Good stuff from Toyota! Front row. Hamilton 5th, did a nice lap, too bad Kovi missed it out in Q2.

Woah, 2 heavy Ferraris in Q3? Toyota is on fire, but I'm still voting for Vettel, hope he wins tomorrow. I guess Hamilton's Merc is light

woot another strange one

Trulli must be on a super light load to do something like that.

Im guessing Vettel has a bit more fuel on him then before due to the fact Webber is soo far down the order.

Im tipping Vettel for race Victory, and with Webber at the back should add some exitement as well.

Toyota's look like Redbulls only threat.

Toyota just basically said they're running very light so they can lead the race away for a few laps at the start on the soft tyres before pitting early and putting on the more favoured hard tyres as soon as possible. Similar to what we think the top 3 were planning in China.

Amazing qualifying. I can't remember any season in F1 with so many competitive cars.

Some quick number crunching: these are times differences between Q3 and the fastest Q1/2 times for each driver in the top 6:

TRULLI: 0.760
GLOCK: 1.099
VETTEL: 1.541
BUTTON: 1.202
HAMILTON: 1.345
BARRICHELLO: 1.397

So, it seems the Toyotas are light. Vettel is heavy (!). Button, Hamilton, and Barrichello are on moderate fuel loads.

I see everyone talking about Toyota and Red Bull... People forgetting about Brawn's already? They have the best car in race conditions..

Quote from samjh :

LFS sim experience means jack all. LFS doesn't simulate aero turbulence, which influences the behaviour of F1 cars a lot when they try to overtake each other, nor does LFS simulate flat-spots in terms of chassis vibration and its affect on drivers, and LFS's tyre simulation is much more forgiving than F1 tyres. And finally, LFS doesn't simulate fear!

LFS does simulate turbulence, ever tried taking a corner in a BF1 right behind another one?

Quote from DeKo :

LFS does simulate turbulence, ever tried taking a corner in a BF1 right behind another one?

It doesn't really simulate turbulence. It just makes you lose 100% of the front downforce. Basicly if you're following another BF1 closely you're just going to go straight specially in a high speed corner.

Quote from evilpimp :

It doesn't really simulate turbulence. It just makes you lose 100% of the front downforce. Basicly if you're following another BF1 closely you're just going to go straight specially in a high speed corner.

Did you make this assessment after studying any data (like forces view) or did you just pull it out of your bottom?

Quote from samjh :

Some quick number crunching: these are times differences between Q3 and the fastest Q1/2 times for each driver in the top 6:

TRULLI: 0.760
GLOCK: 1.099
VETTEL: 1.541
BUTTON: 1.202
HAMILTON: 1.345
BARRICHELLO: 1.397

Looking good for Vettel.

Quote from amp88 :

Did you make this assessment after studying any data (like forces view) or did you just pull it out of your bottom?

Pulled it out of my bottom with a slight exageration. Raced a season of OneGP in the car and pretty much everytime you get too close to a car in a corner you lose A LOT of front downforce and go straight if you're not cautious... Its the only kind of turbulence I feel, nothing else.

Quote from diablo21 :

I see everyone talking about Toyota and Red Bull... People forgetting about Brawn's already? They have the best car in race conditions..

We'll see tomorrow, but I think there is nothing left of the supremely dominant Brawn from the first 2 races.

Brawn as far as I know were still the fastest team over race stint distances by quite a few tenths per lap on Friday. They struggle to get heat into the tyres over one lap but fuel corrected they are still there or there abouts.

Hamilton/Macca seem to be progressing very well indeed. I guess Hamilton can't drive a crap car! lol well it appears McLaren seem to be too busy developing it into a good one! However Bahrain is a very KERS/McLaren friendly layout.

Quote from Jertje :

We'll see tomorrow, but I think there is nothing left of the supremely dominant Brawn from the first 2 races.

That's a bold claim considering they still qualified forth, and the Toyotas are suspected to be light.

Quote from Mattesa :

That's a bold claim considering they still qualified forth, and the Toyotas are suspected to be light.

Vettel is probably about as heavy as the Brawns and he beat them. Unless you don't know the definition of "supremely dominant" then it's not bold at all.

Quote from Mattesa :

That's a bold claim considering they still qualified forth, and the Toyotas are suspected to be light.

In the first two qualifications of the seasons the Brawns were relatively heavy, and on pole by a good margin = supremely dominant.

Now they're in 4th and sorta mid-weight (expected) - that's not dominance by any means, so I don't see how my claim is bold. Even Button himself said that the advantage they had in the first two races is gone. We'll see tomorrow if their race-pace helps out, but unless strange things happen I don't expect a win, or dominant performance from the Brawns at all.

Brawn look after their tyres very well and was able to lap almost a second quicker in Malaysia during a race stint.

Certainly their one laps pace isn't there but I wouldn't be surprised to see them have a very very very good race tomorrow. Whether their grid position gives Button the oppurtunity to win? not so sure... Hamilton could even grab it... but he isn't a good development driver.

alonso doing his dash for glory as usual, and ferrari knowing they have no chance in quali opted for the optimum strategy.

the order is quite like last race, with redbull less competitive.

Good, Ferraris are heavy as I expected

BMW's almost 700 kg O_O! It's looking good for Vettel and Brawn...

Quote from mythdat :

1. Jarno Trulli - Toyota - 648.5 kg
2. Timo Glock - Toyota - 643.0 kg
3. Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull - 659.0 kg
4. Jenson Button - Brawn GP - 652.5 kg
5. Lewis Hamilton - McLaren - 652.5 kg
6. Rubens Barrichello - Brawn - GP 649.0 kg
7. Fernando Alonso - Renault - 650.5 kg
8. Felipe Massa - Ferrari - 664.5 kg
9. Nico Rosberg - Williams - 670.5 kg
10. Kimi Raikkonen - Ferrari - 671.5 kg
11. Heikki Kovalainen - McLaren - 678.5 kg
12. Kazuki Nakajima - Williams - 680.9 kg
13. Robert Kubica - BMW - 698.6 kg
14. Nick Heidfeld - BMW - 696.3 kg
15. Nelson Piquet - Renault - 677.6 kg
16. Adrian Sutil - Force India - 679.0 kg
17. Sebastien Buemi - Toro Rosso - 678.5 kg
18. Giancarlo Fisichella - Force India - 652.0 kg
19. Mark Webber - Red Bull - 656.0 kg
20. Sebastien Bourdais - Toro Rosso - 667.5 kg

From that I'd say the RBR is the fastest car, and it's looking good for Rosberg.

Vettel looks more likely than rosberg by a long shot

Ratios of laptime / weight

Quote :

Rosberg 0.1419
Räikkönen 0.1420
Vettel 0.1427
Massa 0.1427
Trulli 0.1441
Button 0.1441
Hamilton 0.1444
Barrichello 0.1452
Alonso 0.1454
Glock 0.1457