Watched FP2 this morning, from outside the car things look pretty okay, but onboards are shocking, Lift and coast prior to what used to be a exciting nearly full throtle corner.. It really hurts “the pinnacle of motorsports” if you ask me.
For the fans i can see qualifying becomming less predictive, being ahead 3 tens of a second after intervall 2 can mean two things, either a hell of a lap, or very poor energy management.
Well that’s good innit? A lawnmower race is certainly more entertaining than F1 races nowadays.
Aparently it’s getting worse. 2 out of 4 batteries have been written off after only having done a few laps. No further spares available until after China…
Believe me it can not get worse.
In 2015 the Honda engine electrocuted and almost killed Fernando during preseason testing in Barcelona.
Fernando did not recover for the Australian GP, he was substituted by Kevin Magnussen.
Kevin managed to drive the car up to the starting grid, but without doing the recognition lap. He was moved away using the jacks, leaving a small pool of oil.
The comment “GP2 engine!” was shouted on radio at the Japan GP, the same year 2015. Honda made a diplomatic incident out of it.
Compared to the above, they are doing quite well at the moment.
I guess without batteries the chances of electrocution are indeed much lower.
I’d prefer electrocution over being burned. These poor F1 drivers risk both now.
Shambles:
"Newey, who joined Aston Martin in March last year, said he and the team did not know about Honda’s problems until November, when he, team owner Lawrence Stroll and chief strategy officer Andy Cowell visited Honda’s base in Tokyo “to discuss rumours” that the Japanese company “wouldn’t achieve” their “original target power”.
He added: "Out of that came the fact that many of the original workforce had not returned when they restarted.
"When they reformed, a lot of the original group had it now transpires disbanded and gone to work on solar panels or whatever.
“A lot of the group were new to F1 and didn’t have the experience they had previous.” BBC.
Given Honda’s retreating performance in MotoGP, I was surprised that AM would take such a gamble. After Marquez’s wonderful performances with the Honda ‘bikes, they faded badly, not just against the emerging Dukes.
Given Stroll senior’s ambitions and the extensive investment in their facilities, why take the chance with an unproven engine supplier?
Well that was interesting. Quali only session I’ve seen over the weekend but looks like as well as being a good driver, you have to be a quality machine operator too!
A real shame Verstappen went off, not because I support him, but because he’s one of the top contenders in the first race of a new regulatory era. It would have been interesting to see where he would have been compared to the Mercedes’ and Hadjar. Ferrrari disappointed me a bit, I expected them to do better.
Because the king has no idea what F1 is ? Or because it looks like he has just impaled Lewis through the throat ? 
Hadja was fast in the other red bull so suspect Max will be up there performance wise which is good for the overall tittle race.
We could do with a season of multiple drivers being in for a shout of the tittle, much more interesting than one person dominated.
That said that Merc in the hands of Russell was pretty dominant.
Gary
If the Mercs prove reliable then, until the engine regs change in June, I think the other leading teams will find it very hard to close the gap on them.
For every tenth the other teams find there is no reason to expect that Mercedes won’t find an extra tenth as well.
I suspect Lewis is a bit annoyed. Good showing from the red cars.
Ferrari snatching defeat from the jaws of victory again?
It was all a bit Mario Kart after all though wasn’t it…However, at least the smaller tyres and wings did seem to work well.
And for all the ‘excitement’ about the new era, Max still couldn’t pass Lando for about 800 laps.
Apparently the Merc has already passed the new regs for June, so wouldn’t be so sure they’ll suffer by comparison.
So artificial and not motor racing as feared. But worse still, so dangerous. I see a huge accident soon. We had 4 big lucky escapes this weekend and saw huge skill and reactions that avoided big injury.
I switched off before the end, never done this before.
It appears now they will be few overtaking opportunities unless battery is charging or 2s speed advantage as all cars benefit from low down force on straights and high down force in corners so no variation in set ups.
All cars last year were within a second and the entire field 1s ahead of pole this year. 4s field spread this year which increased in the race.
Not best pleased, yet again they have managed to artificially destroy purist racing.
Grooved tyres next
Yes, it looks dangerous, the speed differentials in practice and qualifying are huge.
