Mercedes still sandbagging or have you lot come to realisation that the car is not in a great place at the moment?
F1 2022 Season
- Thread starter pauldyson1uk
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I will be honest I am not sure, the car does not look good, the proposing is a huge problem, Russell seems to have got a slight hang of it, posting a few decent laps, Lewis is way off the pace.
I would be worried if I was him and Toto.
three tenths down on russell so for sure there is performance in the car
russell could not beat the ferrari's on the softs....but i think he hit some traffic.
Gasly fastest in FP1, did not see that coming.
Clearly some cars are holding back, only to be expected, but how much is the question.
Clearly some cars are holding back, only to be expected, but how much is the question.
expect faster times in FP2, teams with upgrades from testing will have more information from FP1.
I think they are worried and have said as much.
Paul check the times, such a varying degrees of times set on softs & mediums. Hard to call anything at this stage.
I can see that, just a name you would not expect at the top.
FP2 will be more of a indication I think.
Going off what Andrew Shovlin saying at the moment, Mercedes are genuinely having issue.
It's the same every year. Ferrari amazing, Mercedes "struggling"...until q3. Then Wolff's evil smile.
I would normally agree with you, but not this year, there is something not right with the Mercedes.
Bahrain GP FP1 time sheet
Bahrain GP Practice One Timesheet
| Driver | Team | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1) Pierre Gasly | AlphaTauri | 1:34.193 |
| 2) Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | +0.364 |
| 3) Carlos Sainz | Ferrari | +0.418 |
| 4) George Russell | Mercedes | +0.436 |
| 5) Max Verstappen | Red Bull | +0.549 |
| 6) Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | +0.621 |
| 7) Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | +0.750 |
| 8) Fernando Alonso | Alpine | +0.807 |
| 9) Yuki Tsunoda | AlphaTauri | +0.835 |
| 10) Sergio Perez | Red Bull | +0.857 |
| 11) Zhou Guanyu | Alfa Romeo | +0.860 |
| 12) Esteban Ocon | Alpine | +0.958 |
| 13) Nicholas Latifi | Williams | +1.451 |
| 14) Nico Hulkenburg | Aston Martin | +1.622 |
| 15) Alex Albon | Williams | +1.730 |
| 16) Lando Norris | McLaren | +2.111 |
| 17) Daniel Ricciardo | McLaren | +2.209 |
| 18) Mick Schumacher | Haas | +2.343 |
| 19) Kevin Magnussen | Haas | +2.611 |
| 20) Valtteri Bottas | Alfa Romeo | No time |
i don’t want to take over old graves but could f1 survive a frenchman winning the championship after the debacle of the final race last year?
Would love for that to happen if the runner up was disqualified from a win for cutting a chicane
On a more serious note: Seriously impressed with Zhou. Not bad first practice that. Also I don't believe Merc's are sandbagging. It's new cars with new regulations, there's no automatism that dictates that they will be among the fastest.
Interesting!
more info on this.
The qually runs and long runs in FP2 should guve us a clearer picture of the pecking order. Mercedes do look like they are struggling alot.
Hope the McLarens are doing something weird because FP1 they're 2s down on the Red Bulls and Ferraris on mediums.
Jesus the onboard from Hamilton's car is so bad. His head his bouncing up and down. Thats awful and must feel terrible to experience over one lap never mind a whole gp.
Merc car seems not very fun to drive at all right now.
@Mr Pigeon can take over if necessary.
They have an interim solution for their debilitating brakes issue. So i wouldnt expect to see Mclaren anywhere near their limits this weekend. They will have to do ALOT of brake management to keep the temps down and stop the brakes from melting completely.
Have to disagree, Norris has the potential to be a future world champion. Wiped the floor with danny ric last year and i expect the same again this season.
The McLaren and Mercedes look off the pace. I can’t imagine sandbagging being why, there has been so much change in the rules that all teams need as much real data as they can.
I know the Haas there just did that lap on softs, but it certainly doesn’t look like a cellar dweller of a car this year does it.
Hamilton was over half a second off the pace in Bahrain practice last year too.
Sandbagging cant be the reason the merc keeps swirving around.
Its so different to last year. This is such a basic level of analysis. I guess we will find out tomorrow anyway. I will genuinely be shocked if they’re competitive.
It looks so unbalanced it’s incredible.
That Ferrari car really is pure sex
Quite possibly one of the best looking F1 cars of all time.
Can’t wait for a leclerc vs Max season. And hopefully Ferrari wakes up their mind this time round
Doesn’t seem anyone else is quite having this bouncing issue at anywhere near the same level as Mercedes.
Gasly 
the feck man
the feck manStill the 92 williams for me
Pretty incredible Mercedes haven't got on top of the issue like most other teams, you can tell until they fix that they don't really know what they have.
I really think so
The graphic using driver number rather than team is so dumb. Also why isn't it transparent?
Its proposing that the problem, they just cant solve it , well that what it looks like.
Lewis having brake problems now .
Sky Sports F1 Karun Chandhok reacts to Hamilton's noting problems with his front-right brakes:
"We've seen this bouncing as Mercedes heads towards turn one, and that again will create an issue with front-locking. The frequency of the bumps carries on with the Mercedes and combine that with off-setting temperature.
"Ever since go-karts, Lewis Hamilton has been a driver who needs a lot of confidence on the brakes, that's one of his key strengths on the braking, if he doesn't have that it doesn't set him up well heading into the entry."