F1 2022: Bahrain GP - Sakhir (March 20)

[F87source]

Originally Posted by ///M Power-Belgium

All I know is that Red Bull got last Friday a suspension upgrade .
Don't think that has something to do with MAX's steering wheel issue ...

But yeah ...MAX got 2 'BIG issues today with his steering wheel and with a fuel pump failure .
MAX's DNF was the sign... When Sainz noticed the blinking lights behind the number 1 car !

Sainz said : When I saw that , I thought too bad for MAX while he was losing a lot of speed and time !

This image is from scarbs, he thinks the redbull track rod was damaged during the pit stop.

[TheBingoBalls]

Originally Posted by F87source

4) There likely is no more power to come from Mercedes or Honda unless it is from the electrical side of things, as that is not homologated until sept 1. But they could always try to just push the engine harder and trade in reliability.


5) I don't think Mercedes's lack of speed is directly correlated with the engine, we can see Latifi putting in fairly fast trap speeds within 1-3 km/h of redbull. I think the issue with the mercedes itself is the porpoising, this causes it to have poor cornerning speeds meaning a lower speed coming into the straights.

I don't think Mercedes has unleashed the full potential of the M13. There's no reason to max out the PU with how the W13 is currently set up. I believe we will see the full potential of the W13 once the car itself is tuned and that's when Mercedes will be able to play around with output like they did towards the end of last year.

That's not to say they have a lot more performance they can get out of the engine but everything is slower on the W13 because the car itself is not dialled in properly.

[MontyB1]

Originally Posted by F87source

Interesting scarbs says that the reason for Max's steering issue was due to a bent steering track rod, there are images of it as well. If this is the case redbull's radical suspension setup might be putting alot of stress on these components. I'm not sure if these bits are homologated and if changes can be made.

The team seem to think it might have happened dropping the car off the jacks in on of the stops.

As for the RB engines the Redbulls failed for the same reason but the Alpha T was a separate MGUK issue it’s thought. Plenty for everyone bar Ferrari to focus on.

As for HAAS, outstanding nothing less, really pleased for them.

[M5Rick]

Originally Posted by ///M Power-Belgium

The Russell boy will remain HAM's lapdog for the rest of the season ..
Too bad ! Feel sorry for him ...

And finally he will look like this at Mercedes !
I'm so sorry George !!!

I feel so sorry for Russ and we saw how wolfman will control the situation, wasn't he taking in what was happening with BOT before..

[F87source]

Originally Posted by TheBingoBalls

I don't think Mercedes has unleashed the full potential of the M13. There's no reason to max out the PU with how the W13 is currently set up. I believe we will see the full potential of the W13 once the car itself is tuned and that's when Mercedes will be able to play around with output like they did towards the end of last year.

That's not to say they have a lot more performance they can get out of the engine but everything is slower on the W13 because the car itself is not dialled in properly.

IDK to me that doesn't make sense, they know they are down chassis wise so they would be trying to make that up with engine power. I really think there is a chance mercedes is behind in power if my initial hypothesis that the poor cornering speed leads to a poor start on the straight line thus resulting in a lower top speed - is wrong.

Originally Posted by MontyB1

The team seem to think it might have happened dropping the car off the jacks in on of the stops.

As for the RB engines the Redbulls failed for the same reason but the Alpha T was a separate MGUK issue it’s thought. Plenty for everyone bar Ferrari to focus on.

As for HAAS, outstanding nothing less, really pleased for them.

Yeah I heard redbull dropped their car alot:

Interesting, honda seems to have some reliability issues on their hands. Atleast it isn't like 2016 where they were slow and had reliability issues, now it's just reliability issues.

[GuidoK]

Originally Posted by F87source

Interesting scarbs says that the reason for Max's steering issue was due to a bent steering track rod, there are images of it as well.

I thought those parts were always made of carbon nowadays (the last ~3 decades); I wonder if these can bend.
And I think Max (or the guys in the pits) would have seen that?
And not in the race then after. Max didn't say anything about that in his interview after the race, and he also didn't inspect that area when he got out of the car.
But who knows...

[GuidoK]

Originally Posted by E92inPHX

A few questions if anyone has answers-

Are starting tire rules part of the new regs?

They are free to choose the tyre regardless what they ran q1/2/3

To what degree will a driver get points on their license? Does it have to be a big crash or does Ocon’s tap causing Mick to spin on the opening lap get him a point?

Ocon only got 5sec penalty afaik. But I think it's still classed as a racing incident.
I don't know what the exact threshold is for points on the licence when it comes to crashes/contacts.

Anyone know what happen to Bottas on lap 1? He dropped 8 places but I don’t think there was any contact.

BOT just had a really bad start.

[///M Power-Belgium]

Originally Posted by F87source

Where are you even getting the data to support your claims? It seems like you are basing everything on sheer emotions, and trashing leclerc because of his incident with max. Literally everything from you seems to revolve around max.

1) You are incorrect, the redbull has the highest trap speeds essentially across the board, and by quite a fair margin. So it is the Honda PU that is ontop - no excuses can come from redbull based on engine power.




It is also reflected again when max pulls away from charles on the straights in this side by side video comparison:

So no excuses can be made whatsoever that ferrari has the faster car in the straights, if Max looses out it was not due to a lack of straight line speed.


2) F1 however, is not all about top speeds it is about cornering speeds, and the ferrari has the edge here and by what seems to be alot. You can see in the qualifying video he makes up massive amounts of time through the cornering areas. This is what constitutes a fast lap time, cornerning speeds are more important than straight line speeds, I have no idea why you keep emphasizing straight line speeds like it is the end all be all of what makes a car good. The w11 sacrificed straight line speeds for cornering speeds, and look how fast that thing was, it literally is the fastest f1 car in history - so the philosophy of cornerning speed > straight line speed holds. This is why f1 cars in the prior generation emphasized down force over drag, they did not care about the drag as long as they could get a good yield on down force, you can listen to scarbs talk about this as well.


3) How do you know Sainz wasn't running the same engine mapping as charles? There is no way ferrari would screw sainz over in such a tight battle in the front row, and there is no way sainz would let that happen. You are only saying that because you despise charles over some accident he had with max. This is literally your mentality, if you have any rivalry with max or did anything to challenge him in the past you instantly suck. IMO Charles is a much better driver than sainz, and charles is one of the very few drivers who won both GP3 and F2 back to back before joining F1, you can't question his talent.



4) There likely is no more power to come from Mercedes or Honda unless it is from the electrical side of things, as that is not homologated until sept 1. But they could always try to just push the engine harder and trade in reliability.


5) I don't think Mercedes's lack of speed is directly correlated with the engine, we can see Latifi putting in fairly fast trap speeds within 1-3 km/h of redbull. I think the issue with the mercedes itself is the porpoising, this causes it to have poor cornerning speeds meaning a lower speed coming into the straights.


6) I think Max made two huge mistakes today battling leclerc:

- the first was the major lock up trying to brake super late.
- the second was on the safety car restart, he got out smarted by leclerc big time. Max tried to pressure him by moving up along side him, but did so going into the final corner which was kind of a bad spot because he put his car in a really bad position in that corner and Leclerc got him and accelerated while max was literally mid corner and in a really bad position so that really caught him napping.

The word is pace mate ! The POWER pace from that Ferrari (SuperFast) PU !

The overall package from the Ferrari is currently unbeatable ..
I'm talking about the new Ferrari PU , suspension , brakes , aero package ,balance , handling ect..
The Ferrari looks so much better planted on the track !
This car looks so easy to drive with , even in extreme situations and even in the fight with MAX .
Charlie pulled a 3-5 sec.gap just in a few laps !
Yeah MAX overtook him 2-3 times ...But how ? MAX pulled his RB18 far beyond the limits and finally he locked up and shot through his tires in no time !
IMHO .While MAX overtook him ... It looked like a suicide mission !
No way MAX could win this race from Ferrari today . Same we will see next weekend !

HAM wasn't there and got luck with the SC car and the DNF from MAX and Checo .
Today HAM wasn't actually finished on the podium ..But still a good P3 with driver points ..
Thanks to the RB DNF 's ..But that was part of the race as well..

But yeah that's a race and as MAX said : It is what it is ...
Meanwhile both RB cars are completely stripped , to find out what was going so wrong ..

No one . I said "no one" will beat Ferrari next week !
Ferrari has the 2022 Champions car ! And they don't fear Red Bull or Mercedes !

And I'm pretty sure Sainz is faster than Charlie ...

[F87source]

Originally Posted by GuidoK

I thought those parts were always made of carbon nowadays (the last ~3 decades); I wonder if these can bend.
And I think Max (or the guys in the pits) would have seen that?
And not in the race then after. Max didn't say anything about that in his interview after the race, and he also didn't inspect that area when he got out of the car.
But who knows...

If the weave was layered in a way it can bend and flex, but Im thinking the suspension bits are designed and weaved for rigidity so there shouldn't be too much flex, in such a case it should be more proned to cracking before warping but I can't be sure. Scarbs seems to think it might be a warped component.


I don't think the pit guys could've spotted it, pit stops are way too short for that if it did occuring during a pit stop. Literally the second the car is dropped it is gone, so if it occured on drop they defintely didn't see it.

[GuidoK]

Originally Posted by F87source

If the weave was layered in a way it can bend and flex, but Im thinking the suspension bits are designed and weaved for rigidity so there shouldn't be too much flex, in such a case it should be more proned to cracking before warping but I can't be sure. Scarbs seems to think it might be a warped component.


I don't think the pit guys could've spotted it, pit stops are way too short for that if it did occuring during a pit stop. Literally the second the car is dropped it is gone, so if it occured on drop they defintely didn't see it.

yeah but Horner also didn't spoke of it after the race.
Surely they would have spotted it when the car came in the pit? (both Max as the engineers as Horner)
But who knows. Maybe RB doesn't want to release information about that specific component. I don't know why they wouldn't but I obviously don't know what they know

[///M Power-Belgium]

Originally Posted by M5Rick

I feel so sorry for Russ and we saw how wolfman will control the situation, wasn't he taking in what was happening with BOT before..

The Russell boy first mission at Mercedes was towing HAM through QF-3 ..

But they had to do it ,because the Mercedes is just too slow for the moment .

IMHO . Too bad for the Russell boy !

Ferrari will come with more updates/upgrades next weekend ..

We haven't see all from Ferrari yet !!! And we can bet on that !!!

[M3WC]

Originally Posted by TheBingoBalls

I don't think Mercedes has unleashed the full potential of the M13. There's no reason to max out the PU with how the W13 is currently set up. I believe we will see the full potential of the W13 once the car itself is tuned and that's when Mercedes will be able to play around with output like they did towards the end of last year.

There is not really any playing around this season. The majority of the PU has been homologated. The major components: ICE, Turbo, MGU-H...have been frozen.

1st of March 2022: ICE, TC, MGU-H, fuel and engine oil

1st of September 2022: MGU-K, ES and CE

[M5Rick]

Originally Posted by ///M Power-Belgium

The Russell boy first mission at Mercedes was towing HAM through QF-3 ..

But they had to do it ,because the Mercedes is just too slow for the moment .

IMHO . Too bad for the Russell boy !

Ferrari will come with more updates/upgrades next weekend ..

We haven't see all from Ferrari yet !!! And we can bet on that !!!

I'm beginning to think it's a rout by the reds but as usual we saw only Max challenging for top honours with the rest way back.
Look, with the 18's mechanics sorted Lec won't have it so easy.

[MontyB1]

Originally Posted by GuidoK

yeah but Horner also didn't spoke of it after the race.
Surely they would have spotted it when the car came in the pit? (both Max as the engineers as Horner)
But who knows. Maybe RB doesn't want to release information about that specific component. I don't know why they wouldn't but I obviously don't know what they know

Horner did speak on TV about the steering and thought it could have been a track rod or a an issue when the car was dropped off the jack. The failure of the car and the steering issue he said are completely unrelated. Maybe a component is a little more fragile that it needs to be and it will get beefed up.

[TheBingoBalls]

Originally Posted by F87source

IDK to me that doesn't make sense, they know they are down chassis wise so they would be trying to make that up with engine power. I really think there is a chance mercedes is behind in power if my initial hypothesis that the poor cornering speed leads to a poor start on the straight line thus resulting in a lower top speed - is wrong.

It's a combination of both IMO.

There is no amount of aero Mercedes can add to make up the pace deficit which leads me to believe that there is more to the M13 that Mercedes isn't currently using because the chassis is not set up. If not, then Mercedes is in huge trouble because Ferrari and Red Bull are already way ahead of them.

I don't think Mercedes is maxing out the M13 because they're trying to preserve PU's for later on in the season especially right now when they're not even really racing, instead using these early GP's as extended test sessions.

Originally Posted by M3WC

There is not really any playing around this season. The majority of the PU has been homologated. The major components: ICE, Turbo, MGU-H...have been frozen.

1st of March 2022: ICE, TC, MGU-H, fuel and engine oil

1st of September 2022: MGU-K, ES and CE

You are correct but doesn't mean that Mercedes doesn't have different modes that have different levels of performance they can use for different weekends/GP's. That's what I was getting at, no so much changing or altering any of the hardware. Unless these engine mode rules have changed again for 2022? It doesn't make sense for Mercedes to degrade and go through PU's when they know they're not competitive especially if as it it right now, they're still the third fastest team. It's all about preservation until they get the W13 right. Or at least that's how I see and think of it.

[F87source]

Originally Posted by ///M Power-Belgium

The word is pace mate ! The POWER pace from that Ferrari (SuperFast) PU !

The overall package from the Ferrari is currently unbeatable ..
I'm talking about the new Ferrari PU , suspension , brakes , aero package ,balance , handling ect..
The Ferrari looks so much better planted on the track !
This car looks so easy to drive with , even in extreme situations and even in the fight with MAX .
Charlie pulled a 3-5 sec.gap just in a few laps !
Yeah MAX overtook him 2-3 times ...But how ? MAX pulled his RB18 far beyond the limits and finally he locked up and shot through his tires in no time !
IMHO .While MAX overtook him ... It looked like a suicide mission !
No way MAX could win this race from Ferrari today . Same we will see next weekend !

HAM wasn't there and got luck with the SC car and the DNF from MAX and Checo .
Today HAM wasn't actually finished on the podium ..But still a good P3 with driver points ..
Thanks to the RB DNF 's ..But that was part of the race as well..

But yeah that's a race and as MAX said : It is what it is ...
Meanwhile both RB cars are completely stripped , to find out what was going so wrong ..

No one . I said "no one" will beat Ferrari next week !
Ferrari has the 2022 Champions car ! And they don't fear Red Bull or Mercedes !

And I'm pretty sure Sainz is faster than Charlie ...

That's literally what I said power isn't the sole factor it is cornering as well.

So if you look at the total package ferrari is faster, but red bull has the top speed advantage, so it is the honda engine that is more powerful....

[F87source]

Originally Posted by GuidoK

yeah but Horner also didn't spoke of it after the race.
Surely they would have spotted it when the car came in the pit? (both Max as the engineers as Horner)
But who knows. Maybe RB doesn't want to release information about that specific component. I don't know why they wouldn't but I obviously don't know what they know

Yup no clue, just speculation at the moment. A bent suspension bit is probably better than power steering rack issues.

[F87source]

Originally Posted by M3WC

There is not really any playing around this season. The majority of the PU has been homologated. The major components: ICE, Turbo, MGU-H...have been frozen.

1st of March 2022: ICE, TC, MGU-H, fuel and engine oil

1st of September 2022: MGU-K, ES and CE

They can fiddle with power modes, or engine tuning, and where the engine has peak power.

[F87source]

Originally Posted by TheBingoBalls

It's a combination of both IMO.

There is no amount of aero Mercedes can add to make up the pace deficit which leads me to believe that there is more to the M13 that Mercedes isn't currently using because the chassis is not set up. If not, then Mercedes is in huge trouble because Ferrari and Red Bull are already way ahead of them.

I don't think Mercedes is maxing out the M13 because they're trying to preserve PU's for later on in the season especially right now when they're not even really racing, instead using these early GP's as extended test sessions.

I still doubt they would do this on purpose because they know they have to finish as high as possible, so there is no reason why they would dial back on power now.

I think their lack of speed is due to them porpoising so they never get a good run at the straight, and they also start the straight off with a lower speed as cornering speed is off.


I mean the williams shows that the mercedes M13 does have the potential to hang with the top in terms of out right speed. So for the time being I wouldn't be too worried about straight line speed, just fix the handling issues.

[M3WC]

Originally Posted by TheBingoBalls

I don't think Mercedes is maxing out the M13 because they're trying to preserve PU's for later on in the season especially right now when they're not even really racing, instead using these early GP's as extended test sessions.

I actually think they would be doing the opposite right now, trying to minimize points losses during first quarter of the season. Make up for current chassis disadvantage with power. I mean they had Russ towing Ham around every qualy session. Also all the Merc powered teams were at the bottom of the running order. Are they all trying to save engines? I think the writing is on the wall and Merc no longer has PU advantage.

Originally Posted by F87source

I still doubt they would do this on purpose because they know they have to finish as high as possible, so there is no reason why they would dial back on power now.

+1

[M5Rick]

Originally Posted by GuidoK

yeah but Horner also didn't spoke of it after the race.
Surely they would have spotted it when the car came in the pit? (both Max as the engineers as Horner)
But who knows. Maybe RB doesn't want to release information about that specific component. I don't know why they wouldn't but I obviously don't know what they know

I don't think the arm is a real problem and the other quibbles will be sorted by next week for the other desert race in Jeddah.

[TheBingoBalls]

Originally Posted by M3WC

I actually think they would be doing the opposite right now, trying to minimize points losses during first quarter of the season. Make up for current chassis disadvantage with power. I mean they had Russ towing Ham around every qualy session. Also all the Merc powered teams were at the bottom of the running order. Are they all trying to save engines? I think the writing is on the wall and Merc no longer has PU advantage.

+1

I personally don't think so because if we are assuming the M13 is at it's max right now, then the season is over Mercedes. Like I said in my earlier post, there is no amount of aero/bodywork that Mercedes can to the W13 to one catch up to Ferrari and Mercedes and two, add even more when Ferrari and Red Bull add upgrade packages in the season. I could be wrong and maybe there is a huge amount of stuff Mercedes can add or do but from the commentary, all the F1 analysts believe there is only so much Mercedes can do.

Mercedes already knows that they are the 5th and 6th fastest car right now and far behind Ferrari and Red Bull so unless HAAS or another mid-tier team becomes faster than Mercedes through upgrades, there is no reason to overexert the M13 if you know the car will still be slower than Ferrari and Red Bull. You run your current PU map safely and focus on the chassis until that's sorted out and then up the PU performance.

As for Williams, McLaren and AM, they all have their own car issues not related to the PU specifically.

I could be totally wrong and if I am, then Mercedes is not really in the running for any title and it's between Ferrari and Red Bull.