Motosport General discussion tread --- Formula1, MotoGP, WTCC, ETCC, DTM.....

[Zackgeno96]

Not a bad performance from Red Bull. Verstappen is the first to start and Perez is right behind. Perez already has an important task at the start tomorrow and that is to ensure that Leclerc does not drive over Max at the start. But how realistic would that be? The first few races don't say everything, just look at last season. Then Leclerc even stood at the top for a while. I'm curious tomorrow, it will be the first race of the season and where is Mercedes at the moment?

[coinlocket$]

Not a bad performance from Red Bull. Verstappen is the first to start and Perez is right behind. Perez already has an important task at the start tomorrow and that is to ensure that Leclerc does not drive over Max at the start. But how realistic would that be? The first few races don't say everything, just look at last season. Then Leclerc even stood at the top for a while. I'm curious tomorrow, it will be the first race of the season and where is Mercedes at the moment?

Leclerc missed 1 try on the qualify.
The good news is that he will have 1 set of new tires during the race over RedBull.

The other cars are closer to the top in a comparison to the last year.

[ILuckyGuyI]

Verstappen actually improved his lap time on his last try but still Leclerc could have had a chance to take the pole position anyway. I wonder what the problem was this time.

I hope that Ferrari won't deal with similar problems in this season also. Because Leclerc wasn't seeming very positive about the car. The car is really fast on straights but it is the opposite when it comes to corners. This can be a big problem for them to compete with Red Bull at the same level. Because even if Ferraris start ahead of Red Bulls, the Red Bull drivers can still catch up with them easily thanks to their high speed in turns. Leclerc won the first race in Bahrain last season and I wonder if he can repeat this.

[swogerino]

Verstappen actually improved his lap time on his last try but still Leclerc could have had a chance to take the pole position anyway. I wonder what the problem was this time.

I hope that Ferrari won't deal with similar problems in this season also. Because Leclerc wasn't seeming very positive about the car. The car is really fast on straights but it is the opposite when it comes to corners. This can be a big problem for them to compete with Red Bull at the same level. Because even if Ferraris start ahead of Red Bulls, the Red Bull drivers can still catch up with them easily thanks to their high speed in turns. Leclerc won the first race in Bahrain last season and I wonder if he can repeat this.

I think that tomorrow race should be a crucial one despite being the first one of the calendar in the sense that we still do not know the reliability of each car.Sure we had different testing sessions but those do not simulate a race and as such tomorrow will be an important race.My bet for tomorrow will be under 16.5 cars to finish as that was a good odd at just over 2 because I am assuming in such track at least 4 cars will be out of the race,or incidents in this race have happened before.

Verstappen looks like he will have an easy race though if he and his team mate get out from the first corner 1st and second,then most likely only fortune can stop them and no other car,they are still very fast even this season.

[JooBra]

Verstappen actually improved his lap time on his last try but still Leclerc could have had a chance to take the pole position anyway. I wonder what the problem was this time.

I hope that Ferrari won't deal with similar problems in this season also. Because Leclerc wasn't seeming very positive about the car. The car is really fast on straights but it is the opposite when it comes to corners. This can be a big problem for them to compete with Red Bull at the same level. Because even if Ferraris start ahead of Red Bulls, the Red Bull drivers can still catch up with them easily thanks to their high speed in turns. Leclerc won the first race in Bahrain last season and I wonder if he can repeat this.

I think that tomorrow race should be a crucial one despite being the first one of the calendar in the sense that we still do not know the reliability of each car.Sure we had different testing sessions but those do not simulate a race and as such tomorrow will be an important race.My bet for tomorrow will be under 16.5 cars to finish as that was a good odd at just over 2 because I am assuming in such track at least 4 cars will be out of the race,or incidents in this race have happened before.

Verstappen looks like he will have an easy race though if he and his team mate get out from the first corner 1st and second,then most likely only fortune can stop them and no other car,they are still very fast even this season.

The most important thing now is to see the race pace of teams(beside Red Bull, cause they are at the top). If Ferrari has put some work on that field and can save tires better we can have a interesting race. I have higher hopes after the qualification then before. Can't wait for race tommorow.

[coinlocket$]

The most important thing now is to see the race pace of teams(beside Red Bull, cause they are at the top). If Ferrari has put some work on that field and can save tires better we can have a interesting race. I have higher hopes after the qualification then before. Can't wait for race tommorow.

From tests in race simulation

Redbull was the top team
Aston Martin was the second best team
Ferrari was the third team
Mercedes was a disaster.

My prediction is if Ferrari can stay with Redbull they will beat them thanks to their new top speed and this kind of track.

[LTU_btc]

So, guys, congratulations with a start of new season. First qualifying session didn't gave us surprises, but I wait for good race. And it's so good finally to see Alonso in a car that's really competetive and have big potential

Leclerc missed 1 try on the qualify.
The good news is that he will have 1 set of new tires during the race over RedBull.

Initially it looked strange that he didn't went for 2nd fast lap attempt when he didn't had any issues with car, but saving fresh set of tyres for the race probably makes sense.

[Koal-84]

There is nothing surprising for me in the starting grid, Ferrari bluffed a bit and are faster than they said they would be, Mercedes are not as far behind as they said, same at the last year... In any case, Alonso got everything out of himself and the Aston Martin and confirmed the times from Friday.

[Davian144]

Today's and yesterday's WSBK races were quite entertaining even though there was a red flag on SPRace and also Race2, but the race was very good where yesterday in Race1 Alvaro Bautista won the first podium followed by the Yamaha duo for the second and third podium. Because Toprak was unable to maintain his position after starting from first position yesterday, and today Toprak was able to achieve the first podium in SPRace because Alvaro Bautista fell five laps before the SPRace race ended.

In Race 2, Alvaro Bautista again managed to reach the first podium after fiercely competing with several riders in front of him, including his own teammate Michael Ruben Rinaldi who eventually widened so that Toprak took second place and Honda rider Xavi Vierge completed third for today. Meanwhile, Michael Ruben Rinaldi had to settle for fourth place after making a mistake in the last laps of the race. _infoworldsbk

[Juggy777]

The most important thing now is to see the race pace of teams(beside Red Bull, cause they are at the top). If Ferrari has put some work on that field and can save tires better we can have a interesting race. I have higher hopes after the qualification then before. Can't wait for race tommorow.

From tests in race simulation

Redbull was the top team
Aston Martin was the second best team
Ferrari was the third team
Mercedes was a disaster.

My prediction is if Ferrari can stay with Redbull they will beat them thanks to their new top speed and this kind of track.

@coinlocket$ the first 4 is a combination of Red Bull and Ferrari so is it too early to say that the days of Hamilton’s Mercedes are over, maybe not but if he can’t be in the top 3 once the race ends then I doubt that he’ll provide much challenge to either Redbull or Ferrari this season.

Also I’m interested to see the rivalry between Verstappen and Leclerc, because I have a feeling that they’ll push each other to to the limits to win this race and continue doing so during the course of this season.

[Jackl87]

Verstappen actually improved his lap time on his last try but still Leclerc could have had a chance to take the pole position anyway. I wonder what the problem was this time.
I hope that Ferrari won't deal with similar problems in this season also. Because Leclerc wasn't seeming very positive about the car. The car is really fast on straights but it is the opposite when it comes to corners. This can be a big problem for them to compete with Red Bull at the same level. Because even if Ferraris start ahead of Red Bulls, the Red Bull drivers can still catch up with them easily thanks to their high speed in turns. Leclerc won the first race in Bahrain last season and I wonder if he can repeat this.

I have to say, that i obviously not that much has changed in terms of performance level of the teams in comparison to last season. Red Bull still seems to be the strongest team closely followed by Ferrari just like it was during the whole last season. I am kinda surprised though, that Mercedes was not able to catch up more to those two teams because in the end of the last season they were close to being the strongest team again. Also the biggest surprise probably is the performance of Aston Martin. They already made pretty big announcements before the start of last season but then they totally disappointed. Now it seems they have finally found a way to improve.

[coinlocket$]

RedBull is too strong, stronger than the past year.

It seems they already won both titles 

[swogerino]

RedBull is too strong, stronger than the past year.

It seems they already won both titles 

Redbull is strong yes and maybe the strongest car but I don't think we can judge from the first race because as Max Verstappen said right now in the interview after the race that we have to see track by track but we really have a really good race package.

Anyway the headlines were Aston Martins tonight as they made the race look much more beautiful and the super awesome overtake that Alonso made to Hamilton was simply phenomenal and sensational,the most beautiful overtake I have seen since that double overtake from Hakkinenn in the 2000s which sparked a great emotion in me again tonight,well worth watching this race.

[BitcoinAccepted]

We pick up where we left off last season in F1: Big show of power from Max Verstappen. Who's actually going to keep him from the title? He started on Pole and no one has ever come close today to deter him from his first GP victory in 2023. It all looked so easy and simple, but it is still high speeds that he reveals . I can imagine that this is no longer fun for the average racing fan. It could be a very boring and monotonous season for Verstappen with new dominance. The season seems to be over before it even started.

[Captain Corporate]

There is absolutely no way that Red Bull is not the champions again, that's guaranteed. There needs to be something like breaking some rules or like FIA punishment or something to make them any worse, otherwise if they really race with this car, I think they may end up starting to work on the next seasons car by now, because the difference between Red Bull and other teams may not be close enough for other teams to cover even if they worked on this years car. P1 is Red Bull for sure, and "for now" Merc is p4, I think p2 and p3 will change between aston martin and ferrari from race to race.

[swogerino]

There is absolutely no way that Red Bull is not the champions again, that's guaranteed. There needs to be something like breaking some rules or like FIA punishment or something to make them any worse, otherwise if they really race with this car, I think they may end up starting to work on the next seasons car by now, because the difference between Red Bull and other teams may not be close enough for other teams to cover even if they worked on this years car. P1 is Red Bull for sure, and "for now" Merc is p4, I think p2 and p3 will change between aston martin and ferrari from race to race.

It looks like that after the first race and honestly last time they have done so in Australia 2011 they completely dominated the race,of course anyone watching tonight race would think that this to be the same again as last year.Just remember though that last year Ferrari started on another planet by winning the first couple of races and Redbull struggling until after Monaco GP which from then they started to increase in performance massively and turned things around of course thanks and to Ferrari team making error after error.I am assuming that Aston Martin can improve further like Mercedes did last year and also Ferrari I think with Leclerc they have a better pace than this one of tonight,during the upcoming races we will see the true form of the cars of course without forgetting that Redbull is the main favorite again.

[dothebeats]

There is absolutely no way that Red Bull is not the champions again, that's guaranteed. There needs to be something like breaking some rules or like FIA punishment or something to make them any worse, otherwise if they really race with this car, I think they may end up starting to work on the next seasons car by now, because the difference between Red Bull and other teams may not be close enough for other teams to cover even if they worked on this years car. P1 is Red Bull for sure, and "for now" Merc is p4, I think p2 and p3 will change between aston martin and ferrari from race to race.

The only way for Red Bull to not get this season's title is for their car to not work as intended They still remain to be dominant and most of those can be attributed to their insane car. Just look at how that car rips through the straights, other cars have no chance. It feels like we're seeing an era of dominance from Red Bull similar to how Mercedes dominated the scene for a good 4 or 5 years. But yeah, Ferrari and Aston Martin is a good 2nd/3rd place, although I'm more inclined to bet more on the latter given how Ferrari still has its reliability issue that costed Leclerc to forfeit the race.

[ILuckyGuyI]

The scariest point is that this is even Red Bull's first look in the season. I mean they are able to win a race so comfortably at the beginning of the season already and they will continue to improve this car also.

When we think about this we can clearly say that Red Bull are unbeatable once again. I still kept my hopes up about Ferrari to make a good start. I expected the same competition between Leclerc and Verstappen in this race just as they had against each other last season. But Leclerc was falling behind in the first laps already. In addition, Leclerc couldn't even finish the race. How can Ferrari still have a big issue like engine failure? What did they do in the whole season break for god's sake?

By the way I was really impressed by Alonso's amazing drive today. He definitely deserved the podium and I'm excited to see him having a solid season this time.

[Zackgeno96]

Alonso also drove a great race. Verstappen was allowed to start from Pole Position, but was gone like a devil and after the first corner it was already impossible to keep up. Perhaps a bit premature to draw conclusions, but the new car from RedBull seems to be fine again and the engine has also performed excellently. The rest of the field won't have any chances in these circumstances if Max keeps driving like this, but we still have a lot of races ahead of us so we'll have to wait and see. I don't know what Perez's role will be, he will again function as a kind of wingman for Max to thwart the rest as much as possible so that they cannot get close to Max in the fight for the world championship.

[LTU_btc]

Now Red Bull is racing in different league. Russel expect that they should win all races this season and there is no chances for others to fight against them. Other teams only can fight to become best of the rest. It's so good to see Alonso on podium and I think he can fight for win in some races.
Mclaren looks so disappointing. And Ocon - how you can get penalty 3 times in one race, I never saw such thing.