Leclerc, Vettel & Ferrari 2019

[rev-erend]

Does anyone else suspect that there may be a link between Ferrari's new 'Grapefruit' smelling fuel and the fact that LeClerk has an issue with injectors which was blamed on an ECU.

Perhaps they have found a new 'Hydazine' ?

Having a new superfuel could also partly explain Vettels unusual spin .. more power or loss of power unexpectedly..

[thegreenhell]

I see that Leclerc's younger brother has now been signed up to Sauber's junior driver programme.

[Andy S15]

It's quite funny how as its now deemed to be the ECU, that makes it Mclarens fault, right?

[Muzzer79]

ash73 said:

Supersam83 said:

CLC could win the F1 championship this season.

How many F1 drivers have won the F1 world championship in their 2nd season apart from Lewis Hamilton and Jacques Villeneuve?

And Leclerc would trump them both, as they had 2 seasons in easily the best car.

Stone me everyone, the boy has had 2 races.....

Yes, he did fantastically in Bahrain, but it's still very early days.

Australia he actually made a few mistakes and I thought should have out-finished Vettel (who has been very poor in both races)

I'd like him to do well as much as anyone, if only to oust the German from his perch, but it's waaaaaay to early to talk about championships.

[Jasandjules]

Supersam83 said:

CLC could win the F1 championship this season.

Certainly if Lewis was not in a Mercedes. But.......

[DaveE36]

The bookies certainly think Charles has the speed to beat Seb. Across the market there's odds varying between 11/4 to 10/3, with most of the major bookies having the odds slightly shorter for Charles. Yes it's only two races in but he'll go on to finish 2nd imo. Lewis, Charles, Seb in that order come the end of the season.

[Muzzer79]

ash73 said:

Supersam83 said:

CLC could win the F1 championship this season.

How many F1 drivers have won the F1 world championship in their 2nd season apart from Lewis Hamilton and Jacques Villeneuve?

And Leclerc would trump them both, as they had 2 seasons in easily the best car.

I hate to be all Mr-Pedantic and I am most definitely not an LH fan, but I would argue that the 2008 Mclaren was not "easily the best car"

It 'only' won 6 out of 18 races that year, the 2008 Ferrari won 8.

Heikki Kovalainen only got 3 podiums all year which, you could argue, showed his ability inferiority to Lewis' 10 podiums, but you'd think most of the grid would have had more if the car was easily the class of the field.

[Schermerhorn]

Piginapoke said:

Schermerhorn said:

an idiot like Max Verstappen

Did you mean to say this?

Yes.

Did I upset you?

[ralphrj]

Muzzer79 said:

ash73 said:

Supersam83 said:

CLC could win the F1 championship this season.

How many F1 drivers have won the F1 world championship in their 2nd season apart from Lewis Hamilton and Jacques Villeneuve?

And Leclerc would trump them both, as they had 2 seasons in easily the best car.

I hate to be all Mr-Pedantic and I am most definitely not an LH fan, but I would argue that the 2008 Mclaren was not "easily the best car"

It 'only' won 6 out of 18 races that year, the 2008 Ferrari won 8.

Heikki Kovalainen only got 3 podiums all year which, you could argue, showed his ability inferiority to Lewis' 10 podiums, but you'd think most of the grid would have had more if the car was easily the class of the field.

I would say that the McLaren was the better, if not necessarily the faster, car as a result of superior reliability.

The Ferrari's had 4 engine failures which robbed both Massa and Raikkonen of points (Championship defining in the case of Massa at Hungary as he lost 10 points with a last lap engine failure and Hamilton gained a point by moving up a place). In contrast the McLaren only had 2 mechanical failures all year. Fortunately for Hamilton both of them were on his teammates car.


The fastest car is often but not always the best car. In 1995, people often critcised Damon HIll for not beating Schumacher despite having a faster car and point to his accidents in the second half of the season. However they ignore the woeful reliability of the Williams. Hill retired from the lead of the Brazilian GP with gearbox failure, retired from the Canadian GP with gearbox failure (where he would have won due to later problems for others) and crashed out of the lead of the German GP with driveshaft failure. Coulthard suffered numerous retirements from gearbox failure as well.

[TobyTR]

ralphrj said:

I would say that the McLaren was the better, if not necessarily the faster, car as a result of superior reliability.

The Ferrari's had 4 engine failures which robbed both Massa and Raikkonen of points (Championship defining in the case of Massa at Hungary as he lost 10 points with a last lap engine failure and Hamilton gained a point by moving up a place). In contrast the McLaren only had 2 mechanical failures all year. Fortunately for Hamilton both of them were on his teammates car.


The fastest car is often but not always the best car. In 1995, people often critcised Damon HIll for not beating Schumacher despite having a faster car and point to his accidents in the second half of the season. However they ignore the woeful reliability of the Williams. Hill retired from the lead of the Brazilian GP with gearbox failure, retired from the Canadian GP with gearbox failure (where he would have won due to later problems for others) and crashed out of the lead of the German GP with driveshaft failure. Coulthard suffered numerous retirements from gearbox failure as well.

Wow, shows how unlucky Massa was in '08.

The 2005 McLaren was a monster but had reliability gremlins too, iirc. That imo is one of the best-looking and best-sounding F1 cars ever. Would be interesting to see what times it would set on full-slick tyres, absolute beast of a car.

[37chevy]

TobyTR said:

Wow, shows how unlucky Massa was in '08.

The 2005 McLaren was a monster but had reliability gremlins too, iirc. That imo is one of the best-looking and best-sounding F1 cars ever. Would be interesting to see what times it would set on full-slick tyres, absolute beast of a car.

People tend to forget that both Kimi and massa benefited from team orders in 07/08 when I think they were still banned, so it somewhat makes it a bit closer than it should have been....and won Kimi the championship in 2007

[FourWheelDrift]

TobyTR said:

Wow, shows how unlucky Massa was in '08.

Ferrari's stupid pit light system didn't help either. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMKguL2yDCY

[TobyTR]

FourWheelDrift said:

TobyTR said:

Wow, shows how unlucky Massa was in '08.

Ferrari's stupid pit light system didn't help either. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMKguL2yDCY

For such a prestigious team, they really do make too many cock-ups

[TheDeuce]

TobyTR said:

FourWheelDrift said:

TobyTR said:

Wow, shows how unlucky Massa was in '08.

Ferrari's stupid pit light system didn't help either. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMKguL2yDCY

For such a prestigious team, they really do make too many cock-ups

This is why those heralding them having the 'fastest car' this season are likely in for a disappointment. It's all very well being faster by a split second, but no use at all if your team makes mistakes in strategy, your engineers get the setup wrong and/or the car breaks down. They arguably had the fastest car last year too - but Mercedes won by being more 'on it' more of the time.

Having a hot headed and emotional driver isn't very useful for Ferrari either.

What's the betting that this weekend Ferrari have some sort of avoidable issue? Even if not this weekend, I bet they do before Mercedes do. Throughout the season, I'd be shocked if at the end they hadn't had several more 'avoidable issues' than Mercedes.