Lewis Hamilton in an interview yesterday.

But today Massa has a bit of a rebuttal;

It appears both think RBR are in front but Massa thinks it's 'just' in front but Lewis thinks it's 'miles' in front. They are probably just speaking from their own perspective but what's the real order in terms of performance? Are either of them right or are they talking rubbish?

I tend to think McLaren is a lot closer than Lewis is suggesting but that Red Bull really is a bit too quick for everyone.

Depends when you're talking about. If future races remain like Bahrain, and the race is pretty much over (barring reliability issues) by stop 1, then the RBR's pace advantage in qualy and in stint 1 (thanks to lower starting fuel load because of efficiency of Renault engine) seem pretty devestating.

On the other hand, the length of Bahrain exaggerated the difference plus last season we saw that performance was (relative to previous years) very track specific - so if that trend continues, who knows.

He should say "Vettel is also ridiculously fast"

Based on laps from Q2 :
Vettel : 1:53.883
Alonso : 1:54.172

I would say that in Bahrain the difference was just that, IMO 0.3 seconds.

Well what Buttoneer says, they're probably commenting about it from their own perspective. Massa isn't that worried as he was close all weekend, including qualifying, while Hamilton was quite far away at some points.

To me it looks like Red Bull is the clear favorite for the upcoming races. Bahrain shouldn't even be their best track, Melbourne will suit Red Bull better.

"Ridiculously faster" depends on a semantic view, but yes, Red Bull is quite far and this has been said by me and others since a long time ago. People are wishfull thinking and some even "making believe" that in the next tracks the advantadge will decrease but in this tracks there are high speed corners where RBR will make even more difference. Actually, thinks tends to only get worst in the next couple of races.

Red Bull is probably quicker in qualifying (although Alonso made a mistake, Massa didn't). Red Bull are also better on the softs. With the rules as they are (overtaking is BANNED) it will be the driver-car combination that gets quali right and is quick off the start line that will win the championship. Having a car that is good on long runs is useless if there is a complete loss of grip whenever you get into the dirty air thrown up by the diffuser of the car in front.

Unless Renault let Red Bull down (again?) Vettel will be WDC.

What does he expect? A genius designed it.

Red Bull seems to have the most downforce which i guess equates to having the fastest car

I think Lewis is being overdramatic so when McLaren catches up to the front everybody will talk about how well they've done to catch Red Bull and how Lewis is driving the wheels off of the car.

Red Bull is faster - but not that much faster. Completely catchable.

Double the amount of downforce...that's an overstatement.

GP2 cars have about half the downforce.

The difference would of been in percent. I read that the difference between top and bottom teams were 1-10%. A fifty percent deficit means Lewis needs to get back to the designer drawing board. McLaren were slow because of KERS and weight and packaging. Besides it didn't look that shabby when it won, did it?

If McLaren setup their cars so wrong, and Lewis match the speed of Vettel in the race with harder compound, then I don`t think it is bad car at all. But I find the reds as biggest rivals, because of their strongest race pace, and closely matched drivers.

I reckon they're both speaking based on their individual Teams performance; based on what we see the RBR may (because no one knows 100%) be just in front of Ferrari but miles in front of the Mac - who knows, but we'll see over the next few races then we'll know for sure...

One thing is for sure, if RBR maintain this apparent advantage (especially in qualifying) and their drivers don't deliver the goods then Forums worldwide will implode

Exactly. It is just ahead of the Ferraris, but quite a bit in front the Macs. Lewis should also say Ferrari are a bit in front of them, although of course he doesn't need to.

Like most advantages, it will vary from track to track.

It seems to me that he wants to downplay Vettel's performance. If RBR is so fast then Vettel didn't fly away just from the start? He was never more than 5 seconds ahead of Alonso, and most of the race it was about 2-3 seconds. Also Webber's result implies that RBR isn't that much faster than others. Maybe few tenths ahead of Ferrari, and few more from McLaren.

Since 2007, the overtaking gradually decreases.
It looks like this year is going to be culmination of the process.

The RB6 is I think a bit better than the Ferraris, but not by a comfortable margin by any means. That margin won't count if there are reliability issues.

If its that much faster Webber had an absolute shocker and should be ashamed. The fact that Red Bull made most of their time over McLaren in the relatively slow new twisty sector its reasonable to assume its as much chassis and mechanical grip as pure downforce. And Vettel himself. He was visibly faster and more assured through there than anyone all weekend. The car turned in on a six pence.

Vettel doesn't know how to do anything but deliever the goods, so I'd say reliability would be the biggest issue.

Should this not have been posted in the Red Bull merged thread?

That is a tad unfair on Mark. Just like Jensen, Mark could do nothing to make the pass on the bloke in front.

I think the way Lewis use the words "ridiculously faster" and "insane" makes him sound like a total whiner. Not cool. Lewis thinks he's setting himself up to be the great saviour but it doesn't connect with reality and when one look back through history the difference between the cars used to be a lot more.

but u see ... If it's ' ridiculously faster ' he should have passed the other cars

I think the power deficit hurt them in Bahrain

It involves the Red Bull, the McLaren, the Ferrari and all three of those teams drivers. So it merits its own stand alone thread.

The Ferrari was FASTER that RB with hards, so its a no sense comment.Hamilton, wait a couple of races , and then, maybe, ill be agree with you.

That right there is a problem, IMO vettel just excels at qualis, he only needs one run to nail the chrono.

cheers

No it doesn't. Have you ever actually raced yourself or spoken to drivers? They will use this terminology ALL THE TIME. For example, "Did you see driver x through turn 3? He's insane through there" "The speed that car carries is ridiculous!"

Just typical forum rants taking comments out of context and blowing them up to be something they are not!!!

Ok.

Maybe in a straight line, but the bendy bits cause the problem.

F1 is not a drag race you know! lol.

read verry closly hes talking about last year and they still have that advantage while mac, merc, fer still need to work on that part they can move on to something else
its not a big a deal what he said
before hamilton comments a lot of the ppl here where saying the same thing but whan hamilton say something like this then its untrue and so on
plz read it it good hes talking about last year

See my comments on the Hamilton and RB treads.
I rest my case.

What an imagination you have.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/82277

cheers.

People who watched trackside during testing (including Heidfeld) did say that the Red Bull had an enormous amount of downforce already then. Someone on the forum even wrote "Red Bull has a ridiculous amount of grip/downforce" IIRC. There is a base for Hamilton's comments, though he is weirdly downplaying Ferrari a bit.

Lewis is either playing mind games, or this is information coming from McLaren engineer's analysis of the race... or a bit of both.

Alonso was faster than anyone else in S3 in Bahrain in almost every lap. So I will wait before i say that RBR will be faster in high speed corners. It's true that RBR seems the faster car but it doesn't means they will win...

High-speed corners?

Ssshhh!

Don't tell the FIA. Otherwise these tracks will be Tilked

Not really, we all know how good Mark is, especially in qualifying. Even with a mistake on his Q3 lap with a car purportedly that much faster Mark should have definitely been on the front two rows before the race even started.

Sector 3 has no quick corners though...

What a load of uninformed twaddle

You know this how by the way? Lewis text you did he?

Well Renault think it's RB and SF out front...

"Robert did a very credible job to fight back to 11th in the middle part of the race [in Bahrain] and his pace was very competitive - as quick as the two Mercedes and the McLaren of [Jenson] Button," said Permane.

"It's clear that we're not in the same league as Ferrari and Red Bull at the moment, but the performance in Bahrain gives me confidence that we can challenge for some good points this year."

Seems to me everyone is saying something the same but different.

Lewis' message is aimed mainly at McLaren's aero design team, I think...

Going back to qualifying for a bit: In Bahrain, Vettel's fastest sector times were: 30.317, 60.610 and 22.903. Lewis's best were 30.409, 61.248 and 22.944.

So if we ignore S2 the total times would be: 53.220 and 53.353 respectively - a gap of 0.133s or 0.22%. Not much.

It's interesting to note that Vettel was faster in all sectors, if only slightly, despite the straight line speed disadvantage. Due to their ride height trick, perhaps...?

Now... if Bahrain had simply been S1+S3 in reality, would Red Bull have changed their setup much? I wonder how much they optimised the setup for S2 vs S1+S3, compared to McLaren. If they mostly optimised for S2 and McLaren mostly optimised for S1+S3, then that's rather worrying for McLaren. If both optimised for S1+S2+S3 then considering McLaren optimised for race pace and Red Bull optimised for qualifying pace (relatively speaking) that's pretty encouraging.

He is downplaying Ferrari.
Maybe because Ferrari are his real treat this year.

Difference between Red Bull and Ferrari was about 0.2 in qualifying. They were also faster than Ferrari with the softs but not at all with the hards.

And look, Webber was always behind one Ferrari at qualifying, so if Red Bull was that dominant both Red Bulls were ahead.

Q1 (not much representative); Q2 (1st run); Q2 (2ond run); Q3


Hopefully it will be a Alonso-Vettel fight for WDC this year; we will see if qualifying pace is that important as it seems to be or if race pace and reliability will prevail.

Might be a bit early to say that, however I wouldn't be suprised if that was the case.

Bahrain is a joke if you want to test aerodynamic performance, in two weeks time Malaysia will be the first real test.

Red Bull are definitely ahead, they sandbagged last year in winter testing and they were sandbagging this year.

Ferrari seemed to suffer more tyre wear with the supersofts while Red Bull didn't, an indicator that Red Bull may well have alot more downforce.

I thought it was common knowledge that they do? I seem to recall numerous statements recently about the Red Bull's looking like they are driving on rails, their cornering speeds seem ridiculous.

Did you notice how fast Vettel was through the tight sections in Bahrain despite his engine problem? He could pull away there, only to be caught up before the start/finish straight.

Its obviously a bunch of BS. And to be honest, it makes Lewis look a little stupid at the same time because we all know its BS. 'Double the amount of downforce?' Is that really supposed to help his image of being a 'technically astute' driver?

I really think its just him trying to have an excuse ready when he cant match them, and also a great way to make himself look great if they do manage to put one over on them wherever. Win-win!

Well, Lewis clearly hadn't factored in Seanspeed being on duty to find him out. Big miscalculation, now he's exposed and his plan has backfired!

When he said "The downforce they had on their car last year was at some points just about double what we had.", what does your data say, as a matter of interest?

Dude, just because you're a supporter of his doesn't mean you have to defend every ridiculous thing he says.

It may well be fast, but seems reliability is yet again an issue.