2023 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, March 31 - April 02

[PlatinumZealot]

He's very talented! The voices are spot on!

[PlatinumZealot]

Does anyone else think that the Ferrari was the second fastest car in race pace? Sainz was really slicing thru the field.

[organic]

Does anyone else think that the Ferrari was the second fastest car in race pace? Sainz was really slicing thru the field.

Yes it did seem to be the case. At least equal second if not second fastest given Sainz is usually over a tenth off Leclerc in race pace

[n_anirudh]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-03/ ... /102178628

[Chuckjr]

Just been flicking through the telemetry on F1 tempo and has anyone else noticed the odd braking input from Russel on the straights? You can just about pick out any lap thats recorded and there will be a odd section of speed trace and random dabs of 100% brake.

I presume this will just be a glitch, but it looks a bit consistent in the same places each time.

There's also 104% throttle in places.

A really strong right leg, and a tricky left?

[Chuckjr]

Post race driver reaction (funny)

The man has serious talent. His Lewis I thought was the best. Nailed his voice. Same with George. His eyes and accents were spot on. Really impressive.

[Chuckjr]

Enjoyed the race. The red flags were unnecessary. Clearly the FIA will do anything to keep the race from ending under yellow. I agree with whoever said they could have resolved the first incident in 3 laps with a dozen hand sweepers. Really. The trucks coming out was just over the top. I shook my head when I saw them.

Such a bummer for Albon. Did something break on his car? The Williams looked great otherwise. Track suited them well—just like Merc. It was a real opportunity for them. Shame.

Platinum I agree with your thought Ferrari may have been 2nd quickest. Dunno for sure but yes the lesser talent at Ferrari was cutting the field up until he reached Fred. Shaal could have taken it to Fred/Lewis me thinks. But not Max. Nobody is catching Max anytime soon.

Shame for the late yellow/red. I thought around ten laps to go is when Fred would make his move on Lewis. Shame we will never know what would have happened. I would really like to see those two duke it out as much as possible.

George got screwed, but that’s racing. Even Lewis knew it was a good call before the yellows. I thought Lewis drove a good race. Shame George blew the engine. Would have been nice to see him fight with Sainz/Fred/Lewis later in the race. Was he overdriving the engine or just a fluke power unit failure?

Congrats to Max but honestly, he’s in an untouchable car. Their top speed is ridiculous. Nobody’s gonna catch that guy. I think he went off track simply because it’s hard to stay focused when you have no competition. Schumacher used to comment on that during the Ferrari dominance years.

[peewon]

Does anyone else think that the Ferrari was the second fastest car in race pace? Sainz was really slicing thru the field.

It's possible Merc was faster but Lewis only drove as fast as it was needed to keep Alonso out of DRS. Who knows. Ferrari have certainly shown to have better one lap pace in Jeddah and Bahrain. So without degradation, it's quite possible over race distance as well.

[search]

The Haas protest was duly dismissed.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... SJOdd.html

The reasons for dismissing it are interesting. They basically say that race control had no time to have a closer look into it, and that's why they went back to the order of the start. Not because the rules require this, but because the "determination needed to be done in the context of a timed race" and "this was in fact done appropriately".

As mentioned, in Bahrain 2020 they used the running order instead - but admittedly, there was a lot of time after Grosjean's crash.

So by the sound of it, they can use whatever order they feel like using next time again.

[organic]

Does anyone else think that the Ferrari was the second fastest car in race pace? Sainz was really slicing thru the field.

It's possible Merc was faster but Lewis only drove as fast as it was needed to keep Alonso out of DRS. Who knows. Ferrari have certainly shown to have better one lap pace in Jeddah and Bahrain. So without degradation, it's quite possible over race distance as well.

Didn't Alonso post-race imply aston was probably faster in the race to match Hamilton and stay within 1.3.s for most of the race? I'll watch the post-race press conference to confirm

[Big Tea]

The Haas protest was duly dismissed.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... SJOdd.html

The reasons for dismissing it are interesting. They basically say that race control had no time to have a closer look into it, and that's why they went back to the order of the start. Not because the rules require this, but because the "determination needed to be done in the context of a timed race" and "this was in fact done appropriately".

As mentioned, in Bahrain 2020 they used the running order instead - but admittedly, there was a lot of time after Grosjean's crash.

So by the sound of it, they can use whatever order they feel like using next time again.

Again it questions if the whole rulebook needs rewriting and simplifying.
The 'managers' seem to spend more time looking up and interpreting the rules than they do executing them


But onthe other hand I shedder to thing what a hodgepodge we would get next

[Schippke]

Does anyone else think that the Ferrari was the second fastest car in race pace? Sainz was really slicing thru the field.

Not really; With the exception of Max checking out after getting past the Mercedes, all Lewis had to do was maintain the gap to Fernando; Both were conserving for a lot of the race. Yes, Sainz made some progress through the field but took a bit of time to get past Gasly, and even then couldn't pull away... and despite getting a bit closer, he never truly was in the fight with Alonso and Hamilton.

It became more evident in the later stages when they both started pushing and started leaving Carlos behind. And Gasly was still keeping pace him to for a while after that right before his tyres seemingly decided to let go...

So whilst it was a better race (pace wise) for Ferrari, I'd argue they're still no stronger than the 3rd-4th best car at the moment... such a fall from grace(?) from the SF-75. The best they can hope for is a recovery to P2; Red Bull would have to literally pull a 2022 Ferrari to loose this years Championship.

[dialtone]

Does anyone else think that the Ferrari was the second fastest car in race pace? Sainz was really slicing thru the field.

Not really; With the exception of Max checking out after getting past the Mercedes, all Lewis had to do was maintain the gap to Fernando; Both were conserving for a lot of the race. Yes, Sainz made some progress through the field but took a bit of time to get past Gasly, and even then couldn't pull away... and despite getting a bit closer, he never truly was in the fight with Alonso and Hamilton.

It became more evident in the later stages when they both started pushing and started leaving Carlos behind. And Gasly was still keeping pace him to for a while after that right before his tyres seemingly decided to let go...

So whilst it was a better race (pace wise) for Ferrari, I'd argue they're still no stronger than the 3rd-4th best car at the moment... such a fall from grace(?) from the SF-75. The best they can hope for is a recovery to P2; Red Bull would have to literally pull a 2022 Ferrari to loose this years Championship.

Gasly's tires didn't seemingly decided to let go... He lost DRS and was promptly dropped quite quickly. His car was very understeery in any corner, was evident from Carlos onboard when behind Gasly, he was setup with less downforce which allowed him quite a lot of speed. He would routinely gain half a second in just the back straight into T9-10 with the DRS active, even if Sainz was able to go past 1s before that DRS zone Gasly would be back in DRS range by the next detection point (which was all the way back to the main straight really since the 2 DRS zones in the back had 1 detection point right after T6). Gasly burned his tires to stay close to Sainz, it was a good performance overall and if Ferrari had less downforce in the car he would have left him earlier for sure but probably Carlos tires wouldn't have lasted like they did.

Before the race I wrote that the backstraight was going to be pain, and it was for sure.

Ferrari cut through the field better than Perez did, he got stuck behind Norris for as long/longer than Sainz behind Gasly.

[AR3-GP]

Ferrari cut through the field better than Perez did, he got stuck behind Norris for as long/longer than Sainz behind Gasly.

Perez's performance was troubling, wouldn't you say?

[dialtone]

Ferrari cut through the field better than Perez did, he got stuck behind Norris for as long/longer than Sainz behind Gasly.

Perez's performance was troubling, wouldn't you say?

I think he had many good laps, some very aggressive passes with young tires and would have finished with the fastest lap without the last 3-4 laps IIRC. However his climb back became progressively harder the more into the top 10 he got and further in the race, it was surprising to see him behind Norris for all those laps when even SAI managed to get past in 1-2 laps at the start. I didn't follow his race too closely but he's probably being told to not churn the tires. The first red flag with everyone on new tires completely ruined the race, in particular it ruined his race as well as RUS and SAI.