Max was crawling in Sector 2 (yellow flags) and barely got up to speed in sector 3 and still beat LeClerc by nearly 1s.

that guy is something else in the wet.

Good sprint race. Came down to a bit less tyre wear, although commentators say that Ferrari has better wear. Early thoughts are that RBR may just be about better, although that may be a track thing.

Perez was setting lap times early on, so speed wise, nothing in it

Great result for the teams I follow. Max still a DNF behind but Constructors tightening up. Both cars now seem very close, so its about luck, reliability and mistakes, RBR nailed the latter

Yep, weeked was good for RBR and max.  The car was fast in all conditions and great on its tyres... its also the quickest in a straight line!  Not sure what was up with DRS not being enabled until after lap 30, conditions where dry enough I thought around lap 15/20.

Mercedes had another horrible weekend.  They screwed up Lewis' pitstop and put him behind Gasly and Albon rather than in front off and the car is just undriveable.  George did better but if you look at it, he had an awesome start to 6th and didn't make any headway until Magnussans tyres went and LeClerk had his off... He was close to being got by Bottas too.  Sainz must be ruing his chances and luck.  Last week was his, this week was Riccardio's but he really needs to start performing otherwise that 2y contract may not end up being 2 years!

DRS, I can only assume its the safety issue when the dry track is only 2 to 3 metres wide, as you will pass in the wet, the other guy will stay on the dry line and can brake better and the passer in the wet has to brake in the damp portion. Fly off the track into other cars? Oddly when DRS was enabled, it didnt mostly end up being slam dunk passes

Warm conditions in Miami will tell another story, and if reliability isnt an issue, we will see who can be given the slightly better car award, but it will still be close

tdgeek:

 

DRS, I can only assume its the safety issue when the dry track is only 2 to 3 metres wide, as you will pass in the wet, the other guy will stay on the dry line and can brake better and the passer in the wet has to brake in the damp portion. Fly off the track into other cars? Oddly when DRS was enabled, it didnt mostly end up being slam dunk passes

 

Warm conditions in Miami will tell another story, and if reliability isnt an issue, we will see who can be given the slightly better car award, but it will still be close

 

DRS I don't think was ever going to be really effective here.  The track is generally too narrow to overtake elsewhere and DRS seemed to only gain about 0.5s speed advantage so as long as you could keep ~0.7s ahead by the end of the lap, there is nothing you can do but reach the end of the first chicane right behind and with it being still damp, last of the late brakers was a gamble.

Lewis finished 10 places behind his understudy

He has 2 choices - make sacrifices and work like a dog to get on par, or spend his time on other better things to do in life.

I think it's going to be somewhere in the middle, and end up in no man's land.

Ferrari ... not sure what to say ... need some racing luck? We'll see ...

RBR is back!

Batman:

 

Lewis finished 10 places behind his understudy

 

He has 2 choices - make sacrifices and work like a dog to get on par, or spend his time on other better things to do in life.

 

I think it's going to be somewhere in the middle, and end up in no man's land.

 

Circumstances led to Hamilton being down the track. The wider question is Russell has been top 5 every race. Is Lewis cracking under teammate pressure? Hard to say

I'm looking for a site that has all the laptimes listed by lap and driver... I'm curious to see how often George got close to his fastest lap (~0.2s faster than Lewis' fastest), how much the traffic affected Lewis' time, and really how far apart they where.  Most of Georges position was made up on the 1st lap with the only actual overtake being on Kevin, otherwise he was relatively stationary apart from the luck of LeClerks issue.

Favourite comment:

There will always be some ups and down in racing, especially if you're driving on the straight in a Mercedes...

Jaxson:

 

Favourite comment:

There will always be some ups and down in racing, especially if you're driving on the straight in a Mercedes...

 

Haha thats awesome given the recent comments from Russell.

Mercedes feel they are improving the car in sim and wind tunnel. Wont suit who Im rooting for, but if the top 6 were pretty even, that could be great racing, no doubt with controversy when any of them collided, which will happen in a close 6 car duel

Day time viewing this race weekend too

Interesting discussion coming lately.  Cars can definitely follow closer this year, but the DRS is still required for actual passing, so it hasn't quite hit the brief.

Future thoughts around increasing battery power and eventually a push to pass type concept being discussed.

Cars are super heavy and big/long this year.

Looks like a jeopardy race to me, the drivers will take a back seat to who happens to set the car up best on a track no one has driven on and no one has data. If you can get through the super slow bits and get traction out of them thats a win. Track is very abrasive and it breaks up. They resealed one section but over a race weekend it probably wont hold up. Given the abrasiveness and the hot track temp, and the many VSC and Safety Cars, I'm picking multiple pitstops. Stop start annoying race probably due to many crashes and red flags.