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Emmcee

2016 Ferrari

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Difficulties encountered in Baku by both drivers in pre-race sessions poured a lot of cold water on my thinking, that season proper began in Canada. Both, Seb or Kimi seems to be struggling with tires, while FI, RBR, and Mercedes produced somewhat more pleasing results. Race is however tomorrow, and hopefully better placing might still come. It's not going to be easy. Bottas seems to have knack to annoy Verstappen by holding him back once or twice.

 

From later interview with Vettel - we are loosing time in slow corners (and there are plenty of those on this track); the engine is not a problem. 

Looks like trouble free start, and some overtaking on the long straight could potentially salvage otherwise what could be a horrid weekend.

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Problem is sakae the circuit is so so slippery, drivers are quite vocal over the tyre pressure restrictions in place by Pirelli.

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On subject of air pressure in tires, I am not certain if people follow this, but Pirelli has agreed to drop mandated pressure by 1 [psi] for FP and qualification. So far I haven't heard whether it was helpful, nor what's in the pipes for the race in terms of mandated pressure.  Regarding dirty track, well, green track is not a new phenomenon, and teams usuallly know how to deal with it, even if this track reaches speeds we see at Monza.

BTW, Sebastian will take off on clean side of the track. What I am worry about as Vettel's fan is, that people now know what Seb can do when he takes off after lights go off, so they will try to block him right-away, which will probably offer some opportunities of open corridor for Kimi and maybe someone else as well.

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That 1 psi will make a huge difference on a new green street circuit like Baku, allows them to heat up that bit quicker. Your right about Seb, I think the drivers around will be watching him because let's face it Mercedes are gone so it's a fight over the rest and Vettel in the clean side, should have another good start. Drivers used to do that to schumi back in the day, chop right across him because his second phase of a start was always very very quick.

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Yeah well there struggling to stay ahead of redbull now

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It appears that combination of track topography and tire temperatures affecting adversely car performance, and the current field being so tight, anything negative, any imperfection is immediately magnified. Vettel thinks that slow corners of Baku influenced cars low placing. Renault always had good torque curves.

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Any imperfection on a circuit with such a huge straight is going to be magnified. This is a circuit which needs a very well balanced setup as clearly you don't get the grip you need from the tyres, see how everyone was skating around? I expect this circuit to play into cars with more significant engine advantages, but in saying that it's still a lottery. Common sense says cars like Ferrari and Mercedes will do well but the times and grid positions suggest it could be quite open.

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Vettel seems bloody quick on those ageing tyres, he has looked after them well.

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So redbull picked the wrong tyre to start on which compromised there strategy from the word go. Ferrari got it bang on and I can't decide if my driver of the day is Vettel or Perez.

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Funny story, that is.

Vettel - I do not know why we are so slow.

Perez - I can't understand why we are here so fast.

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I wonder if nico would've won if Perez started from p2.

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Quote

“I won’t tell you the exact dates, but I can tell you that our engineers do not sleep,” Arrivabene said.

“Some surprises will come – because our chassis engineers are sleeping even less.”

This is F1 - Arri

Well, we are waiting.

 

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Cut the guy some slack, I have a bit of a soft spot for arrivabene, just being thrown in with no prior experience like this and to run Ferrari, he is doing a wonderful job, plus he isn't really a "spring chicken" either, he's looks like he's getting on abit. In hindsight, yeah the team could be better but I think with arrivabene, Ferrari can return to the top and besides I think Ferrari fans are becoming a bit edgy but we must admit that this years Ferrari is better than last just a couple other teams and drivers have come into play is all plus Ferrari and both Seb and kimi haven't had the best of luck have they? Pace is there or getting there but it's just to inconsistant and that's down to a number of factors, especially this ridiculous tyre issue that You pointed out that seems to be affecting many people.

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In Maranello are working some foreign (non EU) nationals. I wonder what, if anything, will happen with their contracts. 

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Who knows but this could possibly be a similar affect to the GFC because teams are based in the UK, could possibly see some teams affected. That's why Honda and Toyota left in 2008/2009, they said the GFC was the cause.

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Kimi hasn't improved at all, he has just found his form he lost before. He's there best choice for driver next season and results and qualifying strike rate has improved immensely. 

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It is generally accepted in F1 community, so I believe, that both Ferrari drivers have benefitted from Ferrari having abandoned their pull-rod front suspension set-up, and adopting push-rod system, which was problem especially for Kimi next to Alonso. That might explain, at least in part, the alledged loss of form.

Point of my preceding post however is comparison of competing views on his performance by his managers. Arrivabene thinks there is nothing wrong with Kimi in "right" car, whereas Marchionne still insists that Kimi needs to prove himself to him. I am not a great linguist, but it seems to me those two appraisals of Kimi aren't exactly in alignment between Arri and Serg. On that account I am closer to Arri, because Kimi is what Kimi is, take it, or leave it, methinks.

 

 

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Seb is facing a gearbox change. He might have probably damage it Saturday past in Baku. If so, that will cost him 5 places on the grid. The journey to WDC is not all song and music. Inspiration and perspiration are very much part of the deal, but at least he is not telling media that he feels "victimized" by reliability issues. 

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I still struggle to figure out how a driver can be punished for mechanical failure.

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I've given up long time ago on desire to understand with clarity some of those regulatory, and commercial objectives of this sport. Scheming seems to go undetected only so far, before it becomes incomprehensible, and confusing mass of weeds.

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Looks like Ferrari boys are ready to qualify Spielberg. Good start of the weekend by those two. 28 hrs more of it, and we all can be happy.

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