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Questions remain as Formula 1 looks ahead to Bahrain

Published on 26 Mar 2018 09:29
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By: Rob Veenstra

Questions remain unanswered after Sunday's 2018 season opener in Melbourne. Max Verstappen, for instance, wonders if viewers might be in for a particularly painful season, given how hard it was to overtake.

"It was like Monaco," the Red Bull driver told the Dutch press. "Even if you are a second or a second and a half faster, you still cannot pass. As a viewer I would have turned off the TV. And until something changes, it will stay that way. Do they have to change the circuit? I think they should do something about the cars, because in the past, overtaking was no problem here," Verstappen added.

Lewis Hamilton agreed, saying it was impossible for him to re-pass Sebastian Vettel after the virtual safety car shakeup. "It's like my mother or my best friend is on the edge of a cliff and I couldn't get to them with all my will and abilities. Maybe in the next race it will be different," he said.

The pecking order is also unclear after Melbourne. Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton was miles ahead in qualifying, but then Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel won thanks to the pit strategy and the virtual safety car period. "Today he (Hamilton) was a few tenths faster on each lap but we were able to stay in the fight," said Vettel. "Between us and Red Bull it's close, and Mercedes is a bit ahead."

Hamilton said: "I can't imagine what awaits us in Bahrain. There are good and bad points. Ferrari is very fast on the straight, so they'll be strong in Bahrain. What I can say for sure is that it won't be easy for us. I think after four races we'll get an idea about the pecking order. It's too early now," Hamilton added.

"Everyone was talking about the special mode of our engine and our advantage, but Kimi was very fast in the first stint. It was not easy for me to create a gap. I'm not sure that Sebastian got a good lap in qualifying, so we don't know Ferrari's true qualifying speed. In my opinion, their car is better than it seemed."

What is clear is that Vettel won the opening salvo in his personal 2018 battle with Hamilton. After qualifying, Hamilton said he "wiped the smile" off Vettel's face, but the German had retorted: "What goes around comes around."

Ferrari team boss Maurizio Arrivabene told Sky Italia: "We must stay calm. It's only the first race. But there are those who speak and there are those who do the facts. I do not put myself in the middle of a skirmish between drivers, I just say that the race is on Sunday, the points are on Sunday and on Sunday we scored the points." (GMM)

Major Tom

Posts: 152

Australia may make a good first GP because it is fairly untypical and so so it puts off making firm conclusions about the relative merits of the cars. It does seem however that Red Bull are slightly closer to the front than last year even if the relative merits of the Ferrari / Mercedes battle a... [Read more]

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Mar 26 2018 - 11:15

F1 News Max Verstappen Lewis Hamilton Sebastian Vettel Ferrari Mercedes

Replies (8)

renaultFanF1

Posts: 80
Crybabies. Albert park was always a tough track for overtaking, it's just that Max and Lewis were not as lucky as Vettel this time around. I personally think the race was pretty good, the cars were close for the whole race. Yes, there were not many overtakes, but does that mean we should get rid of the Australian GP and Monaco GP? Of course not
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- Mar 26 2018 - 11:08
Major Tom

Posts: 152
Australia may make a good first GP because it is fairly untypical and so so it puts off making firm conclusions about the relative merits of the cars. It does seem however that Red Bull are slightly closer to the front than last year even if the relative merits of the Ferrari / Mercedes battle are still unclear.
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- Mar 26 2018 - 11:15
Freguz

Posts: 160
I didn't see any overtaking at all. Maybe it was the TV producers fault?

It is time to get rid of some downforce and focus primarily on the mechanical grip
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- Mar 26 2018 - 11:51
- calle.itw
  
  Posts: 8,527
  Yeah, for some stupid reason they basically caught none of the overtakes. But a few did occur.
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  Mar 26 2018 - 16:39
- ajpennypacker
  
  Posts: 2,475
  There were very few overtakes. I am waiting for the total number to come out. I think the comparison to Monaco was apt. Fortunately, I feel very confident Bahrain will be a lot better.
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  Mar 26 2018 - 17:24
- calle.itw
  
  Posts: 8,527
  Few indeed, but overtakes did happen. Like KMag at the start. And I hope you are right, APJ. Honestly Melbourne never gave many overtakes to begin with, so who knows?
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  Mar 26 2018 - 18:26
- Pauli
  
  Posts: 140
  There was a few overtakes but I think live broadcast only showed Ricciardo's overtake on one of Renaults. Overtakes with short straight would require difference between cars be around 0.3-0.5 seconds in the corner leading to straight. But current F1 cars can do that only in very slow corners where drag and wake turbulence is much smaller than medium and high speed corners. But even slow speed corners are problematic to get cars close because breaking distances are also impacted if following a car very close while breaking outside racing line also increases breaking distance.
  
  Dowforce is good but drag is bad. Basically they should improve drag-to-lift which would make racing closer. Friction force is simple multiplication between surface normal force (downforce) and material specific friction coefficient. Of course tyres have highly variable friction coefficient depending on temperature and track surface (like paint on track can be slippery).
  
  Those who think there is any chance with mechanical grip should take into account that around 80% of grip in high speed corner is generated by aerodynamic downforce. Rest is generated with gravitational downforce.
  
  What about mechanical grip? It is just tyre compound and nothing else. Expect with very small working window tyre temperatures have to be managed with careful weight, suspension, aero, break etc balances.
  
  On top of that good suspension helps smooth out downforce differences when track has bumps (like F1 tracks pretty much always have because cars apply huge forces to track surface when breaking and cornering). Bumps causing uneven surface normal force to tyre contact would make it hard to push to limit because kinetic friction coefficient smaller than static friction coefficient. So once tyres start to slide it requires more downforce to stop slide than keep tyres not sliding at first place.
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  Mar 26 2018 - 22:32
Zjay

Posts: 4
The best overtakes were Mag overtaking Max and Vet overtaking Ham. Also it was just a delight watching Max behind Alo.... Both Ham and Max will carry quite a bit of anger to the next race where I hope they won't crash into one another...
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- Mar 26 2018 - 19:28