When does the real racing begin...

[type49]

All credit to the Ferraris...but.. The question now becomes when might we reasonably expect to see a bit of a scrap at the frount? It is a pity but it appears all these "fly aways", dispite the good weather, are a bit of a waste as they are always a case of "run what you brung" and have been since the middle 90's or so. What we have seen have little more than extended tests for the red cars.
There will be no indication of what we have until after Imola (yawn!) and the various teams have had a chance to feild their solutions to these first three races headaches. IMO the second season now begins at round 5. Am I correct in my thinking?

[jetsetter]

There are a lot of teams that have to raise their games quite significantly to match Ferrari & i can't see it happening in the near future.

[krt917]

I must admit that Ferrari are much stronger than I expected. It might depend on how well Michelin do over the course of a year. There will be races where they are significantly superior to the Bridgestones, but the only thing that looks like keeping the other drivers in the Championship hunt is the silly points system.

[type49]

Indeed. The problem as I see it is that no rival team really know how fast the 2004 edition actually is. There is no baseline from which to develop a faster car. The objective now should be to develop something that will "begin" to eat into 14-20 sec gaps we're seeing at 20 laps!

[x_dt]

Aren't Renault supposed to be making a big step forward at Imola? Revised engine or something to that effect?

[pole2pole]

Lets put it this way say the rest of the teams find a second a lap in time for the next race its still not enough to beat or even = ferrari

[Woolley]

As a bit of a cynic, I'd suggest the real racing begins when F1 leaves the circuit and the lights go green on the Thoroughbred GP cars...

[beefy]

Originally posted by Woolley
As a bit of a cynic, I'd suggest the real racing begins when F1 leaves the circuit and the lights go green on the Thoroughbred GP cars...

I was going to say about 1959!

[Woolley]

Nope, that'd be about when it finished!

Sorry, did we hijack this thread?

[Adam43]

Originally posted by beefy
I was going to say about 1959!

So you would like a result more like the German GP in 1959 then. It certainly goes one better than the 2004 Bahrain GP

The average winning margin in 1959 was about 20s (ignoring the race where Moss won by over 1 lap).

I'm afraid that this year is pretty typical. In a real sport players can really dominate!

[Mouser]

Ferrari is on top,and they intend to stay there,even if it
means the action to watch on track is who gets to fill
the podium behind Michael and Rubens.I hope someone
challenges Ferrari very soon,otherwise marginal viewers
may tune out.But they have earned their trophies,and I
think there is plenty of action on track by the other
teams.The season has just begun.Who knows what lies ahead?
Regardless of who wins,there is going to be well-fought
battles.

[Teretonga]

Last nights GP was interesting. They did cover the battles up and down the field and we got some good live in car action. If the TV directors do it right we can still enjoy the races even if the results are pretty predictable.

[jetsetter]

I thought the TV director did a brilliant job in covering the battles going on through the field, if you look past those red cars at the front there is indeed some racing being enjoyed on the track.

[Mr V]

All 3 races so far have been lower tempreture than it should have been, which is Bridgestne territory, i just wonder if the european summer will be hot enough to get into Michelin territory?

Tyres aside, Ferrari are leagues ahead of everyone else and should be commended for the job they have done.

[senna12]

Originally posted by Mr V
All 3 races so far have been lower temperature than it should have been, which is Bridgestone territory, i just wonder if the european summer will be hot enough to get into Michelin territory?

It was noted that the track temp on Sunday was +20 degrees celcius cooler than Friday or Saturday. Yet the Ferrari's were still on the front row (albeit due to mistakes in the last sector by the Williams duo). So I'm suspecting that the new compounds and contructions (wider and more square at the corners), combined with a design meant specifically for them, has lessened the hot weather gap. It certainly appears that way in race trim, Michael and Rubens just took off today, and were extremely quick in Malaysia.

The other teams really have their work cut out for them, or we're in for another 2002.

[Gt_R]

I'm quite impressed with Ferrari so far this season..nobody would have seen such a dominate run from pre-season.

And unfortunately, there's only so much teams could do in between flyaway races.

One particular thing i'm really impressed with the Ferrari is not their outright pace, but rather to lap at those quick pace for the whole race distance if they want to. That shows the confidence MS has in the car's reliability.

And thanks to Mclaren to once again fail to put up a show for the paying F1 audience...unless what we want to watch is a flaming engine. BAR and on a lesser scale Jaguar made decent improvement to their competitiveness.. Good for them.

Keep it up and 3rd isn't out of the league for BAR-Honda this season!

[kdr]

Originally posted by jetsetter
I thought the TV director did a brilliant job in covering the battles going on through the field, if you look past those red cars at the front there is indeed some racing being enjoyed on the track.

just wanted to say i agree totally. the red cars hardly appeared on screen except during pitstops, and montoya didn't appear much either till he started going backwards due to his problem. all credit for the director for showing scraps right down the field.

[RWC]

When michy get it together...
or when there is a break in furrari's obcene good luck..cool in the desert,who would hav thunk it?