Hamilton: “Ferrari are very, very strong right now”

28 comments on “Hamilton: “Ferrari are very, very strong right now””

1. 

   Xcm
   21st February 2019, 1:00

   great cotd, couldn’t agree more. Claire Williams doesn’t owe fans ANYTHING. Furthermore, she isn’t even officially team principle, and isn’t a car designer… you guys wouldn’t call for frank to be fired…

   Typical 2010’s self entitled behavior from the community. Get over yourselves.
   1. 

      ColdFly (@)
      21st February 2019, 5:54

      Claire Williams is a lot to the fans; those are the people who directly and indirectly make her company possible.
      These are the people who buy the team merchandise, these are the people who pay broadcasters who pay FOM who pay Williams, these are the people who buy the products advertised on the cars.

      She is not the team principal but responsible for daily operations at the F1 team. I’m not calling for her to be fired, but do appreciate the apology and hope she takes the right executive decisions to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

      Missing 30% of our season testing is a big thing. The impact might be felt throughout the season.
2. 

   petebaldwin (@)
   21st February 2019, 1:18

   I liked most of Lewis’ interview. He said “it’s not a time where we need to be focusing on others” and gave an accurate statement of how testing works. As he said, he doesn’t know what everyone is doing and will only have a slightly better idea next week.

   Then he remembered he worked for Mercedes and is contractually obliged to big up Ferrari and contradicted what he said in the first half. Apparently, despite not knowing what anyone is doing, he knows Ferrari are going to be a bigger challenge than they were last year….
   1. 

      Urvaksh (@thedoctor03)
      21st February 2019, 1:47

      Classic Lewis.
      1. 

         budchekov (@budchekov)
         21st February 2019, 3:27

         Yeah, nice one Lewis.

         @FWIW I reckon the Williams paint job looks boffo.
      2. 

         Matteo (@m-bagattini)
         21st February 2019, 8:54

         Wolff’s school
   2. 

      Robbie (@robbie)
      21st February 2019, 2:29

      In fairness to LH he does say it ‘appears’ that Ferrari has a strong package, not that he knows anything beyond that. But besides that, Ferrari did present a challenge last year, and nothing in testing so far has made it appear they have taken a step backwards. They may ‘appear’ to have taken a step backwards however, if Merc comes out dominating.
      1. 

         bosyber (@bosyber)
         21st February 2019, 8:24

         @robbie these considered opinions, scary! Yep, agree with that. Last year after testing people thought Ferrari were not quite there, and they were a challenge. If now they appear strong, well.
   3. 

      Dennis
      21st February 2019, 7:06

      @Xcm
      Lewis says “it ‘appears’ that Ferrari has a strong package”, he does not say knows anything specific.
3. 

   JC
   21st February 2019, 1:21

   So, RBR think they’re currently 2nd best behind Ferrari. Interesting! Getting excited for a close fought season.
4. 

   papaya
   21st February 2019, 1:24

   Backmarker Mercedes will be 1 lap down on Ferrari Vettel during the race… Running marathon on slow speed mode is no brainer, as it will not reveal how the car behaving under qualifying/race load pressure, such as engine reliability on longer duration of party mode or tyre temperature/blistering issues…
   1. 

      anon
      21st February 2019, 7:32

      papaya, they were only 8th and 10th fastest in the 2018 pre-season tests and were generally one of the slower runners, yet they weren’t exactly “backmarkers” last year…
   2. 

      Boudi
      21st February 2019, 18:07

      You’re hired!
5. 

   Jay Menon (@jaymenon10)
   21st February 2019, 1:54

   CoTD is right, Claire doesn’t need to apologize, but that doesn’t mean she nor her Technical Director are doing a good job.

   Hey, we get it, running a Formula 1 team is a hard job, but that’s your choice of profession. My problem with Williams in general is that they are living in the past. They want to be the idealistic racers of a bygone era. While admirable, they are essentially driving themselves off a cliff, intentionally. Looking down on the likes of Haas for employing a business model that is suited to the apparent environment isn’t scoring you points in WCC.

   Yes, F1 is inequitable right now, but as team principals, both Frank and Claire have to make the hard decisions that ensure the survival of their company/team. This may mean reduction of staff, and buying non listed parts, but you have to do what you have to do.

   On to testing. The way I see it, Ferrari have showed their hand, Mercedes are sand bagging, Red Bull an unknown quantity, Class B championship will be more fun this year.
   1. 

      lunaslide (@lunaslide)
      21st February 2019, 2:36

      @jaymenon10 I very much agree about Williams approach living in the past. The practicalities of running an F1 team are wildly different now, but they haven’t adapted. They do need to ask some hard questions of themselves, and sometimes a major embarrassment like this (and likewise for McLaren crowing about their chassis only to be humbled by no improvement with the Renault) might finally force them to reassess their approach. You figure last year might have done that for them, but maybe losing the majority of your sponsors and two pay drivers wasn’t enough of a kick in the butt.

      I think the only team that has shown its hand a bit is McLaren clearly doing some morale booster laps. I don’t even think Alfa or TR were trying to go particularly fast today, just using the C5 to stress the chassis as much as possible (without crashing) to test. Looking at Kimi’s onboard, and the lap from Kvyat, they weren’t making big corrections to the steering wheel to keep it on track during those laps, which means they were not at the limit of the car. Ferrari have for years done their testing on less fuel than Mercedes and tend to run on one step softer tires, which makes comparisons difficult at this stage. Still too early to tell. When Lewis says Ferrari look very strong, I think it’s for the obvious reason that the car looks very stable and drivable and they’ve had no stoppages in doing a lot of laps.

      When I switched to R compound tires on my track car for the first time, it highlighted weaknesses in the car that had never been apparent before. I had to modify the fuel pump setup to eliminate starvation on a particularly hairy corner at one of the local tracks. ABS and traction control needed remapping if I wanted to use them (I was not quite a newb, but not good enough to go without yet). Several bushings in the suspension that were fine before got completely thrashed, so I went to monoball for those instead. The extra grip in those C5 tires will highlight problems that don’t show up on the harder compounds, it just has the byproduct of squeezing out faster lap times.
      1. 

         NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
         21st February 2019, 19:04

         While an awesome comment, Mercedes know this and have near infinite resources to build their car to Withstand C5 tires.

         They run those cars on simulator rigs all the time, simulating whatever forces they predict will happen during the year.

         History also suggests they get it right.

         They are however running a strange program, running high fuel loads. Wouldn’t they not want to know their ultimate speed?

         If I employed Lewis Hamilton I would tell him: “Right, here is 15l of fuel do 5 laps se what she’s got.”
         1. 

            mystic one (@mysticus)
            21st February 2019, 21:09

            @jureo
            “They are however running a strange program, running high fuel loads. Wouldn’t they not want to know their ultimate speed?” You know these are called testing for a reason… also you need to crawl before you walk and jump around! They have their own discipline and following it as it was intended and requested by team/engineers. Pre 2014, they were the team on a single lap performance but in the long run, they were sitting ducks… so give them some slack and let them do their jobs… Last year, they were doing pretty much similar work and they were also 7-8th best in speed dept too… come to racing, it is whole lot of different kind of can of worms!
            1. 

               NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
               22nd February 2019, 5:36

               Yeah clearly they are doing the best job possible of anyone in recent times.

               They are there to win, this is their approach, just annoying for the fans.
   2. 

      Robbie (@robbie)
      21st February 2019, 2:39

      But in fairness to Williams, let’s add a bit more to the story. The introduction of the hybrid era brought about way more complexity and costs. The goal posts got changed mid-game on the lesser teams, which is why there is urgency in the part of Liberty to address that. The tires have been difficult to get to working properly and they have struggled with that these last few years particularly. And recall their star driver Bottas got poached away from them. F1 used to be way more ‘Williams friendly’ but now being a factory team is a necessity, not just a luxury, and teams that aren’t don’t stand a chance, for now. Williams is not to be blamed for ALL their current woes.
      1. 

         lunaslide (@lunaslide)
         21st February 2019, 3:39

         @robbie You make very fair points. To make a loose analogy, it’s kind of like multiplayer video games where the game maker tries to make the game more challenging to the fanatics to keep them from chewing through all the game content in a week, but the byproduct of that is it makes the game an unbearable slog for the casual gamer. It’s a big problem when you got everything from an Olympic athlete to a university varsity player all in on the same game. The technical challenges F1 has put into the sport to keep the manufacturer teams challenged and engaged in the sport also make it crushing for a small team with not a lot of funds.

         But, that is the nature of the game, for better or worse, and to not adequately adapt to it is a problem with the team itself. If they had made better decisions, they would have more sponsorship and they would have more resources to fight. They haven’t and their sponsors have fled, making the situation even worse. This isn’t just purely a sport, but a competitive enterprise between companies and that must factor in to how a team plays the game.

         Bottas didn’t get stolen away from them, by the way, they got a benefit out of the deal as well and decided that having the money was more important than having the driver. I don’t even think they were wrong about that.
         1. 

            Robbie (@robbie)
            21st February 2019, 4:01

            @lunaslide Fair comment. I do try not to look back with the hindsight of 20/20 when considering criticizing them for not making better decisions, though.
6. 

   lunaslide (@lunaslide)
   21st February 2019, 2:19

   Regarding Kvyat:

   Asked whether his lap, recorded on the softest Pirelli tyre compound S5, had been on the limit, Kvyat said: “I wouldn’t say it was balls out or anything. You don’t want to end up in the wall.

   “But you try to feel the car as much as you can in those laps the engineers give you, and you cannot keep driving around slowly, but it was not too bad.

   “We were not having any intention to go for any big performance today. We just tried to focus on our programme.

   I’m inclined to believe him. I think there is a hell of a lot of pace hiding in the C5s. I didn’t see how his subsequent laps where. When Kimi ran on them in the morning, they seemed to bite the dust immediately after that lap.

   Also, Toro Rosso’s setup changes looked to have worked well, the car wasn’t nearly so skittish at the rear as it was at the beginning of the week.
7. 

   Phylyp (@phylyp)
   21st February 2019, 2:36

   If what I read in yesterday’s Telegraph article is correct, and that Sir Frank is the one overseeing development at the factory, then he needs to take a good hard look at himself and see if a rejig is warranted – both in leadership and approach. Until now I was under the impression that it was Claire who was TP in all but name (similar to Bob Fernley back in his Force India days).

   So, if Frank is the team principal and overseeing the development work, but it’s the deputy Claire who’s running day-to-day operations (and doing other TP responsibilities), then she’s the one left holding the ball at the end of the day in the eyes of the world. Yet, as the deputy, I’d think Claire will have to be deferring to Frank on some issues & decisions that he makes. And that’s not a great way to run a team – a ship needs one captain.

   I expect this to be an unpopular opinion, given the respect Sir Frank commands – and deservedly so – but there is a lot of damage that can be wrought by a poor leadership structure. Claire has received a lot of flak around decisions she’s made, but I now wonder how much of it was truly under her control (e.g. maybe it’s not Claire’s fault that Williams continue to persist with a metal transmission housing). I wonder if this is time for Sir Frank to take a step back, let Claire run the ship, and have someone else oversee the development work at the factory and report in to Claire. Sir Frank can then step back into an unconflicted role of being only the voice of experience for Claire to turn to if and when required.
   1. 

      lunaslide (@lunaslide)
      21st February 2019, 2:47

      @phylyp She’s in a rough position. She doesn’t possess full autonomy to make the calls, but also has to bear most of the scrutiny because she’s now the face and hands of the operation. That doesn’t mean she is necessarily blameless, but given Sir Frank’s reputation, it is easy to imagine her having to suck it up on some stubborn decision he won’t change his mind on.

      I don’t expect it to be a popular opinion either, but I think Frank should have stepped down a long time ago as boss. Their slide began a lot longer ago than this week, or this year, or even this decade, and his decisions have been at the heart of it. There is no reason he can’t remain involved as the spiritual leader of that team, but he seems to have lost touch with how modern F1 is run and should hire someone who hasn’t.

      All the musing of a minimally informed outsider who only knows about the team from what shows up in the media, so take it for the possibly worthless opinion it is. But I don’t seem to be alone in wondering.

      Most of all, I just feel awful for the folks at the factory who are busting their asses because of what seems to be poor planning. I hope their work was not for nothing this year.
      1. 

         Phylyp (@phylyp)
         21st February 2019, 3:07

         @lunaslide – yep, I agree with all you’ve said.
   2. 

      Sundar Srinivas Harish (@sundark)
      21st February 2019, 3:49

      @phylyp I would like to add a couple of solid decisions made under Claire’s reign that has kept Williams ship afloat. She was suddenly thrust front-and-centre with a team that Adam Parr revived through the sheer force of his business acumen, and had to live up to one of the most game-changing executives F1 had seen since Dennis and Brawn. She reaped the fruit of his labour – the Mercedes engine, and added to his legacy with the solid Martini sponsorship. She then poached one of the men responsible for Mercedes’ success.

      I agree with you when you say that the team has succumbed to a decline that was a long time coming. Parr did not get a fair chance to completely revive the team, and I can see Claire resigning as abruptly as he did if Frank insists on making decisions “the old way”. Otherwise, the new guns, i.e., Claire and Paddy, would have to stage a coup like the folk at McLaren did.
      1. 

         bosyber (@bosyber)
         21st February 2019, 8:54

         @phylyp, @lunaslide, @sundark good points,which I think need to be said inside the team too. Let’s hope they are.
8. 

   Jere (@jerejj)
   21st February 2019, 9:47

   I thoroughly agree with Checo. It’d indeed be tough to get the Mexican GP back should it get axed following this year’s race. I really hope the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez circuit would remain in F1 beyond this year’s championship and the same goes for COTA.

   I also thoroughly agree with the COTD.

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