I think based on his post quali interview, he’s aiming at podium.

Can't wait for the race. If pre-season testing is anything to go by i'd expect Redbull and Fernando to be top 3 with their great long run pace and low tyre degradation. Ferrari might well finish behind Aston Martin and Mercedes if they haven't sorted their long run bad tyre degradation. Ferrari has changed their strategist from last season, part of me wants to see them with in the mix with great strategies, but having said that last years strategic train wrecks were sooo entertaining to watch LMAO

The regulation changes mid season completely fukked Ferrari last year. Everyone had to raise the ride height by 15mm and Ferrari was never the same. They didn't have great tyre degradation to start with, the regs change made it so much worse.

He won't win whiteout a Red Bull screw up, but I would not be surprised in the least to see him on the podium.

Raising the floor 100% fked them (even though Binnotto tried to lie and say it didn't). But that was only half of it. They had to turn the engines down a lot to get more than 3-4 races out of them.

Yeah I don't see him beating Max unless some chit happens. I could see him end up in front of Perez if Red Bull goes with some kind of split strategy to defend against Ferrari and it somehow ends up fukkin him over. Gonna be an interesting race either way. Early tomorrow but doable.

Max putting in a sub 1:30 time (goat gonna goat) and stroll in 8th place with no testing and a wrist injury is impressive

Those astons were consistently the #1 and #2 fastest around medium speed turns.

Bwahahah, we only had to wait for the first race of the season to see it. LFG.

Jesus Christ. Red Bull absolutely on another planet.
Absolutely effortless and they obliterated.

Props to Alonso on his podium. Not surprising at all.

First race and a Ferrari DNF…that’s not very reassuring.

Fuuuuuuark YES BOYOS!

So sick.

A great start to the season in my FanDuel account.

Had a dopamine rush like you wouldn't believe when leclerc retired.

Those overtakes were pure HNG. Love this for Hamilton.

Gasly from last to 9th

He had a great drive. I feel like it was overshadowed by Alonso's podium.

Actually a lot of guys did. Albon managed to grab a point from 15th in a Williams.

I already grabbed verstappen to win Saudi Arabian GP @ -150. Free money imo.

It was wild watching Redbull get more laps out of a set of soft tyres than Ferrari did on a set of hards. Ferrari has the pace but the tyre degradation is way too high. I can see Ferrari keeping Mercedes behind them most of the time, but Aston Martin looks like they are the second fastest car now, at least on some circuits. We'll see if its a Bahrain special or not. So happy for Fernando, he finally made a good team move.

This will probably be Hamiltons last season, he seems to be in shock that they're clearly only the 4th fastest car on this circuit. Mercedes has gone backwards during the offseason. Hard to see them bouncing back now, they're probably going to have to scrap their car concept and copy Redbull like Aston Martin did.

As for McLaren, apparently they have a big upgrade coming in a few weeks, but they're dead last at the moment. It was sad watching Norris having to pit 8 times because the car kept breaking down, looks like he wants to rope.

Don’t want to speak too soon, but it looks like this is going to be an easy constructors win for Red Bull and Championship 3 for Max.
There’s no way anyone closes that gap over just one season. Max was a full second a lap faster than everyone else the first several laps when he was trying to create a gap.
After the first 6-8 laps Max was on cruise controland he was still about to start lapping cars in the top 10.
That car has more in the tank than they showed yesterday and that has to be scary as fk for everyone else.
I can see Alonso with a couple wins at tracks where Red Bull stutters and Aston sets the car up perfectly, but that’s about the only real threat.

I can see him win 20 races this season especially now that reliability isn't an issue anymore. He's just too far ahead of the rest and the car is insane.

Agree. Might be the most dominant season ever. Not even mad, because the mid field is an absolute riot to watch right now. Just hopeful we have a ton of on-track overtakes all year back there for 3-4-5-6 positions.

How long before Mercedes throws on a conventional side pod and just gives up on this horrendous design they have?

There’s no way they aren’t back at the factory right now thinking about how they need to do something drastic. They keep saying over and over that the wind tunnel and data points to it being a great concept, but it just isn’t in the real world.

LeClerc supposedly already taking a grid penalty next race.
They replaced part of his electronic package before the race because they thought something was wrong with it and supposedly that’s what failed yesterday. You’re only allowed two all season.

Also rumor is Honda doesn’t have their engines turned up still.

Mercedes supposedly has admitted defeat at the factory on the zero pod design and is planning a completely different design to bring later in the season - so safe to say their season is already a write off.

How hard is it for fuarking Mercedes to throw on a new side pod? Legit should be relatively easy. Seems like self sabotage at this point

They're already developed and they plan to add them as a major enhancement soon if they can't turn things around.

I'm guessing it's more than just the sidepod. Floor is probably ass too. Sidepods are only half of it. Huge majority of the downforce is generated from the floor - and Mercedes downforce is ass. They complained of no downforce all weekend long.

Even though the Red Bull looks dominant at the moment - this will be an absolutely epic season. Alonso finally in a competitive car and with AMs development time advantage they might bridge that 1sec delta over the season and can get wins. Then we have Perrez, Leclerc, Sainz, Russell, Hamilton, Alonso and Stroll battle for P2 in cars that can follow and don't break their front wings on contact.

Also
-Merc inter team battle
-Ferrari
-Piastri
-Ocon vs Gasly at Alpine
-HULK vs MAG at Haas
-Alfa Romeo Audi

Agreed. Also I like max, so if he wins, then good LOL. There's plenty to see from AM, and I feel like they're going to win a race this year. Maybe something weird like Monaco or something.

They've pretty much admitted they are going to copy Aston Martin now. Aston Martin is using the Mercedes engine, Mercedes rear suspension and Mercedes wind tunnel. Must be some red faces having a customer team beating the factory team convincingly.

I'm torn on the Mercedes concept change rumors. If Merc could get their zero pod concept to work, it could be a silver bullet and very hard to copy if Merc's experience is anything to go by.

But yeah, shouldnt be too hard to come up with a slap on sidepod shell and do some tests.

Jolyon's analysis just uploaded shows that red Bull wasn't even pushing their car at the race.... Pretty much just chilled to a 1-2 finish.

Wish I had posted my preseason thoughts before the first race. Now I just look like a bandwagon after the first race. lol

WTF is up with them saying the field is too tight for DRS? That blew my mind that we do DRS for better racing, we make all these changes for closer racing. But when we get it, we can't use it? Not the biggest fan of DRS but that was strange as **** imo.Im actually surprised that this made it worst. I always thought that it was their issue when tied together with the down force. It must be suspension related since its only getting worst and worst.I didn't think they really needed to have them turned up to secure #2. But, I think they're going to be having to fight Aston very hard this year. Not a stroll fan, but I expect him to be a bit more aggressive after this break and getting his toes wet.He's going to **** over Mercedes hard, Lando is too. Its hard to say, but I really think Mercedes fight is with Alpine..... I see good weekends for mercedes is going to be fighting between 7-10th. I think its obvious that you'll see Red Bull, Ferrari and Alanso in the top 5s, Gasly, Lando, Ocon, and Stroll should all be producing top 10 finishes too according to their race pace (I know ocon's stats dont agree, but I think it was just to do with the race as an outlier).Agreed, I want to see a competitive haas. Kmag and Hulk being competitive and dicks to teams like mercedes, Alfa, and Mcclaren is going to be epicIt literally was a lights out and away we go for a Monaco Sunday Cruise for them. I still thought it was a great race to see the battles.