[Official] Round 1 - Australian Grand Prix

[Dixie Flatline]

Qualifying 11am tomorrow.

[FordCosworthPanoz]

Spoiler alert Red Bull and Vettel win pole and race and another boring dry race.

[Peter Mallett]

Yup, stewards decision. Qualifying will continue tomorrow (midnight GMT).

[Dixie Flatline]

Showers predicted for tomorrow, but not as many as today.

[FordCosworthPanoz]

Why bother bringing Wet weather tyres?

[AnEmmoFan]

Must say the events of the last 30 mins are puzzling. Safety car went out and did not even have its windscreen wipers on! Also no information, where was the standing water, if any, which precluded a start to Q2?

F1 tops the bill with its poor treatment of its fans. It happened on Friday as well when no car completed a lap in anger for the first 30-40 mins. I gave up and did something else.

Wait till next week when they run the Malaysian Grand Prix late in the afternoon, the same time the afternoon storm rolls in.

[p-matt]

Very poor show from F1 today. Especially if you factor in the telemetry issues they've had this weekend and the failure to have a backup when the storm hit an hour before qualifying.

They could have easily run all three sessions today, but instead they were overly cautious. And now we have this ridiculous situation where there's a race tomorrow and we won't know who's on pole until 12.30 am GMT tomorrow!

They really ought to have provision in the rules to allow the entire grid to be determined by times from a completed Q1 or Q2 session in the interests of getting qualifying done on Saturday.

[JamesH]

Originally Posted by Knowlesy

A further twenty minutes.

Whiting has to go, he is awful. Could have had Q2 and Q3 done easily.

Hadn't realised you were there in person and had 20+ years of F1 experience to make that sort of decision. My hats off to you sir, you have hidden talents.

That goes for the rest of the commentators too.

[Knowlesy]

Originally Posted by JamesH

Hadn't realised you were there in person and had 20+ years of F1 experience to make that sort of decision. My hats off to you sir, you have hidden talents.

That goes for the rest of the commentators too.

Nearly 28,000 posts on a motorsport forum pal, pretty sure I know what I am doing.

Were todays conditions even close to what we had at Fuji in 2007? No. I'm not one for moaning about elf n safety generally, but this was a shambles. There was basically the odd patch of standing water, static standing water at that. A few noobs crashed heavily and panic sets in.

Meanwhile damp fans at trackside and us sad imbeciles who got up at home to watch are left feeling a bit put out.

They could easily have run the whole session. Easily.

[Peter Mallett]

I think the problem is exacerbated by the tyre rules. Didn't they have more wets and intersection in 2007?

Bit it is frustrating to say the least.

[Peter Mallett]

*inters*

[Knowlesy]

I think you're right. Also we don't have monsoon tyres nowadays.

But surely this should have been thought through. And moving the start times of the sessions has not helped either because, if you do get the Whiting indecision, there is less time to get going again because of the fading light.

And this could all happen again in Malaysia next week!

[Dixie Flatline]

Fans get screwed by Whiting's faffing about. I live probably 40 minutes away from the circuit in the east of Melbourne, and while the rain did come down pretty hard at times, there were times when it was either completely gone or just drizzle.

What will they do if the same weather arrives tomorrow afternoon at race time (which could happen)? Delay the race?

If drivers are so concerned about their safety, they could do what Prost did in 1989 and parked in their garage, but Whiting took that decision away from them and their teams and denied the fans what they turned out to see. I hope the fans who bought tickets for today only get a decent refund because they were screwed today.

[Peter Mallett]

Apart from your assertion that Charlie is indecisive, which is clearly not the case. I concur.

[Greem]

Originally Posted by AnEmmoFan

Must say the events of the last 30 mins are puzzling. Safety car went out and did not even have its windscreen wipers on!

That's because they run without wipers to check visibility. They can't send a single seater out so Alan VdM runs around in the medical car as a safety inspection. If he or the medical car observer can't see through the screen properly he reports that back, as well as reporting on grip and visibility of track surroundings.

Don't forget that TV cameras are rather more sensitive in dark conditions than the average human eye, so it's often a lot darker than it seems.

I don't like the decision to run tomorrow, but I fully understand and agree with it. Nobody wants anyone getting hurt because of a "show must go on" attitude.

[Tourer]

Part of the reason for this is scheduling the race & Q so late local time. If both happen earlier in the day at the normal mid afternoon Euro time, there is capacity to delay & still have daylight left to play with.

As it happens, if they'd run at normal euro time today, the track was damp but that's all.

Problem with this dumb running later in the day is there's no margin of error if problems arise. Fans at the track couldn't have been happy today with Q1 only & plenty of dead time earlier - plus V8s, Porsches etc CAN run in the wetter conditions.

Fully understand why the sessions were waved off & all sympathy for those making the call when the schedule gives them bugger all wiggle room.

[Jacal]

[QUOTE=Tourer;3219360]Part of the reason for this is scheduling the race & Q so late local time. If both happen earlier in the day at the normal mid afternoon Euro time, there is capacity to delay & still have daylight left to play with.

Yep what he said plus, If you werent so soft in the prime television market - Europe - that getting up a bit early on a SUNDAY morning to watch the first GP of the year is too hard (so we're told by the little wiggle) we'd all have had a polesitter today. Lucky I went out and could watch the pavement grow on fast forward.

[Flavio Galtieri]

I think todays decision not to run just shows the general contempt with which FOM treat it's fans, whether at the circuit or watching at home. The management are so out of touch in almost every respect it's laughable.

And they hope to float in Singapore in October and run with the cash....that's all that matters to them.

I hope it's a great race tomorrow and I'll be getting up as usual but I wonder how many won't bother?

[bella]

i'm never sure at what point the concern for the drivers wellbeing is defeated by spectator and televisual concerns. it's obvious f1 doesn't draw the line in the same place as the fans, nor does it come anywhere near where a driver would draw the line and decide he couldn't drive in those conditions and refuse to go out. it's not even similar to where other series with far less investment in decent wet weather tyres draw their line.

it's difficult to quantify how wet is too wet but i think it would really help if they were a lot more open about exactly what aspect of the conditions had tipped them over to believing it was too dangerous to consider driving in.

on the plus side for the spectators, at least the sessions aren't cancelled entirely. it's a poor show that if there are refunds issued then they're going to come from the circuit and promoters pockets, and not f1/the association whose representatives decided it was too wet for play.

[Nicholosophy]

This idea of running twilight so that Europeans can sleep in is a load of . If it was run at the normal time it would have been fine. If it was raining at the regular time at least there are more daylight hours to attempt qualifying.

Malaysia will be the usual shambles.

[PVDA]

Someone will no doubt redo this one to suit todays events at Albert Park.....

[Casper]

Originally Posted by Knowlesy

Nearly 28,000 posts on a motorsport forum pal, pretty sure I know what I am doing.

You really are up yourself aren't you. A keyboard hero in his own lunch time.

[JamesH]

Originally Posted by Knowlesy

Nearly 28,000 posts on a motorsport forum pal, pretty sure I know what I am doing.

Were todays conditions even close to what we had at Fuji in 2007? No. I'm not one for moaning about elf n safety generally, but this was a shambles. There was basically the odd patch of standing water, static standing water at that. A few noobs crashed heavily and panic sets in.

Meanwhile damp fans at trackside and us sad imbeciles who got up at home to watch are left feeling a bit put out.

They could easily have run the whole session. Easily.

Posting on forums != knowing what you are doing - common misconception on the internet where knowledge about what you say is optional. Esp. since you are comparing your self with Charlie Whiting, a man who has been running F1 races for quite a few years now, and, presumably is the worlds leading expert on it. Although he doesn't have 28k posts on a motorsport forum...so perhaps he needs to spend more time posting and less time running F1 races....

The world is full of armchair experts.

[Flavio Galtieri]

Originally Posted by bella

i'm never sure at what point the concern for the drivers wellbeing is defeated by spectator and televisual concerns. it's obvious f1 doesn't draw the line in the same place as the fans, nor does it come anywhere near where a driver would draw the line and decide he couldn't drive in those conditions and refuse to go out. it's not even similar to where other series with far less investment in decent wet weather tyres draw their line.

it's difficult to quantify how wet is too wet but i think it would really help if they were a lot more open about exactly what aspect of the conditions had tipped them over to believing it was too dangerous to consider driving in.

on the plus side for the spectators, at least the sessions aren't cancelled entirely. it's a poor show that if there are refunds issued then they're going to come from the circuit and promoters pockets, and not f1/the association whose representatives decided it was too wet for play.

I must have attended more than 250 events in my life, club, national and international and the only road course one I can personally ever remember being cancelled due to rain was at Donington Park in 2009. It was raining and had been for days.

That was during the notorious Simon Gillett attempt to get the British GP and part of the track collapsed between McCleans and Coppice as a result of a drain being overwhelmed, probably due to ongoing track "improvements".

Even then the drivers I was with (FF1600) pleaded that they could change their line a little to take account.....

The only other time I've experienced a cancellation has been NASCAR, where at least I got a "raincheck".

[maximus]

Originally Posted by Casper

You really are up yourself aren't you. A keyboard hero in his own lunch time.

Originally Posted by JamesH

Posting on forums != knowing what you are doing - common misconception on the internet where knowledge about what you say is optional. Esp. since you are comparing your self with Charlie Whiting, a man who has been running F1 races for quite a few years now, and, presumably is the worlds leading expert on it. Although he doesn't have 28k posts on a motorsport forum...so perhaps he needs to spend more time posting and less time running F1 races....

The world is full of armchair experts.

Did the pair of you really just take the part of his post about 28,000 comments seriously!? It was blatantly meant in jest. To address your other comment James, just because Charlie Whiting has 20+ years experience doesn't mean he is above criticism or incapable of bad decisions.