Wolff: Ferrari practice pace isn't too worrying
- Published on 06 Apr 2018 18:49
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- By: Fergal Walsh
Toto Wolff says that despite Kimi Raikkonen fast lap in free practice two being "good", he has played down the speed difference between Ferrari and Mercedes. Ferrari topped the second session with a 1:29.817, which was over half a second clear of Mercedes' best time.
However, Wolff has played down the gap, claiming that Ferrari was running in a high power mode throughout Raikkonen's fastest lap. But he admits that he has no idea of the true difference between the top teams, stating that it's very close.
"Ferrari were in a pretty high power mode when they did the lap. So that isn't too worrying but it is a good lap," Toto Wolff tells Sky F1. "What we have seen here and Melbourne is that at various stages the teams are very close together. I can't really judge.
"We have GPS data so can follow every car and we can see on the straights [Ferrari] gain much more time and in the corners it is still the same. It's become very transparent for the engineers to judge how much somebody has turned on the power, how much drag and how much downforce they have."
Mercedes appeared to be the slowest out of the top three teams in the long runs. While both Mercedes' and Red Bull's set their runs on the super soft tyres, Ferrari split its running between the super soft on Raikkonen's car and the soft compound on Sebastian Vettel's car.
| Hamilton | 1:36.3 |
| Bottas | 1:36.0 |
| Raikkonen | 1:35.9 |
| Ricciardo | 1:35.6 |
| Verstappen | 1:35.6 |
Vettel's average time on the soft tyre was a 1:35.9.
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Replies (5)
Login to replycalle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Agreed, and party mode will likely be enough to be an instant pole for Hammy again, but the interesting bit is: if they get in front of Hammy he'll be fuuuuuuuuuussed.
Hepp
Posts: 200
5 place grid penalty for Hammy, so, Kimmi or seb, then Valteri, then .....?
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Yeah, didnt see it until later. Jesus. So Hammy is done for. And I dont really see Bottas being able to either A: grab pole from Vettel or Kimi, or B: being able to retain that lead if he does get pole. So this could be a very important race for Ferrari.
F1_IS_Dead
Posts: 123
The script for the next fake GP was already written by Mercedes-Ferrari.
Saturday:
- Vettel P1
- Wolff "surprised"
Sunday:
- Vettel P1 until lap XX
- Hamilton overtake "by strategy" and win
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Y'know, it aint too late with those tinfoil hats...