Ferrari has a step mountain to climb

Ross Brawn says Ferrari’s performance looked “horrific” in the Belgian Grand Prix. Not too many people would disagree. The reason for such a bad weekend for Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel is, no surprise to anybody, their engine power deficit. I saw data over the weekend that showed Vettel was 1.6 seconds slower on the straights on his qualifying lap this year vs 2019. And he set an almost identical lap time. That doesn’t mean the Ferrari engine is 1.6s slower on the straights – just that the car is. If you think back to late last year when there was all sorts of controversy around Ferrari’s straightline speed advantage in qualifying, the estimates of how much it was gaining vs Mercedes and Honda ranged from 0.6s to a second. Läs mer →

I kommentarsfältet nedan bidrar vi alla till att ge denna racehelg en extra dimension.
Tänk på att hålla god ton!

I kommentarsfältet nedan bidrar vi alla till att ge denna racehelg en extra dimension.
Tänk på att hålla god ton!

Do we need rain to get proper race ar SPA?

Those of us hoping to avoid another Mercedes dominated Grand Prix might need to pray to the weather gods and hope for some rain in Belgium this weekend.

Judging by Max Verstappen’s comments ahead of Friday practice there are no fairy tales as he calls them for Red Bull here. The car is simply too slow to challenge Mercedes over one lap, and that is likely to translate into a difficult Sunday as well. Verstappen only has one podium finish, he’s actually got more DNFs at this track than he does top three finishes. And this has just not been a happy hunting ground for him, nor has it been a happy hunting ground for Red Bull despite Daniel Ricciardo’s fortunate victory here a few years back. Läs mer →

Valtteri Bottas is seeing his championship chances fade away.

We saw Valtteri Bottas get brushed aside by Lewis Hamilton in the Spanish Grand Prix and also be defeated by Max Verstappen. And it was really tough to hear Valtteri speak on Sunday evening. I wouldn’t say he was ‘broken’ but he was very close – he looked like he really needed a break from F1 to regroup.
Valtteri only has a week off and then gets right back at it. Fortunately for him, he isn’t racing for his seat. So that pressure doesn’t exist. But it does elsewhere.
Sooner or later the vacant places on the 2021 Formula 1 grid will be filled, and Spain gave a good indicator of which teams have tough decisions to make.  Läs mer →