re: F1 2019 Season Thread (Next race: Dec. 1 Abu Dhabi)

Here we go. We're at Albert Park in Melbourne, Australia. The first qualifying session of the year has just finished, and now we have a sense of the true pace of the teams, and it's not looking good from a competitive standpoint.

1. Lewis Hamilton GBR Mercedes 1m20.486s
2. Valtteri Bottas FIN Mercedes + 0.112s
3. Sebastian Vettel GER Ferrari + 0.704s
4. Max Verstappen NED Red Bull Honda + 0.834s
5. Charles Leclerc MON Ferrari + 0.956s
6. Romain Grosjean FRA Haas F1 + 1.340s
7. Kevin Magnussen DEN Haas F1 + 1.613s
8. Lando Norris GBR McLaren + 1.818s
9. Kimi Raikkonen ITA Alfa Romeo + 1.828s
10. Sergio Perez MEX Racing Point F1 + 2.295s
-- Q2 CUTOFF 1m22.532s --
11. Nico Hulkenberg GER Renault 1m22.562s
12. Daniel Ricciardo AUS Renault 1m22.570s
13. Alexander Albon THA Toro Rosso Honda 1m22.636s
14. Antonio Giovinazzi ITA Alfa Romeo 1m22.714s
15. Daniil Kvyat RUS Toro Rosso Honda 1m22.774s
-- Q1 CUTOFF 1m22.966s --
16. Lance Stroll CAN Racing Point F1 1m23.017s
17. Pierre Gasly FRA Red Bull Honda 1m23.020s
18. Carlos Sainz ESP McLaren 1m23.084s
19. George Russell GBR Williams 1m24.360s
20. Robert Kubica POL Williams 1m26.067s


The 2nd fastest team Ferrari is 0.7s off the pace. That's huge! Mercedes should run away with this race.

The fact that P8 is almost 2s off the pace is pathetic. Only a few cars are going to finish on the lead lap, unless they have a couple of safety cars to bunch up the field.

I missed Q1 and Q2, and only saw Q3, but I just read that the reason Gasly got stuck so far back is that Red Bull opted to do just one run in Q1. Gasly was just 0.144s slower than Verstappen, but when the other teams did a 2nd run and improved their times, that 0.144s was the difference between Verstappen moving on to Q2 and Gasly getting stuck in P17. The team screwed up.

If Verstappen can finish the race (a big if) and compete with Ferrari, that will be a big boost for Honda, and Red Bull's decision to go with Honda (not that they had much choice).

US team Haas is looking good!