[Official] Round 1 - Australian Grand Prix

[Razzzor]

Originally Posted by bella

by the way, does everyone believe me about bianchi now?

i think sutil showed what he's good at. using the weather to get himself at the front where he's unusually good at staying there, regardless of how average his pace might be normally. di resta's going to have a hard year...

Yeah Bianchi set the 11th fastest lap too, about the same as Vettel's best lap, though he was last to pit.

As good as Sutil was, he was still only a couple secs ahead of Di Resta who was forced to start on the ss's, so was already at a disadvantage to Sutil who could use them on light fuel at the end. It's just that he was on tv because a lot more because his strategy allowed it. Good job staying with Vettel for most of the stint though.

Should be a very exciting year, in race pace Ferrari looks very strong. Lotus as well but where was Grosjean? The 3 stops didn't work for him. RB and Mercedes aren't far off either, but definitely aren't using their tyres as well. Looks like Pirelli will decide who's champion this year.

[DV_08]

Bianchi certainly did a good job, that would had to have been Marussia's most competitive race so far. I was a bit confused on what Ferrari were doing with Massa on strategy, he kind of ended up in no mans land at one point. The second stop was too late to cover Vettel and Sutil, I thought at the time that putting him on a 2 stop strategy would have been the way to go.

[nickyf1]

Marussia have certainly leapfrogged Caterham, who now seem to be heading towards imminent reject-dom.

I'm sure it's just dodgy Renault motors...

[ShinyF1]

Originally Posted by gomick

...gives me an excuse as to why Webber cant get of the line & gets into turn 1 in about 7th place

Uncanny..

[Peter Mallett]

Originally Posted by nickyf1

Marussia have certainly leapfrogged Caterham, who now seem to be heading towards imminent reject-dom.

I'm sure it's just dodgy Renault motors...

I heard an interview with a Caterham bloke who said that they had spent more time concentrating on the move to their new factory and thus decided that it was more important than sorting out the car "for this year". Possibly the daftest strategy any race team has developed since Andrea Moda!

[bjohnsonsmith]

Am I late to the party. Great intro as ever frostie, to get the season started.

I know Kimi won and congrats to him but I couldn't watch the race live, so will have to wait to see the BBC's coverage.

[beau1]

An interesting but ultimatly boring race. Great job by Kimi. Ferrari seem to have the complete package though.

Mercedes are dissappointing as always. Too unrealiable and Hamilton went backwards similar to how Schumacher did.

Red Bull must be miffed by their lack of pace but they are at least up there unlike McLaren who were nowhere to be seen.

[FordCosworthPanoz]

Originally Posted by bella

i can't wait to see how you're going to troll that result.

I was wrong, it's not "trolling", it was observations after qualifying, remember, somebody else predicted the Mercedes would get pole and be the car to beat.

The Lotus is better on the tires along with the Force India, and to much surprise, the Ferrari was a FASTER race car than the Red Bull, once the lights went out. This is going to be an interesting season for sure. Sorry for "gasp" making a slight mistake in my observations, but I guess that's now called trolling if you're the slightest bit negative.

[Knowlesy]

Interesting race thanks to the low temperatures more than anything. I don't feel any wiser to what is going on than I do after winter testing.

Great stuff from a lot of drivers/teams really.

[bella]

Originally Posted by FordCosworthPanoz

I was wrong, it's not "trolling", it was observations after qualifying, remember, somebody else predicted the Mercedes would get pole and be the car to beat.

The Lotus is better on the tires along with the Force India, and to much surprise, the Ferrari was a FASTER race car than the Red Bull, once the lights went out. This is going to be an interesting season for sure. Sorry for "gasp" making a slight mistake in my observations, but I guess that's now called trolling if you're the slightest bit negative.

no, all you've done in the past few days is post negative comments in the f1 forum, you've moaned about *everything*.

if you don't enjoy it, stop watching it. nobody is making you do it. and if you don't realise all you're doing is moaning, reassess your life choices. or at least learn how to articulate yourself better than reverting to teenage I HATE EVERYTHING strops.

/mod

[FordCosworthPanoz]

Originally Posted by bella

no, all you've done in the past few days is post negative comments in the f1 forum, you've moaned about *everything*.

if you don't enjoy it, stop watching it. nobody is making you do it. and if you don't realise all you're doing is moaning, reassess your life choices. or at least learn how to articulate yourself better than reverting to teenage I HATE EVERYTHING strops.

/mod

I've only complained about qualifying and it's results and ticket prices./the F1 experience, both cases where the majority of posters complained about the same thing, that's it. Sorry if I've appeared negative, I'll do my best to prevent that and I do enjoy F1. Just not sure why you're singling me out.

[Peter Mallett]

Originally Posted by FordCosworthPanoz

Just not sure why you're singling me out.

Just checked; it's Sunday so it's your turn.

[ECW Dan Selby]

Originally Posted by Peter Mallett

I heard an interview with a Caterham bloke who said that they had spent more time concentrating on the move to their new factory and thus decided that it was more important than sorting out the car "for this year". Possibly the daftest strategy any race team has developed since Andrea Moda!

Brilliant.

That's like renting a brand new apartment, buying all the furnishing and forgetting to pay the rent.

Amazing. Bit of a sham this team, now. Can't remember a team having so much support to, well, nothing now!

Selby

[djinvicta]

How anyone found that "boring" I really dont know. Seven different leaders, the tension was "lean forward in the seat stuff", not knowing who was pitting when, whether the weather was going to close in or not. I enjoyed it. Great to see a Melbourne GP with no safety car too and so many finishes.
A good start to the year too with Red Bull not having the pace of two years ago, I did wonder after the first lap when Vettel sprinted off, but blew his tyres too early on. As for Webber and his starts, oh dear...
Well done Sutil too. He kept his cool and that performance has done his "form no harm at all.
Roll on next week...and the moaners, please, shut up and go watch Sponge Bob or something..

[chunterer]

Pleasantly surprised by all of that... several strong performances and fortunately what everyone feared would happen didn't!

What's bad news for the grid is that Raikkonen is clearly right back on top form with a car that can let him do what he needs to......

Red Bull seem to have some kind of issue as they were one of the worst offenders for excessive tyre wear? However that car is probably the quickest out there.

Heartening for Massa to be so close to Alonso on pace, but he got shafted again by the prat perch didn't he?!

McLaren were so appalling, surely their season can't over already, but you can't come back from 3 seconds a lap off the pace?

[ECW Dan Selby]

I think people are looking far too much in to the Red Bull worries.

They'll be heading the field in normal conditions, me thinks. No problems.

Changeable conditions lead to changeable outcomes.

Selby

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by ECW Dan Selby

I think people are looking far too much in to the Red Bull worries.

They'll be heading the field in normal conditions, me thinks. No problems.

Changeable conditions lead to changeable outcomes.

Selby

Well we're safe for at least another 2 rounds then! Sepang and China aren't known for equal conditions!

[Scooter185]

My thoughts on the race are inline with djins post.

In terms of my team, yeah mclaren was disappointing, though I found Perez to have had a very good first half of the race. Button was underwhelming for its entirety.

[somebodysb2]

Shame that Perez wasn't able to break into the Top 10. Despite that, I still feel that his performance today was better than Button's.

[m355y]

Was impressed with that as a season opener, points to a competitive season. Probably wasn't the most thrilling ever season opener but actually it had most things - it was right, tense and had some decent overtaking. The lack of accidents, safety cars, weather issues or general 'mess' can't really be bad can it?

Very impressed with the performances of Kimi, Lotus and Ferrari on race day, genuinely seemed to have the legs on Red Bull. Which makes you wonder how there can be such a disparity between the qualifying and race showings for RB, almost the complete opposite of last season where early on they had the race pace but kept getting beaten on Saturdays. The Lotus looked beautiful, the Mercedes looked good then dropped off just like last season, the Ferrari probably looked the most all-round impressive.

Shame for Massa though, strategy call totally blew a race where he looked as quick as Alonso.

Further down I thought Bianchi did very well, Sutil had a very strong return and Vergne took a major step towards asserting himself over Ricciardo, something I always half expected him to do this year despite all the pre season talk of Ricciardo being ahead. Williams and McLaren were total cack.

[JamesH]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Red Bull seem to have some kind of issue as they were one of the worst offenders for excessive tyre wear? However that car is probably the quickest out there.

Red Bull in 'faster car uses tyres faster' shock? RB's are very fast round corners. To be fast round corners you need more grip. More grip wears out tyres faster. Also, you may even be using more tyre down the straights (toe in, caster, camber all affect tyre wear on the straight) when you set you car up for better cornering.

All stuff that can be tuned to an optimum of course, and that depends on the car design and the tyres. Which is why the first race is not a good predictor of how the rest of the season will go.

[werner]

Originally Posted by Razzzor

As good as Sutil was, he was still only a couple secs ahead of Di Resta who was forced to start on the ss's, so was already at a disadvantage to Sutil who could use them on light fuel at the end. It's just that he was on tv because a lot more because his strategy allowed it. Good job staying with Vettel for most of the stint though.

I was surprised that Sutil dropped down so fast in his last stint. He had only done about 5 laps, with low fuel, and his tyres were gone. In a car that had conserved the medium-tyres very well. After his stop I expected him to be able to finish maybe as high as fourth.

[Razzzor]

Originally Posted by DV_08

Bianchi certainly did a good job, that would had to have been Marussia's most competitive race so far. I was a bit confused on what Ferrari were doing with Massa on strategy, he kind of ended up in no mans land at one point. The second stop was too late to cover Vettel and Sutil, I thought at the time that putting him on a 2 stop strategy would have been the way to go.

They needed him out of Alonso's way, so that was the way to do it - screw Massa's race up to get Alonso ahead. I bet it was intentional. Poor Massa, he'd be wondering why the hell he'd been left out but they've done it to him many times before leaving him out too long.

[Razzzor]

Originally Posted by werner

I was surprised that Sutil dropped down so fast in his last stint. He had only done about 5 laps, with low fuel, and his tyres were gone. In a car that had conserved the medium-tyres very well. After his stop I expected him to be able to finish maybe as high as fourth.

Surprised me too. But then Di Resta had to pit on lap 8 from memory in his first stint, so he didn't take them far. Sutil had to take his a lot further (12 laps?), but at least he had low fuel to do it, and brand new tyres. In hindsight, Sutil needed to stay on the mediums slightly longer, I guess he pitted earlier to cover Alonso, which failed anyway. Still 12 laps should have been easy, maybe he burned them out too soon.

I guess with Di Resta starting 9th and Sutil 11th, but Di Resta on used supersofts with a heavy fuel load, he definitely had the disadvantage. Their fastest laps were about the same too, even with Sutil getting the ss's at the end. So I think Di Resta's performance really wasn't that bad compared to Sutil, they were pretty even. Not that I'm a Di Resta fan.

[sparkione]

Originally Posted by somebodysb2

Shame that Perez wasn't able to break into the Top 10. Despite that, I still feel that his performance today was better than Button's.

Er, explain?