[ferrarirules]

FORMULA 1 2018 HEINEKEN CHINESE GRAND PRIX (April 13th - 15th, 2018)









Track Layout



Track Information



Race Timings



Tyre Allocation

Additional Information

After first two exciting rounds of Formula 1, the formula 1 circus reaches China with Sebastian Vettel on a high with 2 wins out of 2 races and Hamilton coming all pumped up to a track which has favored him and Mercedes over the last few years. Hopefully Red bull will be in the mix this race as bad luck continues to haunt them for the last two races.
The midfield battle is closer than ever with non Mercedes powered cars doing much better in the last two races. Finally hope the good run of form for Toro Rosso continues and Mclaren are able to perform in qualifying than last race.

For further information - https://www.formula1.com/en/champion...018/China.html

Race and all other sessions will be telecast on Star Sport Select 2 HD/Star Sport Select 2

Image Credits - Motorsport.com and Formula1.com

[GTO]

Originally Posted by ferrarirules

Race and all other sessions will be telecast on Star Sport Select 2 HD/Star Sport Select 2

1140 hours, what sad timing. I hate morning races.

Hamilton is on the back foot - who would have thought! The man is the quickest in the practice session, but as we all know now, Ferrari also has the pace. Vettel is in top form and this will be an exciting race without doubt.

[fz_rider]

FP1 showed Mercedes a bit faster with Hamilton staying ahead of Raikonnen. Raikonnen is doing superbly in terms of one lap pace. Really happy for Kimi.
Another unsafe release by McLaren. This time in FP2

[ferrarirules]

Good practice sessions for all the teams. No major problems. Top 4 drivers were covered by 0.1 of a second. So that sets up the weekend nicely. Mercedes are not the runaway favorites yet. Like they have been in last few years at Chinese GP

Interesting fact - Fastest Speed trap time went to Hartley / Toro Rosso at 317 kph followed by Ercisson and Vettel at 315 kph. So the new Honda engine has some grunt and reliability. I think the divorce is working in Honda's favour.

Coming to the pit stop error from last race, Ferrari have given a statement "It appears Ferrari’s green light system thought the tyre had been changed, as the wheelgun had been engaged and then disengaged". They have said that measures have been taken to make sure it never happens again. Also, Ferrari has changed the way pit crew is placed. Now the person holding the wheel is behind the rear wheel rather the front. This was evident in today's pitstop practice.

[Fullrevs]

Great to see the times are so close. Hope Kimi Raikkonen has a clean weekend. He seems to be in-form this year but luck hasn't been on his side.

Looks like it will be another thrilling weekend!

[fz_rider]

P1 Sebastian! P1 !
That was mighty last sector. Kimi had a pretty bad last sector, he didn't go green let alone purple. Otherwise, Kimi was just flying. Another Ferrari 1-2 start. Wow, this is exciting. Majority would have thought, well it's Hamilton territory, and Ferrari struggle in cold condition. Well that didn't happen.
It's second race in a row, where Bottas beat Hamilton in qualifying, that makes 4 in last five races.
Red Bulls were struggling, but they can be the mix, as they start on faster rubber, compared to top four.
Perez got into top 10 for the first time, he'll start P8.
Lap record broken for the first time since inaugural race. At last a Ferrari beats a Ferrari.

[tilt]

Any ideas where I can find a free livestream of this race? I do not have the HD channels on TV, I do not have a premium Hotstar account, but I do have VPN access.

Thanks and cheers

[SJM1214]

Originally Posted by tilt

I do not have the HD channels on TV,

No need of HD Channels. Race and all other sessions will be telecast on /Star Sports Select 2.

[Chetan_Rao]

Kimi is on fire, and that bodes well for the WCC. Too early in the season to be conclusive, but Ferrari seem to have developed better in terms of overall balance and car behavior.

Merc have a fight on their hands, and on top of keeping their car competitive, they need to shore up another area where they haven't always shone (but would be critical in a close fight), in-race strategy. It's already cost them one win.

[deetjohn]

Wow! I am really surprised!

Australia was a lucky break.
Bahrain was all Vettel.
But this P1 is all Ferrari.

Shows the big progress made by the team in summer. Last season, Ferrari struggled to get going on Saturdays. But it cannot get better than claiming P1 in two tracks as different as Bahrain and China. This is massive!

Shanghai is Mercedes' back yard. A circuit which completely compliments everything that is good about the cars from Brackley. I am quite sure the Mercs will be much more stronger tomorrow. The cars were working very well at Bahrain on Medium, just that the team didn't put it to their advantage during the race. They got a very strong pace once the tyre starts working. That seems to be Merc' biggest problem this year.

And Shanghai is brilliant for swapping places. Lewis got to keep an eye on the Red Bulls which are starting the race on the ultra soft - two grades softer than the tyres on the Merc. Good on Pirelli for that nomination to mix it all up a bit.

And I am happy to see Kimi performing like this. That gap is nothing and his P1 will surely come sooner than later. I am more worried about him on Sundays than Saturdays.

Anyways, looks like we got an exciting race coming up tomorrow!

[shibujp]

Here was I thinking that Raikkonen had it in the bag but then saw Vettel's car wiggle about on a couple of turns on his first timed lap in Q3. Exactly the same thing happened in Bahrain and he sorted that out on his second lap in Q3 to take the pole. Deja vu in China. But it was so close with him having to put in a mega last sector to get it. The Iceman i believe was purple in the first two sectors. Shades of the Iceman during those unlucky years at McLaren are emerging. I hope he keeps at it.

Force India seems to be improving with Perez managing to get one car into the top 10. Gasly and Toro Rosso seem to have taken a step back after Bahrain. The Haas duo starting close to each other on the grid may be something to watch out for.

Drive on,
Shibu.

[jraj]

For the third year in a row, I bought a Autosport plus subscription. It's about $9 a month.Mainly for pre season updates and behind the track sound bites.

When the pre-season testing was over, it didn't feel good as a Ferrari fan. Autosport plus articles went on and on about how the Merc and Redbull zoomed ahead and Ferrari have slipped backwards. In fact they wrote a glorious piece titled " How Ferrari have engineered themselves into a hole". Depressing as a fan.

Then the lights go out for the season. Despair turns bless, but mind says that was lucky.Heck, even Seb said that.

Then comes Bahrain to bring more smile and as a big fan of Seb, it was even more reason to celebrate , as that win was all his.But mind says, come China the party will be over.

It's early , yet, Ferrari's pace is real. They have the car and are genuine contenders.

And the Autosport plus subscription was duly canceled. Those guys really are like me - have no clue what goes on in pre season. Why should I have to pay them to bluff something to me. More than that, I don't want to pay someone to come tell me they rate Ferrari in 5th rank after they pulled a fast one on the Merc at Bahrain. Good bye Autosport, I guess that's a $9 I will throw elsewhere but not you guys.

And Seb, he again showed today the difference between the Good and the Great. Kimi did very well, but when it mattered the most , Seb found that little bit something extra. Forza Ferrari

[imidnightmare]

Originally Posted by jraj

For the third year in a row, I bought a Autosport plus subscription. It's about $9 a month.Mainly for pre season updates and behind the track sound bites.

When the pre-season testing was over, it didn't feel good as a Ferrari fan. Autosport plus articles went on and on about how the Merc and Redbull zoomed ahead and Ferrari have slipped backwards. In fact they wrote a glorious piece titled " How Ferrari have engineered themselves into a hole". Depressing as a fan.

Then the lights go out for the season. Despair turns bless, but mind says that was lucky.Heck, even Seb said that.

Then comes Bahrain to bring more smile and as a big fan of Seb, it was even more reason to celebrate , as that win was all his.But mind says, come China the party will be over.

It's early , yet, Ferrari's pace is real. They have the car and are genuine contenders.

And the Autosport plus subscription was duly canceled. Those guys really are like me - have no clue what goes on in pre season. Why should I have to pay them to bluff something to me. More than that, I don't want to pay someone to come tell me they rate Ferrari in 5th rank after they pulled a fast one on the Merc at Bahrain. Good bye Autosport, I guess that's a $9 I will throw elsewhere but not you guys.

And Seb, he again showed today the difference between the Good and the Great. Kimi did very well, but when it mattered the most , Seb found that little bit something extra. Forza Ferrari

Most of the English media is very heavily biased. They have been for decades. They hated Michael after he “denied” Damon Hill and since he was German, the hate never stopped. Now, it’s Seb’s turn as he’s up against Lewis.

Anyway, Autosport is a good outlet normally and let me assure you that the pre-season times were not good for Ferrari. Not sure if you track, but I follow pre-season properly. You need to look at the long runs of each team and look at the drop-off across the run, the comparative numbers and of course the averages. You also assess each driver and team relatively across their own numbers are teams bluff a lot - carrying extra fuel.

Regardless, the numbers always seem to be a great pre-season indicator and this year Merc looked about 0.3-0.5 s a lap ahead. This wasn’t an exaggeration. Seb even came out and said it in the media and said Ferrari had a lot of work ahead. The interesting bit though was a news article that said Ferrari had unlocked 10 bhp extra before Australia. Now this is unconfirmed but 10bhp is a lot but the article (was on Autosport, funnily enough) went on to detail how they were also looking at more tweaks and features on the turbo which would add performance at low and medium speeds.

The changes must have been crucial since you can’t change performance level so radically so quickly without definite movement on either rubber (not possible clearly as all teams use the same) or the engine itself. Aero adds at best 3-5 tenths a season and it’s never so dramatic.

The other possibility of course is that Ferrari have done what they did in 2001 when they sandbagged the entire field into thinking they were slow. Then they showed up to the season and Michael swept the floor with the field.

All in all though, delighted for Seb. Hope he can win it tomorrow and demolish any remnants of a smile on Lewis. If not, come second behind Kimi...

[suku_patel_22]

Originally Posted by deetjohn

And I am happy to see Kimi performing like this. That gap is nothing and his P1 will surely come sooner than later. I am more worried about him on Sundays than Saturdays.

Anyways, looks like we got an exciting race coming up tomorrow!

Really strong performance from Ferrari. Wonder where Seb found that extra time in Q3.

Seems like Seb is playing with Kimi. Lets him win till the penultimate lap in Q3 and then shows who's the boss.

Like you said, the main problem with Kimi is on the Sunday. He doesn't seem to go forward, doesn't overtake and keeps Go NH backwards.


For once I hope Kimi keeps the second and it's a Ferrari 1-2 tomorrow.

ForzaFerrari

[shibujp]

Tyre strategy seems to be set to be a key ingredient of the race today. The top 4 start on softs which may give them the option of doing a one stop race using the mediums. The Red Bulls, Renault and Hass are starting on the ultrasofts which will mean that they pit earlier than others.

However, I am not so sure an ultrasoft/soft combination may mandate a two stop strategy. The 2017 GP started in damp conditions and Marcus Ericsson was able to do the entire race on softs after just two laps on intermediates. Of course the track temperature would have played a big part in this. Lewis Hamilton who went on to win the race used two sets of softs and an intermediate. The ultrasofts are a new entrant this year so remains to be seen how many laps they would give before suffering substantial degradation and loss of grip.



Link

Pirelli would have definitely tweaked the compounds for this year but as we saw in Bahrain the real test is on the race track. Bahrain is one of the most abrasive and high temperature tracks and Vettel did 39 laps on the softs. The Chinese GP which will be colder should allow longer stints if the teams are able to get the tyre into the proper operating temperature.

Either ways looks set to unveil a lot of different strategies up and down the field.

Originally Posted by imidnightmare

The changes must have been crucial since you can’t change performance level so radically so quickly without definite movement on either rubber (not possible clearly as all teams use the same) or the engine itself. Aero adds at best 3-5 tenths a season and it’s never so dramatic.
.

Ferrari fan though I am, I am not quite sold on the Ferrari domination yet. It's not a well oiled machine like the Silver Arrows of the past few years or the Ferrari of the Schumacher era. There is definitely a resurgence and they don't seem to be holding on by the skin of their teeth as last year but they need to start consistently being able to finish two red cars at the front for me to put my money on them. Whether that will be good for the sport is another question. For my part, I kind of like the current state of play where none of the top teams have a clear dominance. The races are so much more entertaining and teams are kept on their toes. And Mercedes given their engineering depth and deep pockets are sure to give Ferrari a tough fight.

Drive on,
Shibu.