[Official] Australian Grand Prix 2022: Grand Prix Weekend Thread - Round 3

[crmalcolm]

Lando Norris edging out Daniel Ricciardo to take fifth place made it three British drivers in the top five for the first time since the 1999 British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

[Anyopenroad]

Originally Posted by bathurst77

the two bounciest cars are 1 and 2 iin both championships

What does this mean please?

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Anyopenroad

What does this mean please?

I think it means that Ferrari and Mercedes are the two cars that have the most noticeable porpoising. And that those cars are 1&2 in both WCC and WDC.

[Richard C]

Williams in the points.

Richard

[Tourer]

Stewards flag need for change of SC protocols.

The footage from MSC's car of that one showed just how close it was - if change needed to avoid it, then hopefully the change comes soon.

[Greem]

I never thought I'd think this let alone type it: F1 needs a restart zone. Everyone closes up, and if they're all in the box, bingo - green.

[TrapezeArtist]

Originally Posted by Greem

I never thought I'd think this let alone type it: F1 needs a restart zone. Everyone closes up, and if they're all in the box, bingo - green.

Good plan. I like that idea.

[TrapezeArtist]

Can you imagine what Christian Horner would be saying if they were still using Renault engines and had three failures in three races?

[Born Racer]

Yeah, I always thought he had it in for Renault, but Honda has always escaped his ire.

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by bathurst77

the two bounciest cars are 1 and 2 iin both championships

good to see george get his 1st podium, glad he is ahead of lewis.
good to see mclaren coming back too

shocking weekend for vettee and astonm
bit of a nasty one for williams too saved by 1 albons point.

No real explanation about Sainz day. The car was crap from the moment it made the grid, no wonder he crashed.

Sainz missed his fast lap because of the red flag after Alo's incident.
Then he had tried something different by putting hard's on for the start.
Couldn't get enough heat into them. His off was precipitated by an electrical gremlin in his steering wheel before the start and it had to be replaced.
The replacement didn't have all his settings programmed into it and activated the anti stall.
Basically a weekend where lots of things that could be programmed into making your life difficult was evident.

[Skam85]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

Not sure I've ever seen it so quiet in here after qualifying for a GP.....

I was at the track all weekend and nowhere near a computer

Maybe there are more Aussies on TT than we thought!

[Skam85]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Williams in the points.

Richard

That was some drive by Albon

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Greem

I never thought I'd think this let alone type it: F1 needs a restart zone. Everyone closes up, and if they're all in the box, bingo - green.

That wouldn't solve this problem though. It was during the SC laps, not the restart.

[sizzle]

Originally Posted by TrapezeArtist

Can you imagine what Christian Horner would be saying if they were still using Renault engines and had three failures in three races?

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/ve...oblem/9773205/

Funny, you don't normally have the car on fire from that sort of problem!

[bathurst77]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

I think it means that Ferrari and Mercedes are the two cars that have the most noticeable porpoising. And that those cars are 1&2 in both WCC and WDC.

Yes that was my thought

[Taxi645]

Is there a problem with the softer Pirelli rubber?

Previous seasons driver learned to stay out of the dirty air because your tire would be go off the cliff pretty rapidly if you tried to compensate the lack of downforce/stability with more work from the tires. This year the downforce and balance in the dirty air is much better, temping drivers to stay close and see if they can get a shot.

Problem seems to be the softer compounds can't hold up. Yesterday 50 lap old C2's after ten or so laps started to outperform brand new C3's. Also previous races only the harder compound could keep up. Looks like the aero is making staying close more attractive, but the softer compounds can't handle it. Would there still be time for Pirelli to change the tires to a harder allocation the second half of the season?

[E.B]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Williams in the points.

Richard

Every team bar Aston Martin has now scored at least one point......

[steve_r]

It was interesting hearing the Albon interview after the race. Basically the hard tyre for them performed very well , being quick and durable - so well that rather than tip-toeing around looking after the tyres as you might have expected, he was actually pushing hard like he was in a qualifying session lap after lap (which I think is what we like to see).

I don't know whether this was a one-off thing that only worked for Williams at this particular track, or perhaps we will see the same elsewhere. Either way, I'm sure that the strategists for other teams will be looking very closely at that.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Taxi645

Yesterday 50 lap old C2's after ten or so laps started to outperform brand new C3's.

I'm struggling to understand what you are saying here - can you clarify please?

It reads like you are suggesting that a 50-lap old C2 was quicker than a brand new C3?

If I look at who ran the C2s for the longest:

Driver	C2 Laps	Fastest C2 Lap	On Lap	Fastest C3 lap	On Lap
Magnussen	39	84.174s	38	83.071s	44
Alonso	39	84.131s	32	80.846s	57*
Albon	57	82.589s	54	87.465s**	58

* - Alonso fitted a second set of C3 tyres on lap 53. His fastest time on the first set of C3 was 83.53s on lap 44.
** - Albon put on a set of C5 for his final lap.

Albon's time of 82.589s on lap 54 would have been on really light fuel, and he was pushing hard for a point at that time.
Compare that to everyone else's fastest lap, and I don't see that 50-lap old C2s were quicker:

Driver	Fastest Lap	On Lap	Tyre	Tyre Age
Leclerc	80.260s	58	C2	20
Alonso	80.846s	57	C3	3
Perez	81.094s	58	C2	38
Russell	81.495s	53	C2	30
Bottas	81.651s	54	C2	32
Verstappen	81.677s	37	C2	19
Hamilton	81.886s	51	C2	29
Norris	82.248s	55	C2	35
Ricciardo	82.451s	54	C2	33
Ocon	82.469s	58	C2	41
Guanyu	82.541s	55	C2	34
Albon	82.589s	54	C2	54

Personally, I think the fuel load was more of a factor than the tyre deg in determining lap time - particularly when you look at the comparison between Alonso and Norris. Alonso was on new C3s, and able to lap 2 seconds quicker than Norris on 35-lap old C2s.

[Taxi645]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

I'm struggling to understand what you are saying here - can you clarify please?

It reads like you are suggesting that a 50-lap old C2 was quicker than a brand new C3?

Quicker than a 10 lap old C3. Magnussen and Alonso could push for a few laps but than their pace dropped of strongly while the C2 kept going.

Previous races, compounds other than the hardest were also breaking apart.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Taxi645

Quicker than a 10 lap old C3. Magnussen and Alonso could push for a few laps but than their pace dropped of strongly while the C2 kept going.

I'm not seeing it in the data - and with just two drivers I don't think the case is very strong.

Magnussen:
Put on a set of C3 tyres on lap 40.
His fastest lap on them was a 83.071s when they were 4 laps old.
When they were 15 laps old, he was still able to put in an 83s lap.

Alonso:
Put on a set of C3 tyres on lap 40.
His fastest lap on them was a 83.53 when they were 4 laps old.
He was then in a battle for 9th with Guanyu, Schumacher, Bottas, Gasly and Stroll for a few laps, so I don't think the lap times are indicative of true pace.

[Sodemo]

Oddly enough, the 1997 Williams Renault Laguna used to perform better on harder tyres than the softer range.

[chillibowl]

A couple of years away, new tires and compounds, plus track changes…feel like they took an odd route with the tires by going for the unusual step between C5 softs and C3 medium and C2 hard.

Many don’t like an over reliance on tires and pit stops but the one stop that this selection allowed for is probably the reason for the processional nature of this race?

Despite some issues with getting the tires up to temperature, I would say the tires lasted too long no?

[Taxi645]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

I'm not seeing it in the data - and with just two drivers I don't think the case is very strong.

Magnussen:
Put on a set of C3 tyres on lap 40.
His fastest lap on them was a 83.071s when they were 4 laps old.
When they were 15 laps old, he was still able to put in an 83s lap.

Alonso:
Put on a set of C3 tyres on lap 40.
His fastest lap on them was a 83.53 when they were 4 laps old.
He was then in a battle for 9th with Guanyu, Schumacher, Bottas, Gasly and Stroll for a few laps, so I don't think the lap times are indicative of true pace.

This on Albon on C2's vs Alonso switching from C2 to C3 in lap 39. Notice the drop off in pace with Alonso from lap 46 onwards. Also consider that Alonso was quite a bit faster on average compared to Albon on the C2's before he pitted.

https://en.mclarenf-1.com/2022/gp/s8...times/843-239/


Same thing for Albon vs. Magnussen where Albon keeps going faster on 50 lap old C2's while Magnussen pace on the C3's stagnates and then drops off after about ten laps on the C3's.

https://en.mclarenf-1.com/2022/gp/s8...times/843-813/


These are just two example. As said also in previous races, the softer compound were not able to endure the closer racing for that many laps. I can imagine they didn't test the way they would cope specifically with regards to close racing for so long in pre season testing.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Taxi645

These are just two example. As said also in previous races, the softer compound were not able to endure the closer racing for that many laps.

Like I said - I think the sample size is too small to make any definite assessment.

Alonso was in a train of six cars covered by less than 3.5 seconds from about lap 42, so it is impossible to know the true pace.

Magnussen was not on new C3s, he only took one set of used C3s into the race. They were more than 10 laps old, and were in the region of being 20+ laps old when he managed to overtake 4 other cars on C2 tyres.