Petronas Malaysia Grand Prix 2013

[phil1993]

Webber stuck on tyres mode
http://www.f1zone.net/news/red-bull-dri ... res/18237/

[Lemans3]

Yes, you could see a HUGE difference in tyre degradation on Red Bull and other teams. Pieces of rubber flyin off the RB tyres whilst Lotus and Merc had pretty smooth surfaces
If this is to be a dry race, RB will have no chance in my opinion

[JoostLamers]

Bianchi keeps impressing

[Vlad-SRB]

Bianchi does an amazing job, really! Great talent!
As for the race, until other teams can discover Lotus's and Kimi's secret about tires, Kimi is the main favorite, totally. Lotus has an amazing pace this season. So, probably him winning this one too. The weather could change some things, tbh...

[donald29]

Max Chilton is getting a lot of media attention on BBC and Sky, I wonder how long it will take for them to ask him tougher questions about the gap between him and Bianchi.

[phil1993]

Max Chilton is getting a lot of media attention on BBC and Sky, I wonder how long it will take for them to ask him tougher questions about the gap between him and Bianchi.

You mean like they've been doing with di Resta? *shrugs*

[F1EA]

Kimi has always been kind to tires. His main problem in 2008 was not getting them hot enough.... in this new era of tire preservation he's reaping the rewards.

Still early to say, but Lotus is looking super strong.

My feeling is, Lotus would like to start in front of the Ferraris who are their main race competition; and Ferrari have to try and beat Red Bull in Q so they can run on clean air to try and beat Lotus on pace vs strategy.

It seems to me, the only thing for Lotus to watch for, if they can't Q ahead; is not getting into unnecessary battles and ruining the tires; but with a guy like Kimi, Lotus can be sure this is not a worry.

Another thing... Sauber looks to be not so comfortable. Force India had been improving in yrs past, except last yr. But this yr Force India is again making a very good inpression. Battle with Mclaren and Mercedes? Now's their golden chance!

[Ether]

I think Mclaren now is fighting hard Force India... Meanwhile Mercedes is somewhere around between the top and midfield teams. Yet they still can improve, but probably not faster than top teams like RB and Ferrari. I don't know about Lotus development, but the car is strong already, fast, quite reliable, and low tyre degradation, which in overall performance is the best IMO. So the car to beat is Lotus, and not RB, because RB is clearly struggling on tyre degradation, which is Ferrari seems better on it, RB might fight hard later when updates are coming...

Mercedes seems just doing on more set up optimization just to improve the race pace. Mercedes could easily secure 4th constructors championship, because the competitor (Mclaren, and Force India) is quite some distance away. I believe they could alter the attention to 2014 cars as soon as Barcelona.

[phil1993]

Most teams already have more people working on the 2014 cars than the 2013 model. I read though that McLaren is moving more people onto the 28 than 29 as the seek a solution...

[majidasadi]

Lotus seems really strong,it's quick and it can handle tyre degradation better than others,but i think Vettel will claim the pole,RB 9 is slow on Sundays ( and surely they are working very hard to solve that,and they will, in the near future) but it is still the car to beat in qualifying,its one lap speed is tremendous.

[tderias]

I predict Vettel and Webber to qualify on the hard compound tomorrow. Tyre deg is really a major issue for them, and the times on the medium tire don't seem significantly faster.

From what I've been watching through onboards of the last race, the Lotus Kimi's driving seems a totally different car to the one Romain is driving.

Kimi's car looks very easy to drive, and the little amount of steering movement is apparent, say when compared to the Ferrari, which is quick but quite unbalanced. I think that's the reason why it's so kind on its tires, since smoother steering probably means less stress and load on the tires.

Romain, on the other hand, is really struggling with his Lotus. He's always correcting the steering, fighting with the car.

Kimi should have the measure of the rest this race. Massa has been on it today and looks quite nifty around the track, so I expect a second place. Vettel does seem to have the raw pace but the car just murders its tires. He'll probably finish third, but he'll qualify higher.

[Joey Zyla]

I predict Vettel and Webber to qualify on the hard compound tomorrow. Tyre deg is really a major issue for them, and the times on the medium tire don't seem significantly faster.

From what I've been watching through onboards of the last race, the Lotus Kimi's driving seems a totally different car to the one Romain is driving.

Kimi's car looks very easy to drive, and the little amount of steering movement is apparent, say when compared to the Ferrari, which is quick but quite unbalanced. I think that's the reason why it's so kind on its tires, since smoother steering probably means less stress and load on the tires.

Romain, on the other hand, is really struggling with his Lotus. He's always correcting the steering, fighting with the car.

Kimi should have the measure of the rest this race. Massa has been on it today and looks quite nifty around the track, so I expect a second place. Vettel does seem to have the raw pace but the car just murders its tires. He'll probably finish third, but he'll qualify higher.

Good analysis (and predictions).

[Adam]

It's also very interesting without a rain

I agree. Praying for rain in order to make it interesting is a thing of the past. Said that, around Monaco I'd love it to be rainny.

[F1EA]

Lotus seems really strong,it's quick and it can handle tyre degradation better than others,but i think Vettel will claim the pole,RB 9 is slow on Sundays ( and surely they are working very hard to solve that,and they will, in the near future) but it is still the car to beat in qualifying,its one lap speed is tremendous.

The question is not how fast can RB be in Q; i think for them the case is how much Q pace to surrender in order to get better race behaviour.

Too fast in Q = opening stint on clean air, but troubles afterwards
Settling for less in Q = possible traffic trouble in the opening stint, which could sacrifce the rest of their race.
There's a balance to be found and i think this is te key for RB.

Of course..... Kimi could just do both Q in front of everyone AND nurse the tires.

Ferrari need to start ahead of RB and they may be able to challenge Kimi.

Mercedes? I dont know where they are...

[Ether]

Ferrari probably not always needing the "front row".. because they always have a very good start. Let's say, I predict alonso on p3 or p4, but when the five lights gone off, Alonso and Massa could be already behind Kimi on 2nd and 3rd place respectively. I watch so many times Ferrari do that, I think probably Ferrari is the only team focusing on start since a long time ago (mid season of 2012). They did it so many times on the end of pit lane, and then some teams did the same thing later.

RB have some challenges:
1. Race pace, but not sacrificing too much Q pace,
2. Start, they don't usually do a very good start, especially on Webber. Vettel just ordinary start, like in Melbourne, we could see that Vettel was also pretty much possible to be overtaken by Lewis, had those two Ferrari not locking him on the side of him. and
3. Tyre degradation, even with a good race pace, tyre degradation is always a factor of all teams. race pace is important, but trying to make them last as long as possible will be a great challenge to all the teams.

Ferrari only need to focus on tyre degradation, and improving a little bit of speed of the car. But I must say Ferrari tyre degradation is pretty much far away compared to Kimi's, I wouldn't say Lotus because Romain is struggling so far. Something is special about Kimi or Kimi's car. Probably because of Lotus' updates.

Meanwhile, Mercedes? too much to catch up.. I don't know, let's see how this race show Mercedes pace. They said having a good set up for long run pace and tyres life.. Let's see if it can work out..