Prrefab Sprout have just given me Faron Young
[Other Sport] F1 2025
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- #62
Race 1 in the bag.
Nothing like a little light rain to help spice things up. So, what can we conclude from race weekend 1?
Nothing like a little light rain to help spice things up. So, what can we conclude from race weekend 1?
- McLaren do appear to be starting the season in a strong position. Everyone else will need to be on top of their game to challenge them.
- Oscar and Norris very closely matched? So even if McLaren are dominant, we might have a decent WDC chase regardless.
- Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes do appear to fill the rest of the top 4 - but in what order will it all settle down?
- Lots of rookies on the grid = a bit of chaos. Hadjar will a formation lap spin, Doohan caught out on lap 1, Bortoleto and Lawson caught out when the rain came back. But Antonelli - what a drive from him (although he had his own off-track spin).
- Doohan matched Gasly, even slightly shaded him, all the way until Qually 2 when a Hamilton yellow flag got in the way.
- Sainz and Hamilton both still have work to do getting comfortable in their new cars.
Hopefully everyone who was interested has watched the race by now or at least seen the result or highlights.
Interesting to note that "even tougher" rear wing flex checks will be done in China. This as a result of observing all teams in Melbourne so perhaps nothing to change the pecking order immediately. However, front wing flex is going to come under scrutiny from Spain onwards. Will this affect the McLarens in your opinion?
Chinese Grand Prix: Formula 1 teams face tougher tests on flexi-wings
Tougher tests aimed at restricting the flexibility of rear wings have been introduced for this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix.
www.bbc.co.uk
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- #64
Hopefully everyone who was interested has watched the race by now or at least seen the result or highlights.
Interesting to note that "even tougher" rear wing flex checks will be done in China. This as a result of observing all teams in Melbourne so perhaps nothing to change the pecking order immediately. However, front wing flex is going to come under scrutiny from Spain onwards. Will this affect the McLarens in your opinion?
Chinese Grand Prix: Formula 1 teams face tougher tests on flexi-wings
Tougher tests aimed at restricting the flexibility of rear wings have been introduced for this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix.
I personally think it will affect all the leading teams. Question is how much relative to each other.
Will be very interesting to see how Red Bull go at China. Securing 3rd on the grid and 2nd in the race was a Max Verstappen special. They've clearly got issues (they're still trying out 2 different front wing specs, and they've openly admitted their floor isn't working how they'd like), and that manifested as the first stint went long and the tyres wore down - Max lost ground rapidly on the two McLaren's. Looks like he can mix it with them through the first part of a stint while the tyres are fresh, but once they begin to wear he's going to drift and be vulnerable.
The midfield could be a really interesting watch this season. OK, it was rain affected, but we've got multiple teams that look like they could be scoring points whenever they get a weekend right. And that includes Sauber, surprisingly, but does not include Haas.
Williams, Racing Bulls, Alpine, Aston Martin should all score regular points, and Sauber has the potential to score occasionally. How quickly can Haas fix their car?
The points situation will be really mixed I think, especially early season while those rookies are still settling in. Just 2 out of the 6 starting their first full season finished the race, with 3 of those who didn't finish being potential points scorers (Hadjar, Lawson, Doohan).
"It's not up to me to decide how good people think I am," Racing Bulls' Isack Hadjar told BBC Radio 5 Live. "I'm just going to try and come back in China with less silly mistakes."
Fewer
Fewer
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- #66
Eddie Jordan has passed after battling cancer. Separate thread here: https://www.northstandchat.com/threads/rip-eddie-jordan.412661/
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- #67
Chinese GP weekend (including sprint race) gets underway tonight, with FP1 and sprint qually. Brutal turn around for the rookies who failed to finish in Melbourne.
Interesting bit of talk floating around about Ferrari and why their pace from Friday appeared to disappear on the Saturday and Sunday at Melbourne. Talk is that they've designed a car that's optimised to work best with a low ride height, but for Melbourne the optimum set up was too low and they ran the risk of having too much wear on the plank. As a result, the ride height was increased for Saturday onwards and they lost performance as a result.
The China circuit has been resurfaced. Ferrari's competitiveness may well depend on whether or not that resurfacing allows them to run the car low enough without worrying about plank wear.
Interesting bit of talk floating around about Ferrari and why their pace from Friday appeared to disappear on the Saturday and Sunday at Melbourne. Talk is that they've designed a car that's optimised to work best with a low ride height, but for Melbourne the optimum set up was too low and they ran the risk of having too much wear on the plank. As a result, the ride height was increased for Saturday onwards and they lost performance as a result.
The China circuit has been resurfaced. Ferrari's competitiveness may well depend on whether or not that resurfacing allows them to run the car low enough without worrying about plank wear.
Cordwainer
Well-known member
- Jul 30, 2023
- 942
Think Plank Wear is also the Verstappens new clothing range.
- Nov 15, 2006
- 6,500
How many circuits will affect them like this? Schoolboy error in design if it’s more than a small handfull
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- #70
If they don't fix it ... all of the street circuits. Any of the other circuits with any significant lumpy-bumpy bits. Austin springs to mind.
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- #71
Not a surprise given how slow they were in Australia ... but refreshing to see how open they're being about it. Haas admit they have a major problem with their 2025 car and there's no quick fix ahead of China:
www.the-race.com
tl;dr for those who don't want to read the article: the car is misbehaving badly in high speed corners. They were losing multiple tenths through turns 9 and 10 alone in Australia. They missed it during testing as Bahrain doesn't have any high speed corners that fully exposed the issue. The issue is also at its worst in low fuel qually configuration ... which is something they didn't do in testing, focusing instead on higher fuel loads.
Haas problem is so severe it thought car was broken
The problem that wrecked Haas’s Formula 1 season opener, and will not be fully resolved for several races, was so severe that team boss Ayao Komatsu initially thought something was broken on its car
www.the-race.com
tl;dr for those who don't want to read the article: the car is misbehaving badly in high speed corners. They were losing multiple tenths through turns 9 and 10 alone in Australia. They missed it during testing as Bahrain doesn't have any high speed corners that fully exposed the issue. The issue is also at its worst in low fuel qually configuration ... which is something they didn't do in testing, focusing instead on higher fuel loads.
Hadn’t clocked this was a Sprint weekend
Think reading too much into Australia is tough as it’s a very unique circuit, a race on a proper circuit like this might be more telling
Think reading too much into Australia is tough as it’s a very unique circuit, a race on a proper circuit like this might be more telling
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- #74
Interesting set of results, isn't it? There's one obvious driver who needs to do far better tomorrow or he's going to be marked for the exit door sooner rather than later.
JJ McClure
Go Jags
Not sure that we can have a live sports thread without spoilers tbf. I mean if you click on a thread called F1 2025 what are you expecting to see?
- Nov 15, 2006
- 6,500
Thinking of those without Sky who don’t want to know the result before the highlights are shown, but you’re right, they shouldn’t click on the thread during Grand Prix sessions they haven’t seen.
Cat. Pigeons.
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- #78
And to be fair, we do have spoiler tags we can use...
- Hamilton and Verstappen front row. For me, it looks like neither McLaren maximised their Q3 session. Piastri didn't improve on run 2, and Norris made a mistake on run 2 and his run 1 time on softs was slower than his Q2 time on mediums.
- Looks like Ferrari can run a low enough ride height for China.
- Lawson ... ouch. He had a faster time deleted for track limits, but he really cannot afford to be starting from the back when Max is up the front.
- Of the other rookies: Bortoleto and Bearman really good showings progressing to Q2 with the team leaders out in Q1. Doohan marginally faster than Gasly, but both Alpine's out in Q1. Antonelli makes his first Q3. Hadjar made an error to be slowest in Q2.
- Interesting grid mix behind the leading 7 cars (McLaren x2, Ferrari x2, Mercedes x2, and Max). That midfield pack is wide open this season IMO and is going to fluctuate race-to-race.
- Looks like Ferrari can run a low enough ride height for China.
- Lawson ... ouch. He had a faster time deleted for track limits, but he really cannot afford to be starting from the back when Max is up the front.
- Of the other rookies: Bortoleto and Bearman really good showings progressing to Q2 with the team leaders out in Q1. Doohan marginally faster than Gasly, but both Alpine's out in Q1. Antonelli makes his first Q3. Hadjar made an error to be slowest in Q2.
- Interesting grid mix behind the leading 7 cars (McLaren x2, Ferrari x2, Mercedes x2, and Max). That midfield pack is wide open this season IMO and is going to fluctuate race-to-race.
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- #79
Williams may be in trouble and a possible penalty is on the horizon. FIA mandates that teams must have video footage recorded of their wings and submit that footage to the FIA stewards for the purpose of reviewing wing flex, in order to help the FIA decided whether or not to tighten up the tests they do for wing flex (which they have done for China off the back of Australia). Williams failed to submit their footage after FP1 within the prescribed 1 hour time window and have now been summoned to explain.
Punishment could range from a simple reprimand / fine all the way through to exclusion from Sprint qually and both cars starting the Sprint race from the back.
Punishment could range from a simple reprimand / fine all the way through to exclusion from Sprint qually and both cars starting the Sprint race from the back.
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- #80
OK, it's been long enough now. Not gonna bother with spoilers or hiding it.
McLaren shot themselves in the foot and *should* have locked out the front row:
www.the-race.com
Alpine's failure to get out of Q1 might be explained by them being affected by the new rear wing flex test. They've admitted they had to rapidly turn around some modifications for their rear wing in order to comply with the new tests. Wouldn't be hard to extrapolate that they've lost some performance as a result.
McLaren, on the other hand, have not made any changes at all. Norris' car was tested after the race in Australia and was already within the new stricter tolerances for China.
McLaren shot themselves in the foot and *should* have locked out the front row:
Mark Hughes: Overconfident McLaren handed Hamilton pole
Lewis Hamilton's sensational China sprint pole was only possible because McLaren shot itself in the foot...
www.the-race.com
Alpine's failure to get out of Q1 might be explained by them being affected by the new rear wing flex test. They've admitted they had to rapidly turn around some modifications for their rear wing in order to comply with the new tests. Wouldn't be hard to extrapolate that they've lost some performance as a result.
McLaren, on the other hand, have not made any changes at all. Norris' car was tested after the race in Australia and was already within the new stricter tolerances for China.
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