In Canada and France, only the struggling Williams pair were slower than the MC元3s. The team appeared to be making good progress over the first half-dozen races as a Renault closer, gradually edging closer to front-running pace.īut the team has since discovered a fundamental problem with its 2018 design, which it now admits is producing less downforce than last year’s car. The situation is particularly bad at McLaren. This appears to be more a case of Renault struggling to keep pace with Mercedes and Ferrari’s power unit development. “There’s quite a lot of work to do on the chassis side to accommodate it,” Renault’s Bob Bell explained at the time.Īnd looking at the graph it’s clear all three Renault-powered teams have been less competitive in recent races than they were at the start of the season. Red Bull, for example, did not use Renault’s new MGU-K when it was introduced. Of course this does not require a customer to use the latest developments. Their engines should be capable of being run with the specifications of oil and fuel, the same software, and operated in the same way. Red Bull are slipping out of contentionHowever the FIA introduced new regulations for this season aimed at ensuring customers did not receive inferior products from manufacturers. Cynical minds will no doubt question where that really is a coincidence: After all, there’s no love lost between these two. Red Bull has often been in the thick of the fight in races, but tends to lose out in qualifying as its Renault engine doesn’t have the same kind of potent high-performance qualifying mode the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari enjoy.Īs the graph above shows, the team has slipped back in recent races, a development which appears to coincide with its announcement that it won’t use Renault engines next year. “I believe that it’s nice again to be in a situation where you are the challenger,” he said.Īdvert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free But will that be enough to withstand the expected Ferrari onslaught at the next two high-power circuits when the championship resumes?įor now at least, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says he welcomes the renewed threat from Ferrari. Hamilton has taken advantage of some timely showers to shore up his points lead over Sebastian Vettel in the title race. Nonetheless, Mercedes has taken the last two victories from Ferrari on tracks where the red cars looked quicker in normal conditions. Mercedes admit they are yet to figure out how the Scuderia has suddenly extracted more performance from its power unit. In performance terms, the momentum is with Ferrari at the moment. Strikingly, the ranking of the teams matches the current constructors’ championship standings with one exception: Haas is behind Renault, who are fourth in the points. The graph above shows how far each team has been off the ultimate pace each race weekend.
#Mercedes f1 2018 driver#
With the cars so closely matched, driver performance counts for more this year than before – something all fans of the sport surely want to see. The balance is swinging from race to race depending on how their cars perform on different tracks, tyres and in different conditions.
#Mercedes f1 2018 drivers#
The ‘class A’ and ‘class B’ distinction drivers such as Romain Grosjean have referred to is clear to see.ĭo Mercedes or Ferrari have the quickest car? Ferrari have closed the gap compared to last year and while Mercedes remain fractionally ahead, the difference between them is now negligible in average terms. However the gap between the ‘big three’ teams and the midfielders remains. For the first time in six years, more than two teams have taken a pole position. Not only are Ferrari in the mix at the front, but Red Bull has been two. The Mercedes domination we associated with the first three years of the V6 hybrid turbo era is clearly a thing of the past. Five months later, the standard of competition is looking a lot healthier.
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