[volkman10]

Saudi Arabian GP Could Be Cancelled After Attack From Yemen On Aramco Facility.

The race in Jeddah is home to the fastest street circuit in the world.

The F1 bosses from Liberty Media have revealed that they are monitoring the situation in Jeddah. This is critical as Jeddah is the home of Aramco and the F1 race is perhaps the biggest event of the year for the Saudi regime under prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS) who has been opening up the society

Link

[iamahunter]

What a dramatic race!

I think the F1 teams have decided to be more dramatic than the made-up drama by Netflix.

Ferrari paints the town RED!
What a fantastic drive by Charles and Sainz for Ferrari. They both have always been fantastic drivers, now they have equally good cars as well.

Redbull had a tough luck! With both the drivers who were actually going pretty well faced issues and had to retire near the end of race. No worries, I am sure they will be back stronger!

Mercedes, despite the propulsion issue, they did perform well and what a luck they have, both Redbulls out and they were handed a podium finish. Somehow I still thinking they are sandbagging. (They have created this image since last few years and now I find it difficult to trust them).

Kevin Magnussen, what a come back this guy has made. War did have some positive side to it, especially for Haas. Even Mick performed well and had is career best F1 start and finish at 12 and 11 respectively!

Bottass messed up the start but managed to finish at same position, which is good season start for Alfa Romeo. Even Zhou finished with a point at 10th.

Tough-tough luck for Mclaren, as both Norris and Riccardo ended at back of the Grid. Even Gasly was having a good run before the car gave up.

With the major engine manufacturers, teams with Mercedes PU seems to have performance issues, Honda/RedBull engines have heat management and fuel pump issues, and Ferrari PU teams are flying!

Apart from the beautiful F1 cars, the safety car itself is a looker. That aggressive grill and the Ferrari Red color, oh so pretty!



Here's a fastest lap charts.

[shiv11bhargava]

As a kid I started watching F1 in 2001. Ferrari has always been my team.
I witnessed it all. The MSC era! Alonso '05-'06! Kimi in '07!
Lewis making the best out of the 2010s! Rosberg in '16! Vettel as a 4 time champ!

I actually missed the race at 8:30PM this Sunday!
I didn't Google anything or open Instagram.
I watched the race from around 11:30PM to about 1:10AM as a HotStar Replay and trust me I have been so happy for Ferrari.

Maximum respect for Mercedes, obviously! But I am so so happy for my team.
Charles LeClerc has the qualities of a champion indeed.

Forza Ferrari.
Regards

P.S I watched the Indian GP in '11 and in '13 in the Grandstand! Ahh the debacle. The BIC is a drivers dream. Tilke's very best!

[suhaas307]

I had the privilege of watching the race from the University (A1) grandstand last weekend. Dusted off my old Ferrari hoodie from 2006-07 for this race, and it was well worth it because Bahrain was quite nippy and windy.

The whole event was planned exceptionally well and the atmosphere was fantastic. Bahrain will be a regular feature for me, going forward.

I will also go for the Turkish GP (if they decide to replace the cancelled Sochi GP with it) and will definitely go for the Abu Dhabi GP at the end of the year.

Watching Max lunge at Charles under braking right in front of us at Turn-1 and of course the overtakes into Turn-1 by Max and the fight for 1st place on the back-straight by Charles was an experience that will remain etched in my memory forever.

Such clean and hard racing!

The fact that he backed off when he knew that he couldn't go further for the fear of overheating the brakes demonstrates his maturity; and thereafter with the steering failure and the eventual PU failure, he took it on the chin. Gutted for Max, Checo and RB. They deserved those points and the podium.

Charles was in a class of his own, and I think he will be one of the favourites to win the WDC this year. Hope Sainz is also in the fight and Ferrari does not sideline him for Charles. I'm a huge Ferrari fan since Schumacher days (who isn't?) but I would like to see Max take the WDC this year, just to silence the needless criticism and quieten the discrediting campaign widely propagated by Merc and Lewis fans.

Lewis was as usual lucky as ever, snapping up a podium as a result of the RB retirements at the fag end of the race. I do not see Merc resolving their issues this year and we can expect Merc to be in the fight only in the second half of the season, if at all.

Looks like Ferrari and the customer teams are going to have a great 2022 season. We can expect good things from Bottas and K-Mag. I suspect they will be right at the top of the mid-field, if they are able to keep up with the other teams vis a vis regular upgrades throughout the season.

AM and McLaren are staring down the barrel, the way things panned out for them in Bahrain. I don't see them improving much.

All in all, great start to the season.

[deetjohn]

Originally Posted by suhaas307

I had the privilege of watching the race from the University (A1) grandstand last weekend.

That's really cool to hear!

Originally Posted by suhaas307

They deserved those points and the podium.

Yeah, the amount of issues that the team faced, especially Max, on Sunday was crazy for a new F1 car. Shows their limited understanding of the new car from lack of testing (applicable to all) + effort put due to the championship fight last year. The way Max drove with that really bad steering issue was tremendous! No wonder he was a little edgy on the radio.

But I will put them as favorites for this weekend based on what I have seen so far. At least for the pole.

Originally Posted by suhaas307

Charles was in a class of his own, and I think he will be one of the favourites to win the WDC this year. Hope Sainz is also in the fight and Ferrari does not sideline him for Charles.

Charles was very calm and collected. Even after crossing the finishing line. That cold confidence of a title campaign! But really too early to say that!! I am eager to find out the ceiling for that Ferrari. Hopefully, it is not too developed already. And Sainz has find some performance out of the car soon, and he know this more than anyone else.

Originally Posted by suhaas307

but I would like to see Max take the WDC this year, just to silence the needless criticism and quieten the discrediting campaign widely propagated by Merc and Lewis fans.

The English fans are still very bitter about it. The reaction for the double DNF said it all this weekend. A lot of schadenfreude! Anyone discrediting Max for the title last season just need to revisit his performance throughout the season. He finished 1st or 2nd at each race apart from 4 races. And out of that, in 3 occasions he was hit by his direct competition. And the other one was a tyre failure while in P1. But for some reason, people remember only Abu Dhabi. LOL

Originally Posted by suhaas307

Lewis was as usual lucky as ever, snapping up a podium as a result of the RB retirements at the fag end of the race. I do not see Merc resolving their issues this year and we can expect Merc to be in the fight only in the second half of the season, if at all.

Yeah, Merc and Lewis got a get out of jail free card for sure. But I disagree that they can't resolve their issues this year. And nor is it going to take that much time. Porpoising is good in a way, it means that slippery car is generating a lot of downforce. And right now, Merc has traded performance to counter that. But soon they will find that balance and it can very well leap frog to the very front. From what I have gathered so far, its a beast of a car!

[ajmat]

Originally Posted by suhaas307

I had the privilege of watching the race from the University (A1) grandstand last weekend. Dusted off my old Ferrari hoodie from 2006-07 for this race, and it was well worth it because Bahrain was quite nippy and windy.

Watching Max lunge at Charles under braking right in front of us at Turn-1 and of course the overtakes into Turn-1 by Max and the fight for 1st place on the back-straight by Charles was an experience that will remain etched in my memory forever.
.

Fancy that, I was also there in the same stand!!!!! Attending Final Practice and the works. Fortunately, this race was not a procession.

Ferrari truly earned their podium, the cars were consistent and stable. Redbulls also deserving but only strength was the initial acceleration but Ferrari were more smooth and consistent. Mercedes were twitchy on the limit but showed improvement as time progressed.

Haas were impressive. They pushed hard during practice to find their limits and worked backwards to find the optimum speeds.

Alpine now very average.

Aston Martin had the best looking cars and were not bad during first practice but something went wrong.

Williams were Williams

Mclaren were doped out. Very twitchy - a lot of people had high hopes for them.

What was interesting was that the cars performed very differently between early afternoon and sundown.

Lewis was as usual lucky as ever, snapping up a podium as a result of the RB retirements at the fag end of the race. I do not see Merc resolving their issues this year and we can expect Merc to be in the fight only in the second half of the season, if at all.

Like how Max got lucky, very very lucky in Abu Dhabi?

Bottom line is Mercedes had reliability on their side and the skills to take a dog of a car to snapping distance off the podium. They have a very long way to go though considering Red Bull and Ferrari. Guess Christian Horner needs to find something in Ferrari to cry about

[suhaas307]

Originally Posted by deetjohn

That's really cool to hear!
The English fans are still very bitter about it. The reaction for the double DNF said it all this weekend. A lot of schadenfreude! Anyone discrediting Max for the title last season just need to revisit his performance throughout the season. He finished 1st or 2nd at each race apart from 4 races. And out of that, in 3 occasions he was hit by his direct competition. And the other one was a tyre failure while in P1. But for some reason, people remember only Abu Dhabi. LOL...

...Yeah, Merc and Lewis got a get out of jail free card for sure. But I disagree that they can't resolve their issues this year. And nor is it going to take that much time. Porpoising is good in a way, it means that slippery car is generating a lot of downforce. And right now, Merc has traded performance to counter that. But soon they will find that balance and it can very well leap frog to the very front. From what I have gathered so far, its a beast of a car!

Yep, all the Ham fans went berserk when Max retired the car and when Checo spun!

Merc may be able to resolve their pace issue with some modifications to the rear wing, but porpoising is something they may not be able to resolve immediately, or even by the summer break.

Both George and Lewis complained about the effect porpoising has on outright pace as well. The car bottoming-out will unsettle it easily and confidence to push won't be high.

Originally Posted by ajmat

Fancy that, I was also there in the same stand!!!!! Attending Final Practice and the works. Fortunately, this race was not a procession.

Ferrari truly earned their podium, the cars were consistent and stable. Redbulls also deserving but only strength was the initial acceleration but Ferrari were more smooth and consistent. Mercedes were twitchy on the limit but showed improvement as time progressed.

What was interesting was that the cars performed very differently between early afternoon and sundown.

Like how Max got lucky, very very lucky in Abu Dhabi?

Bottom line is Mercedes had reliability on their side and the skills to take a dog of a car to snapping distance off the podium. They have a very long way to go though considering Red Bull and Ferrari. Guess Christian Horner needs to find something in Ferrari to cry about

Haha, less said about Horner and Marko the better, to be honest!

And yes, Max got extremely lucky in Abu Dhabi last year - sort of off-setting the horrendous luck he had the rest of the season. Meanwhile Lewis has been extremely lucky throughout (except for Abu Dhabi) - remember Imola?

Gotta feel for Danny Ric and Lando, especially Lando because he just signed an extended-term contract with Mclaren. Hope they bounce back and are in the points, if not contesting for wins!

I too noticed that the cars performed quite differently between afternoon runs and evening runs - and that was a bit strange because Bahrain was pretty chilly throughout the day.

[Hatari]

Quite surprised McLaren and the the highly rated James Key have gotten the car so wrong.
Its not just the braking, but overall. Adding downforce takes a large update.

Its going to be a painful first half of the season.

Aston Martin are primarily suffering with porpoising which should take 2-3 more races to solve.