Couldn't agree more. The last good looking F1 cars were the late '80s and early '90s. I followed F1 religiously since the mid '60s, attended Grands Prix all over the world , but I'm about done. First they take away the sound and now the ugly cars have gotten even worse. Didn't think that was possible. I miss the days when the cars were so loud I could hear them from my hotel room in downtown Montreal during early morning practice. Call me shallow, but aesthetics do play a role. I'll still DVR the races, but I'm sure the fast forward button will be used a lot.

I personally like the cars from 1994-1999. Once FIA 'shrunk' the overall size of the vehicles, they somehow lost their lustre. The cars from the last few years looked decent though, These 'wind screen thingy-ma-bobers' look terrible. Whats next, an enclosed cockpit? A driverless F1 car maybe???

The halo does not look so terrible, but that low wing.......I don't know.

SKY offer this assessment F1 testing results for 2018

F1 2018: Rating the teams after eight days of winter testing | F1 News

I have a feeling mercedes is sandbagging in pre-season testing like last year...

:agreed:

Sent from my SM-N910P using Tapatalk

^^:iagree::iagree:

But Lewis is saying that to Ferrari too.

I wish mclaren or redbull would be the dark horse and leave these two bitches crying in the dust.

Tired of this 2 manufactures dominating the race.

Nice analysis of the top 3 teams and the winter pre season test - Testing analysis - Has F1 finally got a three-way title battle?

ESPN's schedule is out.

ESPN reveals F1 TV broadcast schedule for 2018

Have to stream P1 and P2 for every race except Monaco, US, and Mexico GPs.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/13...y-tyre-in-test

Mercedes avoided Pirelli's new hypersoft tyre in Formula 1 testing because it will just be a compound to "survive" on this season, according to team principal Toto Wolff.

Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas ended the two weeks at Barcelona more than a second off Sebastian Vettel's pace, but did not pursue one-lap performance and only moved away from soft or medium Pirellis to try the ultrasoft.

Wolff dismissed any suggestion of the lack of time on the softest tyres being a weakness, claiming it was better for Mercedes' test programme as a whole.

"We decided not to use the hypersoft because we felt it is a tyre that is usable for one lap only, and that in testing it is about collecting data and understanding set-ups," he said.

"The hypersoft is just an additional big step in grip from the ultrasoft.

"It will be a qualifying tyre, and we felt that we would rather concentrate on the development work than on single-lap.

"I think the hyper will be a qualifying tyre only, and you just need to hang onto it in the first couple of laps, and survive."

Wolff said that "every car" suffered blistering on the softer compounds in testing and reckoned that meant races they are used "can be exciting".

But he also suggested that Pirelli's estimates of big steps between each compound would not prove to be accurate.

"What we have seen is that the steps in performance and in grip between the tyre compounds was relatively small," he said.

"Between medium and soft, soft and supersoft, supersoft and ultrasoft you could see tiny steps, between a tenth or two, sometimes no step at all.

"With some teams, like Williams, there was no step at all."

Pirelli's hypersoft appeared in Abu Dhabi in the post-season test last November, and Bottas said that offered sufficient opportunity to try the new-for-2018 compound.

He agreed with Wolff that the life of the tyres made it an irrelevant one to test on in Spain, claiming "they would only last one lap" on a high-energy circuit such as Barcelona.

"They are grippier, based on what we know, so I don't think there's a risk," Bottas continued.

"We decided to focus on the tyres that are most likely to be [used] on that type of track."

Vettel claimed after testing that Mercedes' decision to complete race simulations only using medium tyres, which is not allowed in races, made its impressive long-run pace misleading.

Bottas admitted that it was not entirely representative, saying: "We know that testing was good, especially our long-run performance felt good and consistent.

"But it's only one track, one [set of] conditions, one type of tyre."

He added: "I think we definitely need to be cautious, it was unique conditions.

"We know Melbourne will be different, Bahrain and China will be different.

"We can estimate pretty well but we need to prove in Melbourne that the car also works there."

https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/43438002

Formula 1: Can Lewis Hamilton & Mercedes be stopped in 2018?

Watch Sky Sports F1 | Sky F1 Live Stream Online

Practice is on tonight!! F1 is back! :) Australia GP weekend :) YES!

Forecast:

Pole: Hamilton
P2: Bottas
P3: Vettel
P4: Verstappen
P5: Ricciardo

Win: Vettel

I hope I am wrong in every aspect.

Here are the results from P1.
1 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 1:23.931 35
2 33 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING TAG HEUER 1:24.058 +0.127s 34
3 77 Valtteri Bottas MERCEDES 1:24.159 +0.228s 34
4 7 Kimi Räikkönen FERRARI 1:24.214 +0.283s 39
5 5 Sebastian Vettel FERRARI 1:24.451 +0.520s 38
6 8 Romain Grosjean HAAS FERRARI 1:24.648 +0.717s 34
7 3 Daniel Ricciardo RED BULL RACING TAG HEUER 1:24.721 +0.790s 28
8 14 Fernando Alonso MCLAREN RENAULT 1:25.200 +1.269s 28
9 20 Kevin Magnussen HAAS FERRARI 1:25.246 +1.315s 30
10 2 Stoffel Vandoorne MCLAREN RENAULT 1:25.285 +1.354s 34
11 55 Carlos Sainz RENAULT 1:25.390 +1.459s 35
12 11 Sergio Perez FORCE INDIA MERCEDES 1:25.413 +1.482s 30
13 27 Nico Hulkenberg RENAULT 1:25.463 +1.532s 35
14 18 Lance Stroll WILLIAMS MERCEDES 1:25.543 +1.612s 32
15 31 Esteban Ocon FORCE INDIA MERCEDES 1:25.888 +1.957s 33
16 28 Brendon Hartley SCUDERIA TORO ROSSO HONDA 1:25.925 +1.994s 41
17 10 Pierre Gasly SCUDERIA TORO ROSSO HONDA 1:25.945 +2.014s 39
18 35 Sergey Sirotkin WILLIAMS MERCEDES 1:25.974 +2.043s 37
19 9 Marcus Ericsson SAUBER FERRARI 1:26.814 +2.883s 31
20 16 Charles Leclerc SAUBER FERRARI 1:26.815 +2.884s 35