Who will win the dust up in the desert?

 

Ferrari looking strong, Hamilton 5 place grid penalty... Kimi looking a little better than Seb at the moment, I'm hoping for a KR/VB battle at the front because we all know they get along so well

 

+1

I'm just not looking forward to hearing Hammy whining about how he did what he needed to do but was let down by the car.

 

Not sure what was going on with Seb's car at the end of Practice, that didn't look good. Him and Hammy may be battling for mid pack positions

Red Bull pulled something out of their anus at the end of practice there but let's see what happens in quali...

 

Nothing that has happened so far makes me think Mercedes can beat Ferrari here. Verstappen clearly in trouble.

In other news, a buddy texted me and asked why doesn't every team do what Haas did and put the driver name on the halo so it's visible on the in car camera and I don't have a good answer for him other than some dumb new fan hostile notion that you are supposed to know who everyone is by their helmet paint.

 

I saw that and thought the SAME things. I immediately looked too see if I could have identified them by the helmets but the camera angle just isn't there. RedBull has the Tag Heuer chevron up there but I think that's it. Update: Renault has some logo or something up there too.

I wonder if Williams has a paypal link or something I can help support with. They need all the help they can get.

 

Seb all the way!

 

Bottas thinks that Mercedes has the legs on long runs and is confident that the Merc will be better during the race under cooler conditions. The Merc is ONLY slower this weekend because they had to open up the body work to get more cooling and lost DF and their car struggles with tires in hot conditions as well.

That being said, the real battle is yet to emerge .... In the past couple years, Vettel has had Kimi's number... not so this year and the battle that must be discussed by the Ferrari brass is what do they do if Kimi is leading the race after the final pit stops.... Splitting points has never been Ferrari's MO and if you want to take down the almighty Mercedes, you have to back one horse over the other (no pun intended)....

Looks like the Toro Rosso with the Honda engine is looking good with a P6. MAG also bringing the HAAS car up the starting grid. Grosjean, not so much.

It's win or break for Verstappen. He may be faster over a single lap, but Ricciardo is certainly the more patient and smarter driver.

 

 

 

Or maybe it all gets decided in the pits...

 

There's still time for them to show commercials during a key spot but coverage is 10000x better today .

 

Certainly an interesting race.

 

What a race!

 

Good race and no commercials. Ficking amazing