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The car handles fine because they aren't even close to pushing it.

Of course, when (perhaps if) they do start pushing it they may find that the car is perfectly balanced and planted, and they will get results quickly. But there's no guarantee.

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Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

Honda / McLaren have detuned the engine to get some reliability. That's all.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
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Manor have the money, what they don't have is the updated software.

3 weeks to design a car, then get it passed by the FIA (crash testing) and followed by shipping everything to Australia. Remember that only a few weeks ago, the entire assets of the team were about to be sold. When items (such as the computer systems) are ready for sale, all prior information and data is wiped clean.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

Hope I'm wrong, but it's shaping up to be a very boring first race.

I thought you need to run qualifying to have it count as a participation to a race. Arrows only ran 1 lap in qualifying in the 2002 French GP to avoid a financial penalty (but the team still folded closely after that)

Concentrate on the Ferrari-Williams battle

And pray for rexx and (V)SC.

Also on the Hamilton gap, I believe most of it comes from T1 where Nico clearly made a mistake.
So the gap won't be like this all the time lol.

hopefully safety car won't allow it. Maldonado is with a good car again, he's prone to take risks

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

The onboard footage I saw from qualifying suggests that both McLaren driver didn't activate DRS on their fastest laps. So are they purposedly slow ? Kevin didn't even seem to apply 100% throttle on the straights before Turn 11 and after Turn 12. Hopefully it's going to change tonight !

I sincerely hope Honda are, as Ron tried to say, just trying to slowly gather as much data as possible and therefore avoid problems.
Thus they're hardly pushing the engine. So with a bit of patience maybe the performance gains can increase at a quick rate.

pray because they only have 9 tokens to develop the engine.

I guess they should push 100% on the race just to see where the issues are, their qualifying will be rubbish anyway

better starting from behind and pushing than crawling the whole weekend

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

News on Bottas?

I fear tomorrow will be a race to forget.

Will be provided a few hours before the race.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

I think the race for the podium will be really good. If the Mercedes have issues, then it should be a great race.

If they do that, and a component goes bang (as seems likely), they have then lost one of only four allowed engines for that car. Tbh I think they're doing the only sensible thing given the testing and development restrictions. I can see 2015 being an extended test session for Honda.

that's what I'm saying, they just don't care for the grid penalties and use all the engines they need. something like a last resort

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

If say use up all engines, they'll never have the chance to get some points later in the season when facing penalties every single race. I also think they are doing the right thing at the moment. Let them figure out the new engine, car, software, etc. first and when they feel comfortable they surely will try to get some points before the season is over.

Just look at Ricciardo, he's already one engine down. Right now, McLaren and Honda are focusing on reliability and who knows, maybe they'll make it to the finish with their engines detuned. It would be better then guaranteeing a failure.

I'm getting that disquieting "2004" style feeling about this season.

I remember vividly being massively excited for the 2004 season as after a cracking 2003 all the media were predicting a dogfight between Ferrari, McClaren, Williams Renault and BAR.

Then we got to Melbourne and after qualifying it was just so deflating. "oof...The Ferraris are THAT quick...."

The closest battle on track will probably be between Ferrari and Williams for third on the podium. That at least has the potential to be a good one.

And you never know, Mercedes might have another Bahrain style side by side battle for multiple laps, so let's hope the best while secretly fearing through worst

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RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley

We can hope, but it seems like Lewis has got the legs on Nico here and should win comfortably

Lewis picked a terrible time to get his shit together

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RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley