[LotusLover]

Oh no I don’t know if I can take six more races of Mercs dominance!!! Please show me a sign a good sign!!!

[Jody Barton]

Hesh you're certainly right about RBRs pace on the HS, they seemed to have zero degredation on the US as well. If Ferrari really are that far off of the pace then there's a chance that RBR might pick them off towards the end of the race on the HS's.

LotusLover I can give you a good sign, at other points this season Ferrari have seemingly been further off of the pace on a Friday than they are here, and then shown blistering pace in qualifying and the race. So no one should count out another Friday miracle from the red team. I'm certainly not.

As for the remaining races, well, I don't know. I would expect given the characteristics of the cars that maybe Suzuka will favour Mercedes, but the others should all lean Ferrari, or in the case of Mexico maybe even RBR. Even if Ferrari are as far off the pace as FP2 suggests they are, and they get spanked, it could also be down to the temperatures.

In short I do not see Mercedes dominating the remaining six races. I can though see a scenario where Lewis Hamilton might have extended his lead in the Championship to 60 points after next Sunday if Sochi and Suzuka favour their car as much as I think they seemingly do... and Ferrari bring no updates.

[NeilP]

The only reason anyone 'sandbags' in any aspect of sport is to try and lull your competition into thinking you are giving of your best and hence take them unawares at a later time. I can assure anyone nobody thinks Ferrari in this case are sandbagging.

Maybe they have a different philosophy, maybe they try different things to other teams I dont know but I am certain they are not trying to convince any other teams that this is about where they are for race day, these guys are all way too professional to fall for that trick.

Its been nip and tuck for most of the year between the top two teams and when the track suits you can add RBR into the mixture. Who has the faster car is still debatable but what is not (in my opinion) debatable is that Mercedes have the best all round car. Mercedes have made great strides in the way their car handles the tyres and with my scant knowledge I would suggest it is this fact coupled with some poor decisions on behalf of Ferrari and some brilliant performances from Lewis Hamilton that have made the difference we are now seeing.

[morini]

As for the remaining races, well, I don't know. I would expect given the characteristics of the cars that maybe Suzuka will favour Mercedes, but the others should all lean Ferrari.

I for one will be very, very surprised if anyone beats Hamilton at COTA regardless of respective car perfomance. I hear you all speculating about the cars and form, but there's one thing that sticks in my mind from a week before the summer break (I think it was Hamilton talking to one of the Sky mupp pundits), he said something along the lines of "in the second half of the season I am going to seriously bring it" (I may not have that word for word, but you get the gist). Since Spa he certainly has "brung it", nobody can argue with that.

It is going to take a Mammoth effort, or some serious bad luck / reliability woes on Hamiltons part to change the status quo. The season isn't over, but I don't see Vettel beating Hamilton at COTA even if he has a better car. And Suzuka (I hope) will be a ding dong battle (if it;s wet there I only see one winner).

I said from the outset, I don't want reliability to sway the outcome, so failing that kind of intervention Sebastian Vettel will have to find something very special to win the WDC this year.

[LotusLover]

As for the remaining races, well, I don't know. I would expect given the characteristics of the cars that maybe Suzuka will favour Mercedes, but the others should all lean Ferrari.

I for one will be very, very surprised if anyone beats Hamilton at COTA regardless of respective car perfomance. I hear you all speculating about the cars and form, but there's one thing that sticks in my mind from a week before the summer break (I think it was Hamilton talking to one of the Sky mupp pundits), he said something along the lines of "in the second half of the season I am going to seriously bring it" (I may not have that word for word, but you get the gist). Since Spa he certainly has "brung it", nobody can argue with that.

It is going to take a Mammoth effort, or some serious bad luck / reliability woes on Hamiltons part to change the status quo. The season isn't over, but I don't see Vettel beating Hamilton at COTA even if he has a better car. And Suzuka (I hope) will be a ding dong battle (if it;s wet there I only see one winner).

I said from the outset, I don't want reliability to sway the outcome, so failing that kind of intervention Sebastian Vettel will have to find something very special to win the WDC this year.

To be fair it would be most unjust but... hell anything to see Merc fall flat on their arses lol

[morini]

To be fair it would be most unjust but... hell anything to see Merc fall flat on their arses lol

If you are clinging onto unreliabilty as your last hope of providing a "non Mercedes" result that gives me a really warm and fuzzy feeling inside Sorry LL

[LotusLover]

To be fair it would be most unjust but... hell anything to see Merc fall flat on their arses lol

If you are clinging onto unreliabilty as your last hope of providing a "non Mercedes" result that gives me a really warm and fuzzy feeling inside Sorry LL

It’s all there is left sadly,

[Jody Barton]

Morini I wouldn't disagree with your assessment with regards Lewis and CotA, he's very, very strong there and seems to love the circuit. Just because a car's characteristics should "suit" a track doesn't mean that team will win the race, or that it will favour their lead driver. I happen to think all things equal both Ferrari and Mercedes are probably going to be close enough in performance for the drivers being able to make a difference. I would normally say that Suzuka is a toss up between Lewis and Seb, CotA a definite lean to Lewis. Mexico a slight lean to Seb, Brazil, ironically although it's not been kind to him, as actually a Lewis track. Abu Dhabi leans Sebs way though. Given all this I personally think it's Lewis' championship, and he deserves it.

[Jody Barton]

So we have a fairly important session for Ferrari and Seb coming up. Have Ferrari managed to sort out their car set up over the night? Hope so. We'll see.

[Jody Barton]

Traffic ruining laps for both Merc boys and Danny Ric... and it is always the crappy drivers we want off the grid.

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So Ferrari have had to make massive set up changes mid session because they clearly weren't happy, and now it looks like the Ferrari is undriveable for Seb.

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Nope, Ferrari are in big trouble here today, they can't get the front and rear of their car to behave themselves at the same time. Change the front the rear flops about, change the rear and the front won't turn and then flips to over steer. To me they don't know which way to go on set up.