that I've seen, but there's no ferrari footage from q2.

Kimi's first Q2 lap was not flat. There was half of his lap with the halo telemetry during Skysports broadcasting. Still he won Lewis 1st Q2 by 0.184s.

yeah, you're right. he wasn't.

I like the Perez-Oco buffer between the contenders and Kimi, Max and Daniel because we should get a clean unobstructed fight for the win. The raw speed of Seb's Ferrari will be difficult for Lewis to defend against, and I don't see him holding on to the lead for too long so I can see Sebastian winning on pure pace. Only if it rains can I give Lewis a chance here.

Just because ferrari is a tiny bit faster on the straights does not mean overtaking is guaranteed. You need at least 1s advantage to be able to put yourself in that position. If it's a normal race, i don't see how anyone in a ferrari or mercedes can overtake each other.

[Juzh]

here's a q2 lap from ocon
https://streamable.com/r07kg

[jjn9128]

Outside top 10, even from penalties, get fresh tyres.

No so. Those who qualified in the top 10 have to use their fastest Q2 lap tyres, so Bottas is at the back on the set of supers he set his Q2 time on. Equally the guy who qualified 11th but is starting 10th will have free choice of tyres.

The only way Bottas could get a new/different set of tyres or change the setup is to break parc ferme and start from the pits. still not sure why Merc chose to go through all 3 quali sessions with Bottas, surely there's an advantage (no matter how small) to fresh tyres in the race.

[F1NAC]

Ye during pitstops

Another question. Will Bottas start on set used in Q2 after he progressed into Q3?

yep, same as everyone else who progressed into Q2

What’s the penalty of he puts new tires on? (Back of the grid?)

Pitlane start?

So basically they screwed him for nothing. Interestic tactics

[henry]

. still not sure why Merc chose to go through all 3 quali sessions with Bottas, surely there's an advantage (no matter how small) to fresh tyres in the race.

The plan was to give Hamilton a tow. They set off for the first run in Q3 line astern so as to execute on that plan. And then it rained.

[jjn9128]

. still not sure why Merc chose to go through all 3 quali sessions with Bottas, surely there's an advantage (no matter how small) to fresh tyres in the race.

The plan was to give Hamilton a tow. They set off for the first run in Q3 line astern so as to execute on that plan. And then it rained.

OOOoooh yes. I'd forgotten that. Still screws Bottas' strategy for the off chance the tow actually works. In all my years I've only ever seen it perfectly executed about twice.

[search]

. still not sure why Merc chose to go through all 3 quali sessions with Bottas, surely there's an advantage (no matter how small) to fresh tyres in the race.

The plan was to give Hamilton a tow. They set off for the first run in Q3 line astern so as to execute on that plan. And then it rained.

OOOoooh yes. I'd forgotten that. Still screws Bottas' strategy for the off chance the tow actually works. In all my years I've only ever seen it perfectly executed about twice.

don't you think he would have planed to start on Softs anyway?! Having three laps on those tires now isn't ideal, but I think it was worth a try

[Restomaniac]

I thought any wet qualifying negated the need to carry the Q2 tyres over?

I could be wrong though and I often am.