The Red Bull/Aston Martin thing will certainly be interesting to watch. Horner mentioned that it's possible Aston came up with the design themselves as it's unlikely they could have copied it from Red Bull in such a short amount of time since Red Bull themselves haven't even had the design on their car for very long. It sounds like it'll come down to if the people who went from Red Bull to Aston just took the general idea for the concept with them and used that in this design, which is allowed, or whether they took actual data and schematics from Red Bull with them, which is very much not allowed and is illegal. The similarity between the two cars is definitely noticeable, though there are some differences as well. The general sidepod concept is suspiciously similar though.

As for the race weekend itself, Mercedes is looking way better. As with last race, we'll have to see if the Friday pace continues into the rest of the weekend, but their car in general looks magnitudes better. It isn't really bouncing on straights anymore, except a tiny bit right at top speed right before braking. They still are bouncing in corners but it seems relatively minor and manageable. Russell's onboard today looked far better than Mercedes has looked all year. Hamilton was super happy in his interview afterward and admitted that they'd made big progress on handling the bouncing.

Unfortunate for McLaren. Lando was running new parts and Ricciardo was running old parts for comparison but Lando damaged the new floor going over kerbs so he ended up missing the last half of FP2. That was data they definitely could have used I imagine.

Penev

28535 Posts

May 21 2022 15:06 GMT

#2123

Again a Red Bull complaining about power loss; Get that sorted out already, geez.

Mercedes doing a bit better now with Russell as their fastest entry once more.

E: Apparently it was a DRS issue this time.

LennX

4570 Posts

May 21 2022 16:22 GMT

#2124

Mercedes upgrades seems to be a huge step forward unlike the AM..... Guess we will really know tomorrow.

Judging from Vettel comments, they will need a few more races to get the basic set ups right. And they were designing this car since Nov 2021 /s

Haas wrecking face with NO NEW UPGRADES with both drivers in Q3.

Ricciardo takes over most race raced as an Aussie. Maybe he is finally finding his groove after the new reg change.

Hamilton and Bottas separated by less than 1 tenth.

Tsunoda and Zhou performing decently as usual

Alpine? El pain more likely.

Oh hi Ferrari. That was a brilliant pee one from "Sharl"

Ben...

Canada3485 Posts

May 21 2022 19:03 GMT

#2125

Ferrari still seem to have the pace over one lap but I'm skeptical if they'll win tomorrow. Apparently their tire degradation is worse than Red Bull's so we'll have to see if Charles can hold off Verstappen. I'm definitely curious to see how Mercedes will factor into all this since it's now clear that the pace and stability their car showed yesterday is real. It's interesting to see Russell still qualifying ahead of Hamilton. It made sense that Russell was outqualifying Hamilton when their car sucked because Russell's spent his whole F1 career so far driving around issues with bad cars while Hamilton's arguably had one bad car his entire career at most, so I expected Hamilton to gain an edge on Russell now that the Mercedes is more to his liking.

That Haas car continues to be ridiculous. They said they expected to start to go backwards after a few races at the start of the year but they're still in the top 10, this time with both cars. The Alfa Romeo car still looks great too, at least Bottas' car does. Zhou seems like he's aware that his qualifying needs work, though to be fair Bottas is one of the strongest qualifiers in F1 right now so being his teammate can't be easy.

Not sure what happened with Alpine. They looked decent yesterday then did horrid in qualifying.

Amui

Canada10567 Posts

May 22 2022 13:29 GMT

#2126

Unless something happens Charles has this locked up he can just cruise with nobody competing with him.

Max has intermittent DRS issues where it isn't opening.

That wind at turn 4 seems to be pretty deadly. Caught Sainz out very badly, and Max just understeered off the track, but got it slowed so be only lost like 10s.

Sainz had an awful start as well.

Kinda disappointed about mag/ham. Could've been a spicy RB/Merc fight.

LennX

4570 Posts

May 22 2022 13:37 GMT

#2127

Head wind into cross wind was interesting at T4.

I've a feeling Hamilton gave up after the racing incident and trying to conserve his engine.

Amui

Canada10567 Posts

May 22 2022 13:41 GMT

#2128

Looking at it, it really seems like Max has a steering wheel issue where the DRS button might be double clicking or something.

Amui

Canada10567 Posts

May 22 2022 13:44 GMT

#2129

Oh no Charles, lost power.

Merc and RB fighting for a win now.

No matter what happens now, Max will be very close to Charles for WDC.

Penev

28535 Posts

May 22 2022 13:46 GMT

#2130

This race is not boring

LennX

4570 Posts

May 22 2022 13:48 GMT

#2131

FFS.

We aint in Monaco yet, FERRARI

Ben...

Canada3485 Posts

May 22 2022 14:12 GMT

#2132

Nico Rosberg's mortal enemy, the gust of wind, has been in action this weekend.

Vinekh

131 Posts

May 22 2022 14:17 GMT

#2133

Nice start, boring finish. Good to see Mercedes improving.

LennX

4570 Posts

May 22 2022 14:18 GMT

#2134

Perez is as good a team player to Verstappen as Bottas is to Hamilton

Penev

28535 Posts

May 22 2022 14:18 GMT

#2135

Team orders are never fun but if they'd race (and Max' drs works) I suppose he would pass Checo in this instance.

Race is proper boring now.

LennX

4570 Posts

May 22 2022 14:21 GMT

#2136

Come on. Bottas podium please

Nvm... Russel tyres were too fresh

Tsunoda! for P10

Amui

Canada10567 Posts

May 22 2022 14:31 GMT

#2137

Sainz's mistakes definitely have been hurting.

Also with the pace Hamilton showed, I think he would've been fighting Max for the win if he hadn't been 50 seconds behind at lap 2.

What a race this was, and what a race it could've been. Could've been a 3 way fight even with how the pit strategies played out if Leclerc didn't dnf.

LennX

4570 Posts

May 22 2022 14:34 GMT

#2138

If only Hamilton really rage quit after Lap 1

Penev

28535 Posts

May 22 2022 14:34 GMT

#2139

On May 22 2022 23:31 Amui wrote:
Sainz's mistakes definitely have been hurting.

Also with the pace Hamilton showed, I think he would've been fighting Max for the win if he hadn't been 50 seconds behind at lap 2.

Absolutely not, the difference between the Red Bull and the Mercedes is still to large for that. It would've been an interesting fight between Hamilton and Russel though.

pebble444

Italy2503 Posts

May 22 2022 14:44 GMT

#2140

What a race!!! Super exciting, this is what F1 should look like;

Mercedez might risk being disqualified if they are unable to provide a fuel sample to FIA, as happened to Vettel last year