Gandalf wrote: ↑Sat Jul 18, 2020 6:58 pm
Neville Bartos wrote: ↑Sat Jul 18, 2020 4:31 pm
Mercedes must be pissing themselves laughing after today. Their cars were a second quicker than their own car from last season, which, even though its being driven by some mediocre talent, was still quicker than everyone else.
We know about Ferraris issues, but Red Bull were almost half a second than their qualifying time from last year.
I mean Lance Stroll p3! The rest of the grid should be ashamed.
What Mercedes have done this year is incredible. When regulations are largely stable the potential gains by those at the front become ever smaller, giving those behind a chance to catch up. At least that's the theory. But Mercedes are clearly not operating to that theory. It's an incredible team.
Already it seems the title will go to a Mercedes driver. And it would be difficult to find anyone who would put their money on Bottas. So, title No.7 for Lewis.
And then, what of next year? With the regulation freeze it will likely be more of the same. Title No.8 for Lewis!
Maybe I've very much jumping the gun here but I really think it's gonna happen!!
I don't disagree, but Mercedes advantages are continually exacerbated by ball dropping from their closest rivals.
I've been watching F1 since Senna was at Lotus and its always been cyclical. You have one team dominating, that's followed by one or two years where its closeish, then the coming team becomes the dominant team, and so on.
Following that pattern Ferrari were the coming force 3 seasons ago, but my word have they taken a machine gun to their foot.
And as much as have Mercedes have continued to improve incrementally, they've managed to maintain the top spot by their opponents failure to push on.
Looking back Mercedes initial dominance was down to their engines. On tracks that negated some of that power advantage they were vulnerable. Ferrari had pretty much caught up 3 seasons ago, and for a while were probably ahead. Though whether they still are is debatable.
You could say the same for Red Bull, fantastic chassis, hamstrung by Renault engines. Now you'd probably say Honda power is more or less on par.
What we've seen this season again is improvement from Mercedes. There's no dominant power advantage, but there is innovation (legal innovation, take note Ferrari), and an evolution of their already excellent car.
From Ferrari we've seen an almighty cock up in development, which means they haven't even managed to maintain the status quo from last year.
Then we have Red Bull, expected to challenge this year, we've seen they've gone backwards too. Last year Verstappen was on pole in Hungary, this year its 7th, 0.3 seconds off last year's time.
So, as much as Mercedes have improved, their biggest challengers are presenting them with open goal after open goal.
Incompetence appears to have broken the age old cycle of dominance, and Mercedes are reaping the rewards by just being sensible and steady.
Ferrari, Imo, need change root and branch. The issues at RB might be less serious, but there has clearly been a serious misstep somewhere.
It's hard to see Hamilton not securing title number 7. And 8 is a very real possibility. Not to mention milestones like 100 poles and 100 wins look attainable in the 40 odd GPS this season and next.
Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriations.
) but I never did like Schumacher and the way he went about things. So happy to go through all this predictability so see Schumacher's records gone.
at Racing Point.