I went with Perez Norris Leclerc Russel Alonso Team Reverse gear only I lobbed Russel om for the dark horse side of things. Cars an unknown but he is a good driver so never know.
So what have we learnt from qualifying? Vettel either really sucks or has kill several black cats by bashing them with mirrors on cracked paving and his bad ju ju is the real reason Ferrari sucked last year? Ferrari look to have largely recovered but still have a bit to go to get best of the rest That Red Bull is very fast in the right hands ie. Verstappen is a beast in the Red Bull. Alpine look to have fallen further back Power Rankings to start the season? 1. Red Bull 2. Mercades 3. Ferrari/McLaren/Alpha Tauri 4. Alpine 5. Alpha Romeo/Aston Martin 6. Williams 7. Schumacher 8. Mazepin I suspect Alonso wrung the neck of that car and could be closer to the Alpha Romeos
Alpha Tauri looks like very real and solid pace. Going to be very interesting to see what Tsunoda can do , has the potential to be mighty .. i thinks , all Japanese drivers seem to have that Banzai attitude towards racing. Very exciting to see a rookie come out the box like that . Mazepin who? Expected more from Perez .. had he not had his lap taken away he might have been alright. Vettal ..../facepalm . My moneys on Max this year. The end. I think Lewis run is over , yeah the cars good and not a guy to underestimate but Verstappen is hungry! Stroll was semi decent .. i would like to see him dominate Vettel . We'll see after the race tomorrow but im looking forwards to it , i thinks its going to be very good.
Would have been good to see what Tsunoda could have done in Q3 had alpha not risked getting both through q2 on mediums, as he was right on gasly until then. Was a similar story for Perez too. Should be a great season, as long as mazepin can stop spinning and ruining it for everyone else. So embarrassing. As embarrassing as being a 4 time world champion and being beaten by daddy's chequebook If you've not seen it, go watch the intro sequence for the channel 4 coverage. Very funny.
You've got to wonder who's idea it was to send Perez out for his one lap that he had to ace on medium tyres. 0.03 from Q3 when everyone else was on soft tyres, nice to see Red Bull intend to continue as they left off for car number 2. Oh dear Mazepin, oh dear oh ear. I still think Merc will win both titles. Max is too prone to... outbursts when things start going against him. Hamilton will plug along to second/third every time he can't win, Max will reduce his car to chunky kibble at least twice. Then there's the Honda engine, anything can happen in the next half hour (frantic bongo drumming).
Perez looked solid through Q1 but that lap from Verstappen ended all questions which car was number 1 this season. I do wonder if Perez has the extra gear Verstappen does. If Perez takes points of Verstappen and as you say, his attitude when things dont go his way, all Merc and Hamilton has to do is be consistent they could keep in touch throughout the season. That Honda engine is back to the original size zero concept that Honda sought with McLaren. Although now using a sinilar design philosophy to Mercades. They identified areas to target in energy recovery while bringing forward other design elements to recover losses from going so small. Its starting to look like a beast of an engine as Alpha Tauri are showing too
Yeah he got proper screwed by it, having to use a 2nd set of rubber for Q1 after the lap deletion is very likely the reason they had to gamble with his tires during Q2... And tomorrow he'll get screwed by Mazepin. Perez starting 11th on whatever rubber he feels like should give him some opportunities but Mazepin will no doubt bin it, cause a SC (And give everyone else a free pitstop thus killing any chance Perez had to catch up).
Oh f##king hell. Red Bull can't even pretend they're trying can they? "Is Sergio's car working properly? Who knows, all this telemetry's for Max, He's stopped on the formation lap, That's nice..." .... and Mazepin's binned it, didn't even manage a whole lap.
Only defence being Mick has been having problems too, car looks so twitchy in corners an it does not like changing direction.
Perez 5th from the pitlane. Red Bull might be in for the constructors yet, if they can bolt his car together properly from now on.
And a bit further back it looks like the limping horses might actually have a chance of challenging McLaren for best of the rest.
