2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix - Jeddah, March 25 - 27

[Danlizzyman]

Checo!!! YEA!! Nice job sir!!! Heck yea!!

Looks like Ferrari and Red Bull are in a dead heat for this one ladies and gents. So exciting! Thrilled for the sport and the drivers.

The Ferrari looks sublime. I did see slight porpoising from time to time but nothing major. Will Sainz step up and beat Leclerc? I’m thinking the raw racer in Leclerc will over the year outshine the more thinking racer in Sainz. Nevertheless, I think those two are going to fight hard this year. It’s going to be a tight battle all year long. I don’t see Merc catching either Ferrari or RB. Their engine sucks wonks and their aero is a $hit show with those boat anchor rear tires and no pods, but I’ll get to that in a sec.

Red Bull. Well the whining from Max is tough to listen too I have to be honest. It reminds me of another driver, but I won’t name him. Imo, Max may have less of a grip of these kinds of cars than Checo. This is great to see. Checo seems more adaptable. What would be better than Checo absolutely taking it to Max after Max just signed the biggest contract in racing history?!? That would be absolutely epic! It’s a little like when Mike Schumacher broke his legs in 1999 and Irvine almost took the title for a team framed around and by Schumacher. Irony. Anyway, I think Checo had to work harder than Leclerc for that lap, but Checo was so smooth, he made it look easy. I’ve not seen any bounce in the Red Bull. Newey is an absolute f’ing aero master. F1: bow to your sensei. He’s basically taking 3/4 of the grid to the aerodynamic woodshed for a beat down every race weekend. What a sight. Absolutely incredible that guy. What a freaking genius. The three dimensional air shaping he sees in his head as he looks at the car is simply uncanny. The Red Bull is monolith stable and deadly fast because that team, like Ferrari, has a fundamental understanding of their car. Well done to Newey and his entire team. Is it true he alone drew the entire car and then handed preset assignments to the team?

Great to see Alpine in the mix at the top of the midfield with the Mercs....well one of the Mercs at least.

Speaking of Merc...listening to the Merc fans smoking boatloads of car potential hopium is like listening to the Ferrari fans in 2015 when they “just knew” Ferrari was going to unlock engine potential, and challenge the sharp end by mid season. We all know how that worked out—can’t polish a turd. I have to ask, is that the case with zero pods? Should zero pods be renamed turd pods? Imo, you can’t polish those bad boys Merc, you’re gonna have to eat some crow pie and grow some pods. Plus, the rear tires are basically boat anchors without pods to help control airflow around them. I can’t belive I’m writing this but the Merc PU is a big fat fail. Honestly, how has such a team missed it so badly in so many ways? I’m mean, even the wise chaps on F1 Tech who have drawn up the flow images see the car is compromised w/o pods. How could an empire like Merc not see what Vanja saw? Baffling.

Speaking of baffling, what in the heck is going on with Macca? What in the heck? This is a proven winning team and they had YEARS to get this right. Did I read on this forum correctly that they underestimated by over 100 points of downforce?!? Wut da...Was Ron Dennis really that good running and preparing Macca? My god. Do they need to bring him back? They should be right there with Ferrari and Red Bull right now. Seriously. Right with them. They certainly have the drivers and definitely the brain power in the UK. I’d like to see Norris/Ric and the team succeed. Certainly we will see in the coming months if the Macca brain trust is good enough, or if by years end they need to raise the white flag, start hiring out of Italy, and call Ron Dennis.

Thank you for the manic insight

[Sevach]

[Artur Craft]

Wow, wonder what lewis is struggling with

Oops, I guess Lewis is "getting found out already"

Despite having a quite quick car (Russel_who was only 0.25s faster than Latifi on last year´s QLF, btw_ advanced to Q3 even with Medium tyres and was confortably 4th on Q1), he was slower than the drivers you said were "getting found out" on Bahrain QLF(Stroll and Mick, despite Aston Martin and Haas being nowhere as quick as Mercedes)

PS: This post is deliberately inflamatory. I´m doing this merely to ilustrate how posts like the one linked bellow are not good for the forum (This member is quick to mock drivers he dislikes after one bad session from them. When his idol has a Mazepin-like performance, however, he´s instantly coming up with car, setup... excuses):
viewtopic.php?p=1045470#p1045470

[Gillian]

Wow, wonder what lewis is struggling with

Oops, I guess Lewis is "getting found out already"

Despite having a quite quick car (Russel_who was only 0.25s faster than Latifi on last year´s QLF, btw_ advanced to Q3 even with Medium tyres and was confortably 4th on Q1), he was slower than the drivers you said were "getting found out" on Bahrain QLF(Stroll and Mick, despite Aston Martin and Haas being nowhere as quick as Mercedes)

PS: This post is deliberately inflamatory. I´m doing this merely to ilustrate how posts like the one linked bellow are not good for the forum (This member is quick to mock drivers he dislikes after one bad session from them. When his idol has a Mazepin-like performance, however, he´s instantly coming up with car, setup... excuses):
viewtopic.php?p=1045470#p1045470

Post like that are silly indeed because they deliberately ignore any context. It's so easy to mock Hamilton because he had a very bad session and went out in Q1. But it's nothing new. He had a bad session last year in Monaco. Or remember Barcelona 2019? 6/10 behind Bottas. Difference is the car was way more competitive so being 6/10 down in 2019 still put him on P2 but now it means out in Q1. I remember the comments after those sessions too. Hamilton was done bla bla. It was silly then, it is silly now. One bad session doesn't mean anything.

Same with Verstappen. He loses a qualifying against Perez and suddenly were talking about how RB might have to start backing Perez and how Verstappen should be worried now. How Verstappen is not adapting to the car and Perez is. Really? Didn't look like it last race did it? I'm happy for Perez and he totally deserves pole but that's just rubbish.

So I agree with you Artur. It just shows clear bias against certain drivers because of whatever reason.

[hollus]

Focus on the race rather than on other posters, please?

[Zynerji]

This track is a tragedy waiting to happen, IMHO.

[atanatizante]

With a 7-8 km/h delta speed between the following top drivers it`ll be interesting to see :

- had LEC having better traction & or acceleration out of the corner could pass PER
- VER could pass SAI maybe with the help of the lesson learned from LEC at Bahrein with the second DRS line ...

Speaking of race setup, RB took a lesson this time around and is copping the low downforce setup strategy used by Merc last year, while Ferrari is doing the opposite taking the RB`s last year strategy, it seems ...

Also interesting to see how RB18 will manage the tyres bearing in mind they set up the cars mainly for the race ...

[wogx]

Verstappen not surprised by 'horror crash': "I do not understand why the circuit is as it is."

"Verstappen was shocked by his colleague's collision, but he too was not entirely surprised.

"Certain points on this circuit are very dangerous. It was the same last year in December when we first raced here, but then it ended just fine a few times." "With Mick's hit, you can see how hard it goes. There are places, like the one where Mick crashed, where you hit the wall full speed. That is very painful and extremely dangerous." "Even the straights are not completely straight. It is teeming with blind spots where visibility is limited. If it's only about high speeds and full throttle anyway, keep it dead straight. I don't really understand why the track is the way it is.""

https://nos.nl/artikel/2422806-verstapp ... cuit-zo-is

[Mezger]

This track is a tragedy waiting to happen, IMHO.

I think so also. Something ominous about it. A track designed to be this fast with so many blind bends. Guess money talks.

It reminds me a lot about the mentality of Saudi driving, Inshallah is the only rule.

Here's wishing all a safe race.

Best wishes for Mick Schumacher, he's a nice kid.

[Shrieker]

Verstappen not surprised by 'horror crash': "I do not understand why the circuit is as it is."
https://nos.nl/artikel/2422806-verstapp ... cuit-zo-is

He is right. 300 kph plus blind turns are a casualty waiting to happen.

Same goes for the 300 kph + blind turns @ azerbaijan. These nations are oil rich and can easily have a fantastic purpose built F1 track constructed.

[Mchamilton]

Verstappen not surprised by 'horror crash': "I do not understand why the circuit is as it is."

https://nos.nl/artikel/2422806-verstapp ... cuit-zo-is

He is right. 300 kph plus blind turns are a casuality waiting to happen.

Same goes for the 300 kph + blind turns @ azerbaijan. These nations are oil rich and can easily have a fantastic purpose built F1 track constructed.

Saudi are in the process of building one arent they? Except its meant to morw than just a track, and f1 dont want to be there while the area is a building site

[Tzk]

Speaking of race setup, RB took a lesson this time around and is copping the low downforce setup strategy used by Merc last year, while Ferrari is doing the opposite taking the RB`s last year strategy, it seems ...

I guess the Ferrari just has another aero efficiency sweetspot then the RB. Seems like Ferrari runs a bit more drag and probably downforce while RedBull is a bit lower drag and df. Both approaches seem to be fast, so we'll see if the RB will treat the tyres well.

What's also interesting is the Merc. They run almost as fast as the Ferraris in all speedtraps. So i suspect their drag levels are more or less equal, but the Merc is either lacking predictability/driveability or it's just inefficient aero wise, so they need to induce serious levels of drag without getting a good amount of downforce in return. This of course makes them slow and thus they're lacking pace.

Regarding last year:
I thought RB ran less df last year, which is why they preferred the softer tyres and Merc stuck to the harder compounds. Or do i have this mixed up?

[dialtone]

Speaking of race setup, RB took a lesson this time around and is copping the low downforce setup strategy used by Merc last year, while Ferrari is doing the opposite taking the RB`s last year strategy, it seems ...

I guess the Ferrari just has another aero efficiency sweetspot then the RB. Seems like Ferrari runs a bit more drag and probably downforce while RedBull is a bit lower drag and df. Both approaches seem to be fast, so we'll see if the RB will treat the tyres well.

What's also interesting is the Merc. They run almost as fast as the Ferraris in all speedtraps. So i suspect their drag levels are more or less equal, but the Merc is either lacking predictability/driveability or it's just inefficient aero wise, so they need to induce serious levels of drag without getting a good amount of downforce in return. This of course makes them slow and thus they're lacking pace.

Regarding last year:
I thought RB ran less df last year, which is why they preferred the softer tyres and Merc stuck to the harder compounds. Or do i have this mixed up?

Merc may be similar deag as FER but they have small rear wing so the result is they are slow in straights and corners.

[djones]

Do Merc have to give a reason for a pit lane start, or can they freely choose to do one in order to re-setup Hamilton's car?

[Stu]

This track is a tragedy waiting to happen, IMHO.

I think so also. Something ominous about it. A track designed to be this fast with so many blind bends…

…Here's wishing all a safe race.

Best wishes for Mick Schumacher, he's a nice kid.

There are elements of the track that remind me of Montreal, Panis had a huge one there in 95/96; this sort of thing is nothing really new for the drivers.

But….

Drivers, being drivers, will push for every 0.001 second. The only way to being totally ‘safe’ is to have every race at a different interpretation of Paul Ricard. Maybe that is why they are going back to Las Vegas, I can remember when when they did the last ‘car park’ race there.