China laptimes...

[Silk Cut Jaguar]

Just a quick straw poll on the rule changes...

With most of the engineers up the pitlane commenting that come Melbourne they will only be down around 10% of the downforce/grip of last year, it seems possible that once China rolls around the laptimes should be back on par.

This season has the hallmarks of being extremely competitive so I doubt any of the teams will give an inch pushing development to the very last race again. So, do you think the cars will slower, faster or about the same as 2004 at the end of the season?

[Kicking-back]

Ever so slightly slower.

Qualifying pace will be about a second off, but average race pace will be less due to the tire rules.

You have to bear in mind that a season of development was on the cars when they went to China last year too - so the gap between last years lap times and this years will tend to be similar over the whole season.