[Official] Rate the Grand Prix: Australian Grand Prix 2018

[Born Racer]

What score does it get from you?

[bjohnsonsmith]

If it hadn't been for Haas bungling Grosjean's pitstop, which led to the VSC that enabled Vettel to take the lead, this would have been a rather dull race and another Hamilton/Mercedes romp. However, it wasn't and with Lewis trying to catch Vettel, we had a race between the two 4 times WDCs.

Neither Ricciardo's Red Bull nor Verstappen's Red Bull, could get the better of Raikkonen's Ferrari and Alonso's McLaren respectively, on a track that's hard to overtake on but it was good to watch.

8.

[GTRMagic]

Its the first race of the year.
Withdrawal symptoms were strong!

9

[brands]

Why does F1 shoot itself in the foot every year by starting the season at a track where overtaking is almost impossible ( on track).

2

[chillibowl]

8. very nice race.

sets the stage for the season to come!

[Fiorentina 1]

2:

If it continues like this, I might actually not watch every GP this season. I've missed maybe 1/2 dozen GP's in 34 seasons. The Halo, the lack of passing, the saving fuel b.s, VSC and the ESPN coverage is really f-ing up this season.
To be honest with you, Indycar need to capitalize on this situation and win over/ back the fans and become the premier open wheel racing league like they were 20-years during the CART days.

[GT6]

Well glad that i did not pay to watch that live, f1 must do something about the boring tracks that make 2 hours seem like an eternity. gave it a 3 but that was due to lack of any recent motor racing.

[Adam43]

This was one of the worst races I have ever seen. Ever. The font on the new F1 timing screen was awful.

[steve_r]

Cant decide whether the randomness of the result due to VSC is a good or bad thing. Not a great race, but I'm pleased that F1 is back, so a 6.

[Peter Mallett]

1

[Aysedasi]

4. As a spectacle it was poor and was won thanks to a virtual safety car. That isn't what I wanted to see in the first race of the season. I only watched the highlights and was claimed by the Land of Nod several times.

[Adam43]

The cars are quick, move around nicely and are interesting. Apart from the blummin’ overtaking thing. Grrr.

[Born Racer]

Originally Posted by Adam43

This was one of the worst races I have ever seen. Ever. The font on the new F1 timing screen was awful.

I hope your ironic style is not lost on people who see it over the course of the season, Adam.

[newlaprecord]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

8. very nice race.

sets the stage for the season to come!

i totally agree with you, it will be one hell of a season in motoGP

Before L24 of course we had the amazing feast of Sainz going wide into a corner, Bottas performing pretty much the only overtaking moves of the race (on a couple of midfielders with a champion car) and Haas having issues with an airgun. Between L24 and L58 then, NOTHING , is precisely what have happend. 34 laps of Nada, Nill, Zero. They all finished in the exact same order.

[Born Racer]

Just about better than the sum of its parts, because on the face of it, there wasn't much wheel-to-wheel stuff, but there was a bit of intrigue for various positions and of course, there was the novelty of the series being back. I gave it an average five. Probably a point of that was due to its return.

But then, I always enjoy it.

[Neil22]

Gave it a six, give ESPN a 1. They better make some changes.

[E.B]

I gave it a generous lay off induced 5. Enjoyed Q3 and in the race the scraps between Danny Ric and Kimi plus Max and Fernando, Also the fact that for whatever reasons it was not a Mercedes whitewash.. Hate the halo and the onboard shots.

[John Turner]

Pretty boring - 3

[S griffin]

8, was looking interesting, but nothing happened, until the VSC. Need cars that can follow closer though

[FAS33]

Seeing Hamilton’s reaction after race was greeeeeat. When he got booed on stage made it an easy 10 for me.

[fieldodreams79]

First race of the year, cracker of a start, followed by blah. 6

[VIVA GT]

I've voted a take it or leave it 5. As I mentioned elsewhere, although I had been looking forward to the season starting, my eagerly awaited watching of qualifying just didn't do anything for me. Due to that I almost didn't bother watching the race but as I'd simply got nothing better to do, I did. I think that the biggest problem is cars inability to run closely behind another, they either lose cooling or downforce (or both). Without that, we can't have close racing and so rarely see any overtaking.
Sadly, the highlight of the meeting for me was Hamilton & Vettel winding each other up in the post qualifying press conference! That's not motor racing...

[S griffin]

Tbh that was about a good a race we were gonna get at Albert Park with the new cars. At least Lewis gave us some interest when he had a go back at Seb

[chillibowl]

bit of an aside to those lamenting the lack of overtaking...

Albert Park is essentially a narrow street circuit where overtaking has always been at a premium. add in faster wider cars and there is going to be more of a premium on overtaking.

imo it is not really reasonable for any long time fan to have come into this particular race and expected to see loads of overtaking.

and even if that is an unfair assessment...lack of overtaking has generally been a problem with F1 for almost 20 years now.

the science of aero brought us here...after all of this time how can one expect that it is now magically going to be different?

anyways to each their own as this thread has always been a subjective evaluation of the race.

[Peter Mallett]

I don't think we can simply say "it's the circuit" because not only were there aero issues there were cooling issues too. Those wont go away no matter which circuit they race on. Yes I'm sure there will be races with overtaking but the fact that opportunities aren't there means that the event is not a race.