I was listening to a podcast today and they claimed that the engine mode Red Bull were running on ALONE (not counting them not pushing to save tires, etc) was holding them back .4 sec per lap. That's absolutely fking insane of true.

I doubt if there's any way to know that without insider knowledge.

FanDuel is offering "fastest qualifier/race winner double" Max @ -130 if anyone wants free money lmao.

I'll reserve final judgement until after quali, but it isn't looking great for Ferrari. They've brought a new floor this race and they're porpoising quite a lot now, they probably have to raise the ride height which will cost a lot of performance and they're already off the pace. Charles was complaining about the power surging during FP2, sounds like the 3rd (and grid penalised) control electronics might be failing...

They replaced his entire engine, turbo, exhaust, everything now.
Not looking good at all for Ferrari powered teams. Before the season everyone was bragging on all this power the Ferrari's are making, but it doesn't mean squat if they can't get through one or two races without taking new components.
It sure looks like the Ferrari teams are going to be looking at a loooot of grid penalties this season for components.

Man a grid penalty on the 2nd race of the year? That's unheard of. I'm not sure if that's ever happened before. Ferrari are likely to be in big big trouble this year. With Aston Martin's pace they aren't getting a top 5 finish when they start 10th+ unless they get some huge safety car luck.

I think this race will be more telling of where teams really stack up.
Bahrain highlights great cars and cars with issues are going to get **** on.
Jedha will be a bit more level playing field since it's a low downforce track I don't think aero plays as big of a role aside from if your car is particularly draggy - that will hurt because it's such a high speed track.

Last year the big thing was straight line speed (red bull) vs. downforce (ferrari). This year the main thing I'm noticing is the whole tyre deg thing. Sure, Red Bull was better on sundays last year as well but this year the difference on sunday vs. saturday just seems ridiculous. Red bull is getting the same performance out of the softs vs. Ferrari on the hard tyres. That's a crazy difference. If it's going to be like that every sunday then the other teams just have no chance at all.

What the fuk?!

Max is still +130 to win tomorrow after his transmission ate itself in Q2 lmao.

Basically the only way for Max not to have gotten pole or win is something like this. Your bet was basically similar to betting Max's car didn't break down, but it did lol.

I wonder if he can win tomorrow. If he passes everybody except Perez quickly he'll probably have to make up 10-20secs on Perez at least. One thing is for sure and it's that this will make the race more entertaining.

Guys,no one even touched Verstappen’s fking FP3 lap until Perez finally did in Q3 of quali.
Max’s form currently is on a level I seriously don’t think Formula 1 has seen - ever.
If the car is reliable and on point tomorrow, Max will absolutely be in the top 2. Both the driver and the car have what it takes to make it happen.

I honestly think he'll still win, and the book makers kind of agree lmao.

Max P1 tomorrow as long as no one takes him out. The kid is the best we've seen since Schumacher.

Odds for a safety car are 1,17, extremely low. If that happens halfway through the race or later any advantage Perez might have over Max losing time early on will be negated. I think it's fair and objective to estimate that Max has like half a second a round over Perez, so yeah I'd probably bet my money on Max.

100%

Think it might end up being a boring season.

This is the result I expected we could likely see.
Perez is very comfortable with this car finally and he’s also a street circuit beast.
I figured by the time Max made it through everyone he probably wasn’t quite going to be able to catch/pass Checo.
Congrats to Checo though. Very well deserved, he had a great weekend.

Edit: They just fked Alonso and gave him a 10 second penalty for not serving his full 5 second penalty. No one can see anywhere that AM touched the car earlier than they were supposed to so I don’t know wtf.
Russell promoted to 3rd.

Max the goat and maclaren on suicide watch

Things looked a bit tense in the cooldown room when Max was talking about getting the fastest lap at the end, Sergio didn't look happy. I'm gonna have to go back and have a listen to both their team radios at the end. Max's drive shaft issue kept things interesting, the car seems a bit fragile. Sucks for Alonso getting the extra penalty he deserved better. The stewards should have made their decision much much earlier, Aston Martin and Mercedes won't be happy about that as it would have changed their on track strategy. Seems crazy we've had two penalty pit stop ****ups and two drivers not starting in the right position this season already.

Apart from the Redbulls it's crazy how close the field is now, there is going to be some tight racing this season

Red Bull is fukkin up hard with this. They should've just clearly decided that Max is the first driver and call it a day. There's bound to be more drama coming.

What makes you say they fked anything up? What should they have done differently today? Max was never even remotely close enough to ever call for team orders for a swap. They weren't worried about Max pushing for fastest lap because he was JUST on the radio for multiple laps saying he's feeling the same issues that caused the driveshaft failure yesterday. The team just wanted him to nurse the car to the line in second, nothing more.

Any orders today for a swap would have been 110% FKED up. Checo deserved that P1 and why make Checo feel that way for no reason at all this early in the season? The team did everything right today IMO. There's no real pressure at all from anyone to threaten them. Yet again, the two Red Bulls didn't even really push and they still finished 15 seconds clear of the next fastest car. That's absolutely insane. Oh, and let's not forget, that's EVEN WITH the safety car bunching them up half way through the race. lol
Pending wrecks, and if they can keep the cars reliable, I seriously can't see how a Red Bull will not win every single race this season.


Honestly, there's no need for them to dictate team finish orders. Any race that the car doesn't fail or team strat doesn't fk up, Max will not finish behind Checo. lol

They didn't fuk up anything specific today, Checo deserved the win today and even with Max as a clear first driver they wouldn't have swapped them in this case. But look how Checo and Max were treating each other after the race. It's giving me Hamilton/Rosberg vibes and it makes me a feel problems are coming.

Although I guess if Max is 50+ points ahead after 10 races it'll be business as usual.

In a way it's kind of ****ty that Max couldn't let Checo lead the Championship for just one damn race. I mean damn, it would be the first time in Checo's entire career.

But at the same time...I feel like if you sign up to be Max's teammate, you go into it 100% expecting this. Max doesn't yield, he doesn't stop for anyone or anything. And let's face it - we've seen too many times where a point or two can big a huge deal towards the end of the season, so it's understandable for anyone to want to push for every point possible. Although I don't think it will be anything remotely close to just one or two points that separates Max from the rest by the time the season is over. I suspect the season will be 100% done and over by the time Austin comes around lol.

The FIA has reinstated Alonso to third place reversing their earlier decision

What a chit show. I mean, good for him. But 5 seconds if 5 seconds and it should be incredibly easy to time. The main thing wrong with their initial penalty was the timing. How can they not figure that chit out during the race? Hire more people if needed.

During the post race show they were claiming the issue wasn't that he didn't serve the full 5 seconds, it was that the rear jack was making contact with the car during the 5 seconds. In the video, it definitely was. I guess that turned out to be legal though if they reinstated him to third.

Ah I haven't heard anything about that. I guess in a sport as detailed and technical with rules like the F1 it makes sense that some small detail like that could matter. Good decision then because obviously a jack touching the car shouldn't be illegal because they aren't actually working on the car.

Lmao so reading the official FIA document, basically AM showed them a bunch of videos of jacks making contact with cars while serving penalties and were like “so why was it ok alllll these times but now it’s not?”
Then the FIA was like “dang, you’re right.” And gave the place back.




Basically it still just goes to show Mercedes has way too much power when it comes to bitching about something for the FIA to have been so fast to strip Alonso of third over something they let go a hundred times before.

Lmaooo

and too think we thought RB was good enough to get max first every race. wow were we high

I think ferrari and Mercedes are in for a long trip. Dont see them getting that much better, all while I see mclarren and Alpine improving a lot.