Wallio wrote:FortiWinks wrote:*joins UncreativeUsername37 in bin*
Scoot over lads.
EDIT: After watching quali, can we stop with all the faux-shock over Ferrari's pace? "Oh, I'm so surprised Ferraris on new tyres can't match the Mercedes." Why? At what point all year has it looked liked the Mercs were at any threat at all during a Saturday? I get that its TV and you need to keep your viewers tuned in, but man, come on.
I can understand why there would have been an expectation that Ferrari were going to be more competitive, because this circuit has one of the longest straights on the calendar.
If you compare the onboard footage, you can see that the SF90's acceleration rate is higher than that of the W10, and their end of straight speed is higher (both Ferrari's topped the speed traps, with Vettel a full 5kph faster than Bottas). To illustrate that acceleration advantage, if you compare the onboard footage from Vettel and Bottas on their best laps, Bottas's hits 182kph at the apex of the corner, giving him an 11kph advantage over Vettel (who was doing 171kph) - however, by the time that they reach the finish line, Vettel has gone from being 11kph slower to 4kph faster (he was doing 276kph, versus 272kph for Bottas).
I think what has caught people out is the fact that the SF90 is a lot slower through the low speed corners than expected. They're losing 10-15kph to the W10, to the point where the SF90 might even be slower than some of the midfield cars - they might have been expected to be slightly slower than their rivals in the slower corners, but not to be quite that far off the pace.