[Official] Australian Grand Prix 2017 - Round 1 of 20 - Grand Prix Weekend Thread

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

I noticed it as well. It made it very hard to follow the race. I wasn't sure if they were having technical issues or this is a new look for 2017. I hope the idea is to not push people to the timing and scoring app. I record and then watch races later so live info in an app is useless to me.

Richard

On a number of occasions through the weekend, the UK Sky commentators apologised for the lack of timing/graphics that was being provided by the 'world' feed. It seems like it was a technical issue.

[Mike Harte]

The world feed is controlled by FOM.

Maybe Mr E took the widget that made the graphics work when they kicked him out!

[10TENTHS]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

What did people make of Lance Stroll's first race?

Giovinazzi vs Stroll showed us the difference between a mediocre and a very good F1 driver.

Fortunately for Giovinazzi, Ricardo Gelael was willing to fund his junior series expenses for 5 years, otherwise he'd be in Italian GT right now...

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by chunterer

He did ok, bit 'laary' at times and there was an awful lot of steering input but he didn't crash and if he can keep improving he could net a fair few points for the team judging by Felipe baby's performance.

noticed the amount of steering inputs as well...not yet sure if thats indicative of an aggressive style or just a lack of proper control.

i watched a recording so i didnt have the live timing screen up and the lack of on screen graphics meant i really couldn't tell where he was in terms of lap times compared to Massa...need to see more races before i judge his place on the grid.

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by 10TENTHS

Giovinazzi vs Stroll showed us the difference between a mediocre and a very good F1 driver.

Fortunately for Giovinazzi, Ricardo Gelael was willing to fund his junior series expenses for 5 years, otherwise he'd be in Italian GT right now...

Giovinazzi in my mind showed what a future star he might be in qualy (even though it was clear to see in GP2) and then just got his head down and got on with it in the race.

Class driver.

[RWill2073]

The nbcsn crew is great, but man do they wear out cliches. Steve matchett at least once during qualifying and at least once every race has to say "push like there's no tomorrow". It is really annoying at this point.

They asked each other whether they thought bottas would make a run at Hamilton, and I think matchett said he didn't think he would. That even if he could, he wouldn't risk upsetting team dynamics so early. From around 20 laps to go down to about 7, bottas was closing pretty fast on Hamilton. Then he got to within 1.8 seconds and sat there and eventually dropped to a steady 2.2 seconds behind for several laps. I think he backed off so as to not challenge Hamilton. It's unfortunate, because I think he could have had a run on him. Good job by him, but I really don't want him to be stuck in a #2 role if he proves he can compete.

Glad to see a team able to take the fight to Mercedes. Was weird seeing Mercedes flub the strategy and Ferrari actually get it right for a change.

Stroll is the first young driver that has come in lately that I can actually feel good about rooting against. I also think wherlein is getting a little too much criticism. Unless it's a team thing behind the scenes, it had to be tough for him to let someone else come in and possibly steal his ride eventually. Its not like wherlein is secure on the grid at this point. I kind of think he's going to be real good.

Verstappen was funny asking about the fast lap late in the race. Like he was bored finishing 5th so he wanted to play around at the end. Showing his age a little bit and it's fun. Also fun to hear Hamilton say he can't pass the guy. That's a compliment to Verstappen imo.

[Moneyseeker]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

noticed the amount of steering inputs as well...not yet sure if thats indicative of an aggressive style or just a lack of proper control.

i watched a recording so i didnt have the live timing screen up and the lack of on screen graphics meant i really couldn't tell where he was in terms of lap times compared to Massa...need to see more races before i judge his place on the grid.

FL comparisons..

Massa did a 1.28.045 on lap 49
Stroll fastest was 1.29.389 on lap 38

I am sure someone can account for the extra fuel load and give us a more accurate comparison!

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Moneyseeker

I am sure someone can account for the extra fuel load and give us a more accurate comparison!

fuel load differences as well as tire choice and how new or old those tires were at the time the lap was set.

obviously a difficult job to do but fair to say from that Stroll was a long way off of what Massa was able to extract from the car?



totally a side note but the lack of on screen data for the race got me thinking how much importance i get out of those graphics but was also finding myself wondering why not much has changed over the years in the types of raw data they offer.

although i did like how they were breaking up the sectors into 200m(?) sections during quali.

but i would like to see more advanced analytics/data (as this is becoming the norm for other sports) and the ability to use and manipulate that data to compare different drivers.

i do think some of these features may be available through the F1 website via a subscription live data feed.

[Sodemo]

They have dropped all the live gear / speed / rev data again too.

[S griffin]

Speaking of graphics, anyone else enjoy the new sector graphics during quali?

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Speaking of graphics, anyone else enjoy the new sector graphics during quali?

the sector time graphic broken up with the dots?

yeah i liked that....would be nicer with an overlay of the track to better see exactly which parts of the tracks/which corners drivers were making their gains though...but i suppose that too is a feature one can pay for.

and its not that i mind paying...i mind having to pay twice. once to my cable subscriber for the feed and once for the FOM app.

two payments to complete the coverage is not really acceptable...hopefully that is something they aim to stream line

[Moneyseeker]

I missed the constant race position ticker that used to run along the top of the screen

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by RWill2073

The nbcsn crew is great, but man do they wear out cliches. Steve matchett at least once during qualifying and at least once every race has to say "push like there's no tomorrow". It is really annoying at this point.

is David Hobbs still part of that crew?

i used to love his 'knife's edge of adhesion' cliche back when they were on the Speed Channel coverage.

[Greem]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

They have dropped all the live gear / speed / rev data again too.

Did they? I was watching it on (recorded from) Sky F1 in the UK and I had a number of bits of the race where I was willing the cars to get to 320kph in 8th gear at whatever-revs-they-were-at. The buggers kept backing off at 297, though!

I can't say that the lack of on-screen data was missing for me, what was missing was *racing*. Not overtaking, but close racing.

[Beryl]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

obviously a difficult job to do but fair to say from that Stroll was a long way off of what Massa was able to extract from the car?

Looking at F1fanatic's lap times, Stroll was able to match Massa when he had fresher ultra soft tires (compared to Massa's 5-lap older ultra softs). When Massa switched to a new set of super softs, Stroll was 1.5-2 seconds slower than the Brazilian. Stroll then switched to another new set of ultras softs, but Massa retained the advantage, lapping around 1 second faster than Stroll on 9 lap older tires.

To be honest, I expected even less from Stroll after qualifying, so in a way he impressed me, but he has a way to go to get close to Massa.

[HDTVKSS]

On that comparison, its easy to forget that Massa did not have a stellar first season either at Sauber and threw it off the road more than once. He turned out ok eventually. Didn't help that he was backing up from Kimi's rather stellar first season.

[RWill2073]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

is David Hobbs still part of that crew?

i used to love his 'knife's edge of adhesion' cliche back when they were on the Speed Channel coverage.

Yes he is. I haven't noticed that cliche though. What does freak me out is how often you can hear him smacking his lips. Not like he does on purpose, but like an old man thing where he's just moving his lips a little and weird noises happen. Its really subtle, but is definitely noticeable. They're really good though.

[JeremySmith]

David Hobbs is 77 years old, I hope when I am that age I am doing as well as he is ...How about you 😊

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by RWill2073

Yes he is. I haven't noticed that cliche though. What does freak me out is how often you can hear him smacking his lips. Not like he does on purpose, but like an old man thing where he's just moving his lips a little and weird noises happen. Its really subtle, but is definitely noticeable. They're really good though.

I watched the NBCSN coverage and apart from a few commercial breaks, as some breaks still showed the race, I thought the commentary team were excellent. I didn't hear any weird noises coming from David Hobbs. You sure it wasn't background noise?

[S griffin]

Has anyone seen what Napoleon has said? He's now saying the lack of overtaking was a price to pay for more spectacular cars. Well we might as well all watch qualifying! Ok the race for the win must have been interesting, but the wallies at the top have ruined what racing drivers are supposed to do, RACE

[RWill2073]

Originally Posted by JeremySmith

David Hobbs is 77 years old, I hope when I am that age I am doing as well as he is ...How about you 😊

Sure, but I probably won't be making those weird noises on national tv, either.

Look, I'm not complaining about that crew (well, not trying to), because they're great. But they have these miniscule little things that I notice every. single. race.

And to be fair, I didn't hear it as much this race.

[Richard C]

I will be honest, I haven't heard anything like that from Hobbs, but I wasn't listening for it either. I hope now that you pointed it out that it will not be all I hear!

Regardless... I love Hobbs and Matchett even with whatever oddities they may have. I honestly can't imagine watching F1 on TV without them given how long they have been doing F1 in the US. I have no issues with Diffey and like him, but I do miss Varsha. Buxton does a good job in the pits as well.

Richard

[chillibowl]

no doubt there may be less overtaking this year but is it really as bad as it seems?

if Dan Ric had started from the pit lane on the first lap then i suspect he would have racked up a fair number of overtakes. if there was a safety car, as was widely suspected, then there would have been the possibility of more overtakes by drivers who found themselves out of position. and first race for the new(ish) compounds which turned out to be better than expected but a few degrees cooler and we could have easily seen more stops and more performance differences that would have led to more overtakes.

and on some level we have a certain quality among the drivers who, on the aggregate, tend to make a lot less mistakes.

maybe im being overly optimistic but this was maybe just an odd race.

[wolfhound]

If there is to be overtaking we should find out at the next race in China. If there is very little overtaking there then we are in for a boring season. One thing that I noticed that cars could catch up to about 1.5 seconds to the car in front and there they sat as they appeared not to be able to get any closer.
The new cars have a bigger wake behind them as they are wider and the new cars also produce more downforce from the front wing. As a result of this we have got cars that have difficulty getting close to one another.
The net result is cars not being in a position to overtake each other even with DRS.

[chillibowl]

many aspects of the 'aero' problem are beyond my understanding but what has me a bit more confused this year is the relationship between the new larger front wings/greater wake vs wider and more durable tires.

rather, with more mechanical downforce via wider tires which also happen to be more durable, shouldn't the negative effect of the greater wake be minimized if not neutralized?

i say this because since the DRS era began and with respect to being able to follow, its not so much the wake issue which has been the problem (or the main talking point even) but the overheating and degradation rates of the following car's tires.