Ferrari and Mercedes look quite evenly matched on one lap pace after todays practice sessions with Nico Rosberg taking the first session where he was .15 of a second faster than his team-mate in P1. But in the second session Ferrari were ahead of Mercedes by .2 of a second on track.<\/p>\n
However, we as always don\u2019t always know the fuel loads on both their cars and they could have been taking different approaches to each of the sessions. We also know Mercedes were having some problems with Nico Rosberg\u2019s power unit and Hamilton had a few errors in P1.<\/p>\n
If Ferrari\u2019s form does follow through they could potentially get a win as we know Hamilton will not start higher than fifth for a gear box change. History tells us there can be a surprise at this race.<\/p>\n
Vettel said \u201cFriday is not so important in terms of position but in terms of feeling. We had a decent day and the feeling with the car was ok, but we can still improve, especially the balance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Incidents & problems galore <\/em><\/p>\n There were few problems for teams Williams were the first after a tyre came off Felipe Massa\u2019s car. Followed by the one for Renault\u2019s Kevin Magnussen but these were related to Pirelli as there problems.<\/p>\n Paul Hembery says \u201cregarding the deflations in FP1, as acknowledged by the teams themselves, none of these issues were related to the tyre. During FP2 and we experienced a considerable degree of track evolution.\u201d<\/p>\n Magnessen\u2019s issue in FP2 was caused by a suspension failure which punched his tyres.<\/p>\n Haas also had problems on track in FP2 after missing FP1 Esteban Gutierrez after a break fire. These things are unavoidable but you know they will happen.<\/p>\n Alonso returns <\/em><\/p>\n Fernando Alonso has been given the all clear to race after he reported no physical discomfort. He suffered broken ribs in his high-speed crash at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n Alonso his \u201cpain is manageable and there is no other risk to be in the car.\u201d The governing body the FIA said Alonso had been told to “stop his car immediately in case of any abnormal symptoms”.<\/p>\n Qualifying preview<\/em><\/p>\n Based on today\u2019s performance Mercedes may have to fight for pole with Ferrari but be cautious we seen Mercedes turn up there car in P3. They know Hamilton has a penalty so I would expect that Rosberg will be on pole from Vettel.<\/p>\n Related<\/strong><\/p>\n Ferrari and Mercedes look quite evenly matched on one lap pace after todays practice sessions with Nico Rosberg taking the first session where he was .15 of a second faster than his team-mate in P1. But in the second session Ferrari were ahead of Mercedes by .2 of a second on track. However, we as<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[42,368,400,401,493,496,646,699,700,707,709,741,882,885,1031,1068,1111,1115,1208,1209,1227,1283,1287,1289,1295,1298,1422,1424,1443,1496,1637,1642,1656,1685,1707,1770,1773,1791,1808,1816,1817,1843,2025,2105,2149,2152],"class_list":["post-1897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-this-grand-prix","tag-42","tag-carlos-sainz","tag-chinese-gp","tag-chinese-grand-prix","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-daniil-kvyat","tag-esteban-gutierrez","tag-felipe-massa","tag-felipe-nasr","tag-fernando-alonso","tag-ferrari","tag-force-india","tag-haas","tag-haas-ferrari","tag-jenson-button","tag-jolyon-palmer","tag-kevin-magnuessen","tag-kimi-raikkonen","tag-manor","tag-manor-mercedes","tag-marcus-ericsson","tag-max-verstappen","tag-mclaren","tag-mclaren-honda","tag-melbourne","tag-mercedes","tag-nico-hulkenberg","tag-nico-rosberg","tag-notebook","tag-pascal-wehrlin","tag-red-bull","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-renault","tag-rio-haryanto","tag-romain-grosjean","tag-sauber","tag-sauber-ferrari","tag-sebastian-vettel","tag-sergio-perez","tag-shanghai","tag-shanghai-international-circuit","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-toro-rosso","tag-valtteri-bottas","tag-williams","tag-williams-mercedes"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1897\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n