[Jody Barton]

Yeah most teams have bought big updates, the Mercedes update looks subtle, but there is a lot going on.

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Merc back at the top of the timings with Bottas. But both Bottas and Hamilton are really scrappy.

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Lewis destroying his tyres, but Ferrari seem to be able to run and run on the C3 tyres, the Softs... But hey... It's FP1 so Mercedes will be fine. They look rapid here, on the harder tyres when Ferrari were pushing the new engine Mercedes were comfortably in touch, and as always the Merc looks heavier than a pregnant blue whale. I think Mercedes are ahead, and maybe comfortably so.

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The race sims this afternoon will be very, very interesting, because it always is, but we need to see how far off of Mercedes and RBR Ferrari are, because that's where the gap really is.

Serious oil leaks on both Max's and Bottas' cars, Mercedes look more concerned about theirs right now as it caused an engine shut down.

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And Stroll in the wall yet again. How is he still in F1?

[morini]

Lets see how P2 goes. Is it worth me watching P1 later Jody? Or should I give it a miss?

[Jody Barton]

Seems like Lewis was doing long runs early on... Christ... If that is Mercs long run pace then everyone else should go home. But Ant is certain those laps early on were race sims and he was 1.1 seconds off of the ultimate pace at that time on a harder compound. I hope those weren't race sims.

[Jody Barton]

Not much happening Morini in FP1. Flow vis, set time runs, chandhok disagreeing with people about how the convergence of front wings is going, despite other experts saying the end plates and straffs are starting to work towards Mercedes and RBR's designs, so no, not really. Although if those were race sim laps from Lewis straight away at the start of FP1 I have no idea how ther other teams can match that pace, I really can't. His car did look heavy granted, but his times on the slower tyres looked pretty solid for the first half hour and he lapped and lapped. I still think that was aero work and the fuel loads weren't that high... Bottas was clearly doing the single lap pace work again in FP1 like he has done every FP1 session since Bahrain, with Lewis running the program and longer stints.

[morini]

Cheers. I think I'll "work from the den" this afternoon and have P2 on the TV on mute.

[morini]

P2, Hamilton seems to be really struggling on the hard. Can't string a lap together at all.

[Jody Barton]

Yeah the hard tyres are shit in low temps, these are C1's. Bloody awful tyre choice for this race.

[morini]

The Ferrari boys only a tenth and a half up on Bottas medium time. Bit of sandbagging going on there I think.

[Jody Barton]

That is not a big enough gap for Ferrari to the Mercs running the Mediums and Hards. The delta from the Softs to the Hards round here is expected to be nearly 2 seconds and 0.9 from the Mediums. On that I think I'd say Mercedes are well ahead.

[morini]

Hmm.., Merc didn't get a big step up to soft. Maybe they can't switch that compound on properly?