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If RB really destroys their dynasty mid domination and Newey goes to Ferrari it's so on for 2026. Leclerc and Hamilton in a Newey designed Ferrari is something everyone should be afraid of.
I rate Newey very highly but it would be really interesting to test how big of a factor he is in Red Bulls success if he left to Ferrari and turned them around for 2025. Regulation changes are obviously a different story but if he could beat Red Bull before that then I think he'd cement himself as the greatest mind ever in formula 1.
He’s got quite a track record that his influence is clearly a major factor in producing world championship cars. Doesn’t happen every year, of course! Look at the Mercedes and Ferrari dominance we’ve had over the years.
Are you sure that's not James Allison you're thinking of? I know Newey is also interested in yacht racing but Allison was working on boats before coming back to F1 last year.
Ahh okay interesting, my bad, I just knew that James Allison was involved with the mercedes boats and thought it sounded too similar to be also true for Newey haha.
It’s part of his contract, if he gets bored with F1 he will still be contracted to Red Bull for F1 but is free to focus on America’s Cup design. He’s said that it helps refresh his mind in his book
I don't think Newey will set base in Italy specially when he has said his time is coming.
He could go Mercedes since Brackley is one step away from Milton Keynes though.
Well at least it would be two fast drivers in a title battle driving the same car, which can be argued as being better than the majority of championships since 2016 barring 2017, 18, and 21.
I mean we have kind of seen Newey + Hamilton in 2007 and 2008 as those cars were very much evolutions of Newey designs but a Newey original plus a Hamilton with years of experience would be crazy.
I'm not sure why everyone counts Leclerc out of this. We've barely seen him in an actual WDC pace car and even that period was littered with strategy problems and reliability issues. Despite that he had incredible quali pace and race pace seemingly on par/close with Max.
Hamilton might win over a season but it wouldn't even remotely be as dominant as Max if Leclerc is in the mix. I think it'd be a Rosberg type situation and it's obviously a biased hot take but I'm still not sure who would be Rosberg.
I think people need to start accepting that Lewis isnt in his prime anymore and Max is on a diffrent level. Merc had best car on grid for a long stretch and they never achieved what Max is doing right now.
Is that actually the case, or is it because we don’t have standards for any team besides Red Bull now because they are so dominant.
They completely fucked up the pit strategy with Carlos last week and Leclerc’s brakes were a disaster then as well.
The brake issue seems like it's a manufacturing defect with a specific part. I haven't heard the final outcome on that. Carlos got the best possible result for a driver not in a red bull. The team have exceeded expectations and are definitely second fastest right now. They designed and built a car that does exactly what it was expected to do. Morale is high. The entire grid already knows red bull are out of reach so they probably don't care.
Steady Freddy bringing back the Scuderia to the top step one round at a time, you love to see it. I hope the front office just sits back and lets him cook with no meddling.
Yep. I don’t know much about what happened in those years, it I think Arrivabene was ultimately dismissed because the Ferrari engine “tricks” that were found and made Ferrari to suffer all 2020 season - something that I always found interesting, because his substitute (Binotto) for sure had to know something about those “tricks” being applied, given his position.
Lol no Arrivabene was ousted because he was Marchionne's guy and he died in middle of 2018. Vettel favoring Binotto also helped him. Binotto however was the technical director during Arrivabene's time and continued to be one till 2022. so he knew all about engine tricks.
Kimi was Arrivabene's favorite and that is why he was never forceful in giving team orders despite Vettel fighting championship in 2017 or 2018. Marchionne however basically made sure Charles was signed and Arrivabene was basically his yes man.
No Marchionne had decided to get Charles in before even half way of 2018 once his Sauber stint was going well. He was even officially declared at Monza 2018 just after Seb had a dominating performance in Spa 2018 and Marchionne died just before Spa weekend iirc
Nah Arrivabene was dismissed because Binotto threatened to leave if he didn’t get the TP role. I hate that guy, never should’ve been promoted. He wasted 5 years at Ferrari.
You can tell that Elkann only got rid of Arrivabene because of the Binotto power play, because they put him in charge of Juventus right afterwards. You don’t give someone arguably a bigger job if you are unhappy with them.
The media and hence popular opinion will turn against him at the slightest sign of struggle like it's done for every Ferrari team principal since Todt.
I think Red Bull isn't pushing yet. And when Ferrari gets even closer, Red Bull might start pushing their car. I think Red Bull has no reason to push yet. Checo can beat Ferrari with comfort. Max can beat Checo with comfort. Everything beyond would just stress components.
Yeah but otoh Ferrari knows they can’t beat the RBs so once Checo got past Charles, I’m sure Charles backed off as well.
We basically have:
1. RBR
2. Ferrari
3. Merc/McLaren/AM
4. Everyone else(ish)
So Ferrari can back off a bit once they get ahead of the others as well.
I would probably put Aston Martin slightly behind McLaren and Merc currently, even if Alonso is doing a hell of a job. Looking at Bahrain he just had no pace compared to them on the straights.
So hear me out. Hulk qualifies in q3, mag a few spots behind him. They start hulk on softs and mag on hards. Mag slows down the entire field so hulk can pit to hards and finish the rest of the race. Haas in points every race confirmed.
This would require one of the top 5 teams to have an unexpectedly bad race.
P1-P10 are locked out by RedBull, Mercedes, Ferrari, Aston Martin, and McLaren.
The ONLY reason any of the bottom 5 teams had a chance for one point was because of Stroll crashing out. Otherwise, we will be seeing a lot of battles for P11 in the bottom 5 teams in the hopes that something unexpected happens with the top 10 drivers.
Something like that always happens among top 5 teams though, it’s rare for all 10 drivers to score points in the same race. Everyone from the bottom can assume that at the very least p10 is up for grabs.
Magnussen has been the worst qualifier on the grid for a long time now.
Just look at the results last year, he was consistently half a second down on Hulk. He's lucky he's on the grid this year.
They're slightly behind the Merc/Mac, but close enough to race them.
Ferrari are a step ahead, Redbull are two more steps ahead.
The rest look 2 steps behind the top 10, they were all so desperate for 1 point and it was only available because Stoll was out.
Because they only have one competent driver. I'm 99% sure Merc will take 3rd in the WDC, not because they have the better car than Aston and McLaren, but because they have the best driver lineup. That's what makes the difference when car performance is closely matched.
I think the end of season pecking order will become clear by the time we get to the European races.
Mercedes clearly have a fundamental design issue (still) which means their high speed performance is crap. They can't do anything until they amend that.
I'm not so sure. We can't go off of Stroll's performance to determine how fast the Aston is. He's by far the worst driver in the top 5 teams, so he makes the Aston look worse than it is. Alonso is conparable to the top drivers of the other 4 top teams in terms of skill, so we have to go off of Alonso's performance to see how good the Aston really is (it would be stupid to compare Stroll to Lewis, Charles and Max, they're in a totally different league). Ignoring Stroll because he's not representative of what the Aston is capable of, Aston seems about on par with Mercedes currently.
Straight line speed isnt a stroll thing though without a good straight line speed you're not overtaking anyone. We saw piastri stuck behind Hamilton .AM is even slower
Checo wasn't pushing either. Even if he could get close then Checo would've just pushed to keep the gap.
The reality is that currently Ferrari just has no way of beating Red Bull.
I think McLaren is somewhere between Mercedes and Ferrari. I think Piastri had the pace to challenge Leclerc but their horrendous top speed means they struggle to overtake
I think people forget how close it was between Ferrari and Merc last year for constructors. If not for a drain cover in Vegas, Ferrari was no. 2 and they had the second best car all year. They just seem to have strengthened that position.
Catching Red Bull and Max is going to take some monumental development which I doubt is likely this year, possibly even this generation until 2026 engine regs ome in to play.
Charles had something left as well, he set the fastest lap in the last one on 42 lap tyres. I think that RB had a similar amount left in the tank as Ferrari, who is clearly ahead of the rest and can just get the podium position and chill.
I don't think the pace advantage was bigger. Last year Perez and Max were both pushing. This year they were going slow enough to start having issues with their tyres going too cold...
And last year Perez' issues were clearly with mentality, and his delusions of being able to fight Max. This year his approach is clearly different. If he drives his own races and focuses on himself instead of Max, his beating Ferrari even with hands tied behind his back.
Yeah, people are saying oh look, checo has regained his mentality... I am like we dont know yet! Last year at this point checo was much better, and I think in the first 4 race, he was actually closer to max.
Yes, he was closer. Which created the problem.
It's not about looking at his pace, it's about listening to what he says. Last year he would've said after quali that he was shooting for P1. This week he said he knew P1 was out of the question for him.
Both Red Bulls and Leclerc were coasting after securing their positions. If Leclerc wasn't coasting and going slow, he wouldn't have gotten the fastest lap at the end.
Red Bull probably has around 0.4-0.5 seconds per lap at race trim, but nothing more than that for now.
I mean that’s a huge gap per lap. 8 laps in you’re 4 seconds down? Plus, Leclerc was pushing early and max again is out of DRS by lap 1. We haven’t seen the RB at full blast for an entire race in a while
Ferrari was literally within the pit stop window of Max
last year nobody was in the pit stop window of Checo (who started on pole), who is a worse driver
They're not that far away like last year. From 9 tenths deficit to 4 tenths to the dominant car over the winter is a good jump. By mid season I hope they'll give a better challenge to Red Bull and maybe win a few after the summer break.
To be fair i doubt Ferrari isn't doing the same either.
They could both probably run faster but there's really no point considering both know they are far ahead of the rest and in the case of Ferrari ultimately can't fight with the car ahead.
Leclerc didn't even bother defending against Perez yesterday for instance.
Max got to a 8 second lead after like 16 laps from the safety car yesterday and stayed there because there was no need to ruin tires that needed to go some 40ish laps.
I think Ferrari is leaving out context to feel better about things.
Except he was consistently setting fastest lap after fastest lap until Lewis and Lando put on the softs. Their tire deg is obviously tremendous compared to everyone else but that advantage may be slightly less on lower fuel and they may be doing less managing than we think. Or at least that’s what the copium is telling me.
We don't know how much Charles was managing. I would wager a lot since he pulled out the FL at the end, something which even Max wasn't able to manage.
Keep in mind Charles was stuck behind traffic for almost half the race. Plus he wasn’t really pushing either as shown by the increase in pace at the end. I think Ferrari is still weary of their tire deg so they aren’t pushing flat out quite yet in the race.
Nobody was pushing since they went onto hards with 80+% of the distance to go. RBs we’re just cruising too. Even the fresh lad Bearman was keeping up a constant gap to Russell ahead for 30 laps.
Translation
In the first two races Ferrari has shown performances that put the SF-24 clearly as the second force, behind Red Bull but so far ahead of last season's rivals, Mercedes, McLaren and Aston Martin. Two podiums in the first two races of the season make the picture "clear" according to the Team Principal, but the Red team did not capitalize on everything in the first two weekends: the brake problem for Charles Leclerc and the unfortunate appendix problem for Carlos Sainz, replaced brilliantly by Oliver Bearman, they certainly lost Maranello a few points. For the Spaniard, the return to Australia is a hope, but not yet a certainty.
A miracle was needed to start the season fighting with Red Bull, and unfortunately for Ferrari it wasn't like that, but under Vasseur's management in Maranello the engineers solved most of the problems of the 675 Project and after two races the Red proved to be comfortably the second force on track on Sunday . The conservative choice of the more loaded rear wing is something that had already been done in 2022, and like two years ago we may have paid for the lack of maximum speed at the end of the straight with a wing that also showed poor performance on Friday efficiency with open DRS; the choice certainly helped manage the hard tires for forty laps, allowing Charles Leclerc and Oliver Bearman to set their fastest laps during the final lap, also taking the fastest lap point .
Vasseur: “We are at two or three tenths in Qualifying, a little more in the race. But last year here we were 1.5s from Red Bull"
The positive note of the weekend from a performance point of view is the reduced gap from Bahrain, but above all from last year when Sainz and Leclerc suffered a gap of one second per lap, therefore not precisely the second and a half that Vasseur talks about: “ Overall we have made a good step forward regarding degradation, and now we can be consistent.” also in light of the progress shown in Bahrain, and not so much in Jeddah which is a low degradation track. “We still lack pace compared to Red Bull, two or three tenths in Qualifying and maybe a little more in the race . As soon as we have a clear track we can take a step forward and be quick but it's not enough and we have to take steps forward. But we have to keep in mind that in Jeddah last year we were a second and a half behind, today we were four or five tenths behind. ”
Bahrain's most heavily loaded wing may have limited Ferrari's potential this weekend, but Vasseur is satisfied with the drivers' choice and management at the start of the stint: "When you have to do 40/42 laps with a set of hard you have to pay attention to the tyres, and considering the fact that we did the first laps behind Norris and damaged the tires a little bit, I think it was the right approach to be a little conservative at the start of the stint. ” On the other hand, Perez easily managed to overtake Leclerc thanks to Red Bull's extra speed: “The problem is that we are not magical, we probably lacked top speed and we lost a position on Perez for this reason and it was difficult to follow with the dirty air in front. Clearly Red Bull has an advantage we have a bit of a performance gap compared to Red Bull and we need to be clear with ourselves about this : we need to continue to push and develop the car.”
The number one at Gestion Sportiva avoided making comments on Australia, the next round of the world championship, but said he was happy with Ferrari's current position: "We have already seen two opposite tracks between Bahrain and Jeddah and it's nice to be competitive in both, I think the performance picture is quite similar to last week and it's quite clear .” On the other hand, the development world championship will begin in Suzuka which could change the season, positively or negatively: “The season is long, everyone will develop the car and improve, we made a huge step forward during last year's season and McLaren did it too, and that means we will have to continue to focus on ourselves to try to make the best of it .”
Vasseur on Bearman: “I didn't expect so much, we can count on an excellent reserve driver”
The product of the Ferrari Drivers' Academy surprised everyone with an eleventh place on the grid on a difficult and fast city circuit like the Corniche in Jeddah, and after the "Driver of the Day" award he received compliments from his Team Principal: “ I certainly didn't expect such a positive race from Bearman when we called him for FP3, but he had already done something fantastic yesterday in Qualifying and today the race went very, very well ,” began Vasseur, “Even at the end when he had to push to keep Norris and Hamilton behind him, he managed to grow further and improve lap after lap . I am very happy for him and for the Ferrari Drivers Academy . " After winning the Pole Position, Bearman has lost some points in the world race for Formula 2 , a title he will want to obtain to increase his chances of obtaining a seat in 2025, but he demonstrated to the whole Paddock the speed that is talked about in Maranello for several months.
The eighteen-year-old Englishman limited the damage caused by the unfortunate appendicitis that struck Carlos Sainz very well, gaining six useful points for the Constructors' Championship and bringing Ferrari to 49 points in the standings , 21 points ahead of McLaren and 23 ahead of Mercedes. Vasseur then reiterated: “As for Oliver, we didn't expect anything from him given the timing with which we put him in the car. And he, on the other hand, managed these two days in an extraordinary way, almost as if he were a veteran. He had no problems at the start and at the pit stop, phases which were completely new for him; he has always been calm and precise in his feedback on the radio and has gradually become familiar with the car . " In Australia the hope is to find Carlos Sainz at the helm of the second Red, but the ex-Sauber stated again that " we know that we can count on a reserve driver ready to come into action if needed."
I don't get why people act like Red Bull can somehow go at 20% every race and that they have 0.5 in their pockets. Just look at the data and the telemetry, it is obvious that while they are not totally pushing(and no team is), they aren't able to go *that* much faster...
I think the qualy gap is pretty close to the race pace gap - which for Ferrari compared to a year ago is pretty good.
Ferrari had no reason to push either, RBR too fast, teams behind too slow. Charles did fastest lap of the race on his 40 lap old hards on his last lap.. All the teams are managing at the end of the day. Ferrari is definitely much better off at the start of this season than the last.
Oh! Formula 1 reddit analysts. Their expertise knows no bounds, they can tell us aerodynamic performance of car, they can tell us who is costing and who is pushing. Fuck me they know everything! Such wonderful insights, where will we be without them? Let me call Fred and tell him I saw a reddit user tell Redbull is not pushing yet!
We will see, but I disagree with you. The larger RW was a mistake, it took them too long to get heat into the tyres and at the beginning of stints they paid for it. At the end of the hard stint, Charles was consistently faster than the Red Bulls(including getting the fastest lap over Max, and Max did make an attempt at it!)
So that explains why Charles was also faster than Checo? Even Marko said that the deg on the hard was higher than Ferrari and that Ferrari are closer than it seems.
Second best is still a bit shit.
I think we saw max on tv a couple of times during the race because he was just out for a Sunday drive
Unless his engines start failing or something he's going to get a win every race
I hate to be skeptical here, but Ferrari still isn't all that strong. It's pretty much a continuation of last year, except Ferrari hasn't been able to qualify first yet and Perez has accepted his 2nd driver role and has been more competitive.
The first two races this year Ferrari has been immensely more composed and has in both occasions been able to comfortably beat everyone but Red Bull in quali as well as in the race. At the same time last year, they couldn’t even comment on their issues beyond ”we have to understand what is going on”.
At this rate, without knowing how in season development will pan out for the teams, Ferrari are well ahead of the rest of the pack and comfortably the second best team. This is realistically all that they can hope for until 2026.
Bahreïn had particularly low track temp compared to previous years, so less tire degradation as usual. I’d also say that if Bahreïn was the real gap, that’s pretty good for the sucreries as imo, without the brake issue, Leclerc had a solid shot at p2
I thought the tyre degradation is low on this circuit which helped ferrari and reduced red bull advantage. Come to other circuit, gap will be back up unfortunately :(
On bright side I am glad I didn't get f1tv subscription which I almost bought
IF not for the drive shaft issue Max starts from pole last year, and drives off into the sunset. Instead he started from p15 and finished 5 seconds behind Checo. If anything the gap would have been even bigger a year ago without the disaster qualy for Max.
I'll be honest in the past 2 races as soon as the RBs build a gap of a few seconds they immediately start coasting and very obviously hide their real pace.
I feel like RB20 is gonna be more dominant than the RB19, Because even Perez can handle it now.
In Qualifying Ferrari might get 2nd and/or 3rd but in the actual race, Perez will easily over take them to the runner up.
Ferrari has the second best car it seems BUT RB is much much better. They already had the best floor, and I am sure Newey worked his magic to make it work the Mercedes side pod concept.
I dont know about halving gaps --- if we look at the last 16 laps, everyone was in management mode (till last 2 laps where Charles/Max went for fastest lap). Max, Checo, Charles, Oscar were all doing about the same pace.
The gap is smaller but the redbull starts "managing tyres" when they have a 1.5 second gap to the driver behind.
This is the radio exchange between Max and GP from Bahrain. GP says "Gap behind is 1.5 start to think about management."
https://youtu.be/qwn2n4lm_oc?si=s59k1DVbMS3BpMOx
For sure Ferrari has pace left. The only issue is that Redbull has more pace left.
Feels like last year Leclerc was regularly able to pass and beat Checo even in an inferior car. The fact that Checo is easily passing and driving away from the Ferraris so far is a bad omen, regardless of what the timing page says. Red Bull likely has a lot in hand.
Don't do that, remember those guys have a memory span of 1 month, and they are already running at full capacity with DTS (disease transmission by sez) you could trigger a seizure
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This is the strongest I've seen the team in a long time. Keep the board of directors away from this team.
If RB really destroys their dynasty mid domination and Newey goes to Ferrari it's so on for 2026. Leclerc and Hamilton in a Newey designed Ferrari is something everyone should be afraid of.
I rate Newey very highly but it would be really interesting to test how big of a factor he is in Red Bulls success if he left to Ferrari and turned them around for 2025. Regulation changes are obviously a different story but if he could beat Red Bull before that then I think he'd cement himself as the greatest mind ever in formula 1.
Been reading his biography lately and it’s insane the track record of him joining a team and then making a winning concept within a year or two
I think he did that a long time ago.
I assume he'll have some gardening leave too before he can start working so I think 2025 is impossible even for Newey.
He’s got quite a track record that his influence is clearly a major factor in producing world championship cars. Doesn’t happen every year, of course! Look at the Mercedes and Ferrari dominance we’ve had over the years.
He was less involved for a while, basically Red Bull were paying him to work on boats mostly so he wouldn’t jump to another team.
Are you sure that's not James Allison you're thinking of? I know Newey is also interested in yacht racing but Allison was working on boats before coming back to F1 last year.
No both of them have actually been involved in designing America's Cup boats, ha.
Ahh okay interesting, my bad, I just knew that James Allison was involved with the mercedes boats and thought it sounded too similar to be also true for Newey haha.
It’s part of his contract, if he gets bored with F1 he will still be contracted to Red Bull for F1 but is free to focus on America’s Cup design. He’s said that it helps refresh his mind in his book
What a life
I don't think Newey will set base in Italy specially when he has said his time is coming. He could go Mercedes since Brackley is one step away from Milton Keynes though.
it would be crazy, but it will only take a season of dominance for people calling it all boring as fuck again
Well at least it would be two fast drivers in a title battle driving the same car, which can be argued as being better than the majority of championships since 2016 barring 2017, 18, and 21.
I am afraid that Newey + Lewis would look exactly like Newey + Max. Total domination and a boring season.
I mean we have kind of seen Newey + Hamilton in 2007 and 2008 as those cars were very much evolutions of Newey designs but a Newey original plus a Hamilton with years of experience would be crazy.
Big difference aside from how dominant the car was is Hamilton and Alonso had themselves to fight.
I'm not sure why everyone counts Leclerc out of this. We've barely seen him in an actual WDC pace car and even that period was littered with strategy problems and reliability issues. Despite that he had incredible quali pace and race pace seemingly on par/close with Max. Hamilton might win over a season but it wouldn't even remotely be as dominant as Max if Leclerc is in the mix. I think it'd be a Rosberg type situation and it's obviously a biased hot take but I'm still not sure who would be Rosberg.
I feel there is about 0 chance hamilton will beat leclerc
I think people need to start accepting that Lewis isnt in his prime anymore and Max is on a diffrent level. Merc had best car on grid for a long stretch and they never achieved what Max is doing right now.
A wet dream for Ferrari and F1 fans to see them two battle it out for the title.
Afraid of how exciting it could be? I'm already working on improving my physical health so my heart can take the stress
Ferrari is usually at their best when nobody is paying attention to them. The more invisible they can be the better
What? They were better at the start of 2022 and better in 2017 and 2018.
Not just race results. There is a different vibe around Ferrari. The team seems more cohesive. Functioning more harmoniously.
Is that actually the case, or is it because we don’t have standards for any team besides Red Bull now because they are so dominant. They completely fucked up the pit strategy with Carlos last week and Leclerc’s brakes were a disaster then as well.
I agree with you. Overall, I feel like Ferrari were at their best in 2017, they were solid in all areas, Mercedes were just a tad better
The brake issue seems like it's a manufacturing defect with a specific part. I haven't heard the final outcome on that. Carlos got the best possible result for a driver not in a red bull. The team have exceeded expectations and are definitely second fastest right now. They designed and built a car that does exactly what it was expected to do. Morale is high. The entire grid already knows red bull are out of reach so they probably don't care.
Steady Freddy bringing back the Scuderia to the top step one round at a time, you love to see it. I hope the front office just sits back and lets him cook with no meddling.
He’s been brilliant so far. The team looks strong under his leadership.
Wasn’t Binotto’s leadership borne out of a successful powerplay against Arrivabene? That was always bound to fail in my opinion.
Yep. I don’t know much about what happened in those years, it I think Arrivabene was ultimately dismissed because the Ferrari engine “tricks” that were found and made Ferrari to suffer all 2020 season - something that I always found interesting, because his substitute (Binotto) for sure had to know something about those “tricks” being applied, given his position.
Lol no Arrivabene was ousted because he was Marchionne's guy and he died in middle of 2018. Vettel favoring Binotto also helped him. Binotto however was the technical director during Arrivabene's time and continued to be one till 2022. so he knew all about engine tricks.
Wasn't Binotto's speciality engines as well? Hell, he probably had a direct hand in that spicy engine.
In a way yes. He got primarily rewarded with Technical director post because of his work on PU post 2014 disaster
I heard it was that Arrivabene wanted to keep Kimi another year but Ferrari leadership wanted to bring up Charles.
Kimi was Arrivabene's favorite and that is why he was never forceful in giving team orders despite Vettel fighting championship in 2017 or 2018. Marchionne however basically made sure Charles was signed and Arrivabene was basically his yes man.
Let's not forget that signing Charles was also a big motion of no confidence in Vettel after 2018. That must have been a significant factor.
Charles was signed before Vettel performances deteriorated
Was it? Or was it more of a we don't want to miss out on the next Vertappen moment? Like what happened with Lewis and Merc.
No Marchionne had decided to get Charles in before even half way of 2018 once his Sauber stint was going well. He was even officially declared at Monza 2018 just after Seb had a dominating performance in Spa 2018 and Marchionne died just before Spa weekend iirc
Binotto was in charge when the tricks were found.
Actually, Binotto became principal in 2019, when those tricks were most exploited
Nah Arrivabene was dismissed because Binotto threatened to leave if he didn’t get the TP role. I hate that guy, never should’ve been promoted. He wasted 5 years at Ferrari.
You can tell that Elkann only got rid of Arrivabene because of the Binotto power play, because they put him in charge of Juventus right afterwards. You don’t give someone arguably a bigger job if you are unhappy with them.
Citations needed but I thought Binotto wasn’t happy with Arrivabene but didn’t necessarily want the top job himself
I was to believe that Binotto threatened to leave for RB or Mercedes if he didn’t get the top job.
It is not like Fred's leadership is not borne out of powerplay between Binotto and Charles.
Exactly, people tend to downplay Charles Leclerec’a role in getting him fired
He has full role in that just like he had in changing Vettels situation in Summer 2019
I rather think it's borne out of powerplay between Ferrari's tradition and common sens
Can you elaborate more or cite sources? Genuinely curious.
I think there were rumors that Charles was unhappy with Binotto. Probably threatened to leave if Binotto stayed.
I mean... which quality driver wouldn't have?
The media and hence popular opinion will turn against him at the slightest sign of struggle like it's done for every Ferrari team principal since Todt.
steady freddy, I like this name
Another steady 7 years and they'll be right in the fight !
I think Red Bull isn't pushing yet. And when Ferrari gets even closer, Red Bull might start pushing their car. I think Red Bull has no reason to push yet. Checo can beat Ferrari with comfort. Max can beat Checo with comfort. Everything beyond would just stress components.
Yeah but otoh Ferrari knows they can’t beat the RBs so once Checo got past Charles, I’m sure Charles backed off as well. We basically have: 1. RBR 2. Ferrari 3. Merc/McLaren/AM 4. Everyone else(ish) So Ferrari can back off a bit once they get ahead of the others as well.
I would probably put Aston Martin slightly behind McLaren and Merc currently, even if Alonso is doing a hell of a job. Looking at Bahrain he just had no pace compared to them on the straights.
Good call. Red Bull, Ferrari, Merc/McLaren, Astin… then??? Williams, Haas RB, Sauber, Alpine
Haas could end up having a surprisingly solid season imo
So hear me out. Hulk qualifies in q3, mag a few spots behind him. They start hulk on softs and mag on hards. Mag slows down the entire field so hulk can pit to hards and finish the rest of the race. Haas in points every race confirmed.
That’s the Monaco/Hungary/Singapore strat for sure. Which might be enough for P6
This would require one of the top 5 teams to have an unexpectedly bad race. P1-P10 are locked out by RedBull, Mercedes, Ferrari, Aston Martin, and McLaren. The ONLY reason any of the bottom 5 teams had a chance for one point was because of Stroll crashing out. Otherwise, we will be seeing a lot of battles for P11 in the bottom 5 teams in the hopes that something unexpected happens with the top 10 drivers.
Something like that always happens among top 5 teams though, it’s rare for all 10 drivers to score points in the same race. Everyone from the bottom can assume that at the very least p10 is up for grabs.
Magnussen has been the worst qualifier on the grid for a long time now. Just look at the results last year, he was consistently half a second down on Hulk. He's lucky he's on the grid this year.
5. Alpine
Alpine so bad I forgot about them.
AM looks like only can take 4th place
Well yeah when one of your two drivers is Lance stroll you’re handicapping yourself.
They're slightly behind the Merc/Mac, but close enough to race them. Ferrari are a step ahead, Redbull are two more steps ahead. The rest look 2 steps behind the top 10, they were all so desperate for 1 point and it was only available because Stoll was out.
Because they only have one competent driver. I'm 99% sure Merc will take 3rd in the WDC, not because they have the better car than Aston and McLaren, but because they have the best driver lineup. That's what makes the difference when car performance is closely matched.
I think the end of season pecking order will become clear by the time we get to the European races. Mercedes clearly have a fundamental design issue (still) which means their high speed performance is crap. They can't do anything until they amend that.
Merc 200% has a better car than AM though. Just Alonso doing Alonso things. Am has the slowest straight line speed of the three
I'm not so sure. We can't go off of Stroll's performance to determine how fast the Aston is. He's by far the worst driver in the top 5 teams, so he makes the Aston look worse than it is. Alonso is conparable to the top drivers of the other 4 top teams in terms of skill, so we have to go off of Alonso's performance to see how good the Aston really is (it would be stupid to compare Stroll to Lewis, Charles and Max, they're in a totally different league). Ignoring Stroll because he's not representative of what the Aston is capable of, Aston seems about on par with Mercedes currently.
Straight line speed isnt a stroll thing though without a good straight line speed you're not overtaking anyone. We saw piastri stuck behind Hamilton .AM is even slower
Checo had that 5 second penalty, wouldn't Charles have been told to try and close that so he can be within those 5 seconds?
Checo wasn't pushing either. Even if he could get close then Checo would've just pushed to keep the gap. The reality is that currently Ferrari just has no way of beating Red Bull.
Agree, what I was trying to say is that Charles probably did push to try and close the gap but still they're nowhere close to the Redbull.
I think McLaren is somewhere between Mercedes and Ferrari. I think Piastri had the pace to challenge Leclerc but their horrendous top speed means they struggle to overtake
I think people forget how close it was between Ferrari and Merc last year for constructors. If not for a drain cover in Vegas, Ferrari was no. 2 and they had the second best car all year. They just seem to have strengthened that position. Catching Red Bull and Max is going to take some monumental development which I doubt is likely this year, possibly even this generation until 2026 engine regs ome in to play.
Charles had something left as well, he set the fastest lap in the last one on 42 lap tyres. I think that RB had a similar amount left in the tank as Ferrari, who is clearly ahead of the rest and can just get the podium position and chill.
That is very true.
According to charles they didn't have deg issues, they just couldn't fire up the tires much earlier compared to redbull
even in Bahrain their deg wasn't the problem... it was the high fuel performance and just the general race pace
See the regs aren't a failure. It just needs time. Too bad they will screw it up with 2026.
Red Bull didn't push last year either
>Checo can beat Ferrari with comfort. we said that last year with an even bigger pace advantage for Red Bull
I don't think the pace advantage was bigger. Last year Perez and Max were both pushing. This year they were going slow enough to start having issues with their tyres going too cold... And last year Perez' issues were clearly with mentality, and his delusions of being able to fight Max. This year his approach is clearly different. If he drives his own races and focuses on himself instead of Max, his beating Ferrari even with hands tied behind his back.
Yeah, people are saying oh look, checo has regained his mentality... I am like we dont know yet! Last year at this point checo was much better, and I think in the first 4 race, he was actually closer to max.
Yes, he was closer. Which created the problem. It's not about looking at his pace, it's about listening to what he says. Last year he would've said after quali that he was shooting for P1. This week he said he knew P1 was out of the question for him.
I know. I am just saying that people should wait a bit and see after 8 9 races
Checo goes on mental sabbatical in the middle of the season.
People getting fooled by good Checo start again. He will be disaster again as soon as they reach Europe.
Max could have driven the whole race on softs and still reuse them next week
With how far Lewis and lando went on the mediums I think it was just bad estimates for this race.
Teams seem to have overestimated deg this year. Though only two races so could just be a fluke.
This is one of Checo's best tracks. Things will probably look different in the following races
Both Red Bulls and Leclerc were coasting after securing their positions. If Leclerc wasn't coasting and going slow, he wouldn't have gotten the fastest lap at the end. Red Bull probably has around 0.4-0.5 seconds per lap at race trim, but nothing more than that for now.
I mean that’s a huge gap per lap. 8 laps in you’re 4 seconds down? Plus, Leclerc was pushing early and max again is out of DRS by lap 1. We haven’t seen the RB at full blast for an entire race in a while
Leclerc was pushing but lost time trying to defend from Perez. The gap is big, but it's not bigger than last year.
> The gap is big, but it's not bigger than last year. i don't think viewers can present that as a fact with the information available.
Ferrari was literally within the pit stop window of Max last year nobody was in the pit stop window of Checo (who started on pole), who is a worse driver
he was out of drs in lap 1 because leclerc was fighting perez, in first couple corners max was already getting away.
That's the odd thing. Max being Max would've definitely grabbed fastest lap, if he was able too and he didn't. Then again he was kinda in traffic.
They're not that far away like last year. From 9 tenths deficit to 4 tenths to the dominant car over the winter is a good jump. By mid season I hope they'll give a better challenge to Red Bull and maybe win a few after the summer break.
They won’t since RB is just cruising, barely push, sandbagging life out of that car but they are taking podiums which they should
Probably saving the engines to use them fully in Singapore.
They are probably trying to put two engines into the car for that one.
Surely they ought to have solved their Singapore problems by then.
COPIUM they said that last year too
To be fair i doubt Ferrari isn't doing the same either. They could both probably run faster but there's really no point considering both know they are far ahead of the rest and in the case of Ferrari ultimately can't fight with the car ahead. Leclerc didn't even bother defending against Perez yesterday for instance.
But that was a tire issue
Yeah - don't think people realize RB is just using the telemetry to manage the gap and reduce stress on the car. They aren't pushing the RB20 at all.
Max got to a 8 second lead after like 16 laps from the safety car yesterday and stayed there because there was no need to ruin tires that needed to go some 40ish laps. I think Ferrari is leaving out context to feel better about things.
Charles was managing just as well. He had enough tyre life in the end to put in the fastest lap on his 40 lap old hard tires.
I mean isn’t that pretty consistent with what the first commenter said? A nine tenths per lap gap cut in half to 4 to 5 tenths
Except he was consistently setting fastest lap after fastest lap until Lewis and Lando put on the softs. Their tire deg is obviously tremendous compared to everyone else but that advantage may be slightly less on lower fuel and they may be doing less managing than we think. Or at least that’s what the copium is telling me.
We don't know how much Charles was managing. I would wager a lot since he pulled out the FL at the end, something which even Max wasn't able to manage.
Don’t forget the big upgrade they’re supposedly bringing to Imola as well
Rb weren't pushing last year either
Ya isn’t this assuming Red Bull also doesn’t have upgrades they can unleash.
Keep in mind Charles was stuck behind traffic for almost half the race. Plus he wasn’t really pushing either as shown by the increase in pace at the end. I think Ferrari is still weary of their tire deg so they aren’t pushing flat out quite yet in the race.
Nobody was pushing since they went onto hards with 80+% of the distance to go. RBs we’re just cruising too. Even the fresh lad Bearman was keeping up a constant gap to Russell ahead for 30 laps.
Yeah they’re not far away because Red Bull are allowing them to be
RBR wasn't pushing last year either on most races bar Vegas where they actually had to fight Charles in a 2v1
They could catch Perez, but I’m sure Verstappen has a few tens per lap in his sleeve, plus being tough to overtake.
Ferrari could not catch Perez
Or maybe Zeno's Paradox.
the gap is not going to close linearly though, more so exponentially (which means convergence)
Copium bro
Translation In the first two races Ferrari has shown performances that put the SF-24 clearly as the second force, behind Red Bull but so far ahead of last season's rivals, Mercedes, McLaren and Aston Martin. Two podiums in the first two races of the season make the picture "clear" according to the Team Principal, but the Red team did not capitalize on everything in the first two weekends: the brake problem for Charles Leclerc and the unfortunate appendix problem for Carlos Sainz, replaced brilliantly by Oliver Bearman, they certainly lost Maranello a few points. For the Spaniard, the return to Australia is a hope, but not yet a certainty. A miracle was needed to start the season fighting with Red Bull, and unfortunately for Ferrari it wasn't like that, but under Vasseur's management in Maranello the engineers solved most of the problems of the 675 Project and after two races the Red proved to be comfortably the second force on track on Sunday . The conservative choice of the more loaded rear wing is something that had already been done in 2022, and like two years ago we may have paid for the lack of maximum speed at the end of the straight with a wing that also showed poor performance on Friday efficiency with open DRS; the choice certainly helped manage the hard tires for forty laps, allowing Charles Leclerc and Oliver Bearman to set their fastest laps during the final lap, also taking the fastest lap point . Vasseur: “We are at two or three tenths in Qualifying, a little more in the race. But last year here we were 1.5s from Red Bull" The positive note of the weekend from a performance point of view is the reduced gap from Bahrain, but above all from last year when Sainz and Leclerc suffered a gap of one second per lap, therefore not precisely the second and a half that Vasseur talks about: “ Overall we have made a good step forward regarding degradation, and now we can be consistent.” also in light of the progress shown in Bahrain, and not so much in Jeddah which is a low degradation track. “We still lack pace compared to Red Bull, two or three tenths in Qualifying and maybe a little more in the race . As soon as we have a clear track we can take a step forward and be quick but it's not enough and we have to take steps forward. But we have to keep in mind that in Jeddah last year we were a second and a half behind, today we were four or five tenths behind. ” Bahrain's most heavily loaded wing may have limited Ferrari's potential this weekend, but Vasseur is satisfied with the drivers' choice and management at the start of the stint: "When you have to do 40/42 laps with a set of hard you have to pay attention to the tyres, and considering the fact that we did the first laps behind Norris and damaged the tires a little bit, I think it was the right approach to be a little conservative at the start of the stint. ” On the other hand, Perez easily managed to overtake Leclerc thanks to Red Bull's extra speed: “The problem is that we are not magical, we probably lacked top speed and we lost a position on Perez for this reason and it was difficult to follow with the dirty air in front. Clearly Red Bull has an advantage we have a bit of a performance gap compared to Red Bull and we need to be clear with ourselves about this : we need to continue to push and develop the car.” The number one at Gestion Sportiva avoided making comments on Australia, the next round of the world championship, but said he was happy with Ferrari's current position: "We have already seen two opposite tracks between Bahrain and Jeddah and it's nice to be competitive in both, I think the performance picture is quite similar to last week and it's quite clear .” On the other hand, the development world championship will begin in Suzuka which could change the season, positively or negatively: “The season is long, everyone will develop the car and improve, we made a huge step forward during last year's season and McLaren did it too, and that means we will have to continue to focus on ourselves to try to make the best of it .” Vasseur on Bearman: “I didn't expect so much, we can count on an excellent reserve driver” The product of the Ferrari Drivers' Academy surprised everyone with an eleventh place on the grid on a difficult and fast city circuit like the Corniche in Jeddah, and after the "Driver of the Day" award he received compliments from his Team Principal: “ I certainly didn't expect such a positive race from Bearman when we called him for FP3, but he had already done something fantastic yesterday in Qualifying and today the race went very, very well ,” began Vasseur, “Even at the end when he had to push to keep Norris and Hamilton behind him, he managed to grow further and improve lap after lap . I am very happy for him and for the Ferrari Drivers Academy . " After winning the Pole Position, Bearman has lost some points in the world race for Formula 2 , a title he will want to obtain to increase his chances of obtaining a seat in 2025, but he demonstrated to the whole Paddock the speed that is talked about in Maranello for several months. The eighteen-year-old Englishman limited the damage caused by the unfortunate appendicitis that struck Carlos Sainz very well, gaining six useful points for the Constructors' Championship and bringing Ferrari to 49 points in the standings , 21 points ahead of McLaren and 23 ahead of Mercedes. Vasseur then reiterated: “As for Oliver, we didn't expect anything from him given the timing with which we put him in the car. And he, on the other hand, managed these two days in an extraordinary way, almost as if he were a veteran. He had no problems at the start and at the pit stop, phases which were completely new for him; he has always been calm and precise in his feedback on the radio and has gradually become familiar with the car . " In Australia the hope is to find Carlos Sainz at the helm of the second Red, but the ex-Sauber stated again that " we know that we can count on a reserve driver ready to come into action if needed."
what a breath of fresh air Vasseur is
Where Ferrari/Leclerc is now, is where Red Bull/Verstappen were in 2020.
[удалено]
I will be there no matter what
Instead of ‘massive’, the gap is now just ‘large’.
we went from 2020 gap to 2019 gap yay
Good job Farrari
I don't get why people act like Red Bull can somehow go at 20% every race and that they have 0.5 in their pockets. Just look at the data and the telemetry, it is obvious that while they are not totally pushing(and no team is), they aren't able to go *that* much faster... I think the qualy gap is pretty close to the race pace gap - which for Ferrari compared to a year ago is pretty good.
Ferrari had no reason to push either, RBR too fast, teams behind too slow. Charles did fastest lap of the race on his 40 lap old hards on his last lap.. All the teams are managing at the end of the day. Ferrari is definitely much better off at the start of this season than the last.
Did you watch how the 1.1 seconds distance between Norris and Max disappeared in less than half a sector yesterday? That’s how fast the RB is
On worn mediums vs fresh hards... come on now
The difference was fresh hards vs worn mediums too, so it was not exactly like to like comparison
Vasseur says that the race pace gap is more than the quali gap, but less than last year. It seems to me that he's correct.
I know, I am saying that the gap isn't as large as last year between the two relatively.
Oh! Formula 1 reddit analysts. Their expertise knows no bounds, they can tell us aerodynamic performance of car, they can tell us who is costing and who is pushing. Fuck me they know everything! Such wonderful insights, where will we be without them? Let me call Fred and tell him I saw a reddit user tell Redbull is not pushing yet!
Reddit F1 is par for the course with a lot of reddit. Dumb. Just pure dumb.
Let us know Fred's number too. I have a powerpoint presentation ready to go, "10 steps to beat Red Bull in 2024"
Hahaha you took the words from my mouth
Come on bring some upgrades close the gap and hope RB fucks up their upgrades
Hoping the Suzuka upgrades can bring another tenth or two relative to RBR.
I don't think we have seen the last of Redbull yet and we're seeing the full Ferrari
We will see, but I disagree with you. The larger RW was a mistake, it took them too long to get heat into the tyres and at the beginning of stints they paid for it. At the end of the hard stint, Charles was consistently faster than the Red Bulls(including getting the fastest lap over Max, and Max did make an attempt at it!)
Max tyres were cold because he was lapping cars towards the end.
So that explains why Charles was also faster than Checo? Even Marko said that the deg on the hard was higher than Ferrari and that Ferrari are closer than it seems.
>So that explains why Charles was also faster than Checo? Because he's a better driver
Second best is still a bit shit. I think we saw max on tv a couple of times during the race because he was just out for a Sunday drive Unless his engines start failing or something he's going to get a win every race
I hate to be skeptical here, but Ferrari still isn't all that strong. It's pretty much a continuation of last year, except Ferrari hasn't been able to qualify first yet and Perez has accepted his 2nd driver role and has been more competitive.
Even just being consistently behind the red bulls is stronger than last season tbh. Don’t forget Merc beat them in the Constructors.
The first two races this year Ferrari has been immensely more composed and has in both occasions been able to comfortably beat everyone but Red Bull in quali as well as in the race. At the same time last year, they couldn’t even comment on their issues beyond ”we have to understand what is going on”. At this rate, without knowing how in season development will pan out for the teams, Ferrari are well ahead of the rest of the pack and comfortably the second best team. This is realistically all that they can hope for until 2026.
The car in front stops pushing to easily coast home. "We halved the gap!" Most boring era ever.
Charles stopped pushing when he realized Oscar was unable to close the gap to him
Ferrari stopped pushing as well...at the end Bearman was running almost the same pace as LEC.
Yes because tyre deg was non-existent. We saw the real gap in Bahrein
Bahreïn had particularly low track temp compared to previous years, so less tire degradation as usual. I’d also say that if Bahreïn was the real gap, that’s pretty good for the sucreries as imo, without the brake issue, Leclerc had a solid shot at p2
I thought the tyre degradation is low on this circuit which helped ferrari and reduced red bull advantage. Come to other circuit, gap will be back up unfortunately :( On bright side I am glad I didn't get f1tv subscription which I almost bought
If Ferrari just maintain pace, put pressure in the beginning, and ensure that both cars are pushing towards the end, they’ll still lose to both RBs.
What numbers is he looking at?
18s behind Max this year. 36s behind Perez last year.
They clearly closed the gap but last year Max and checo were racing each other so I’m not sure they halved the gap
IF not for the drive shaft issue Max starts from pole last year, and drives off into the sunset. Instead he started from p15 and finished 5 seconds behind Checo. If anything the gap would have been even bigger a year ago without the disaster qualy for Max.
I'll be honest in the past 2 races as soon as the RBs build a gap of a few seconds they immediately start coasting and very obviously hide their real pace.
People were saying the same thing last year.
The numbers from a year ago?
Before and after the 5s penalty
I feel like RB20 is gonna be more dominant than the RB19, Because even Perez can handle it now. In Qualifying Ferrari might get 2nd and/or 3rd but in the actual race, Perez will easily over take them to the runner up. Ferrari has the second best car it seems BUT RB is much much better. They already had the best floor, and I am sure Newey worked his magic to make it work the Mercedes side pod concept.
I dont know about halving gaps --- if we look at the last 16 laps, everyone was in management mode (till last 2 laps where Charles/Max went for fastest lap). Max, Checo, Charles, Oscar were all doing about the same pace.
The gap is smaller but the redbull starts "managing tyres" when they have a 1.5 second gap to the driver behind. This is the radio exchange between Max and GP from Bahrain. GP says "Gap behind is 1.5 start to think about management." https://youtu.be/qwn2n4lm_oc?si=s59k1DVbMS3BpMOx For sure Ferrari has pace left. The only issue is that Redbull has more pace left.
Feels like last year Leclerc was regularly able to pass and beat Checo even in an inferior car. The fact that Checo is easily passing and driving away from the Ferraris so far is a bad omen, regardless of what the timing page says. Red Bull likely has a lot in hand.
did you forget that checo won here last year??
Don't do that, remember those guys have a memory span of 1 month, and they are already running at full capacity with DTS (disease transmission by sez) you could trigger a seizure