Australian GP 2010 - Melbourne

[FLC]

Why then did Vettel tell them on the radio that it was the left front brake?

[marcush.]

that was Helmut Markos initial comment to Niki Lauda during the race and broadcasted by RTL. also Vettel himself admitted to a wheel problem /Vibration and the front suspension shedding sparks ,as could be seen in the onboard footage...the brake failure was a result of something else going wrong,maybe the drive pegs shearing off due to the wheel come loose..or whatever..we will surely see the vids somewhere on youtube.you can clearly see the front left is not braking when the right front is ... so true there was no brake force transmitted ..but you also did not see the black cloud of an exploding brakedisc as well...right?

[Avto]

Hey! Com'on "dave34m". He practically drove 4/5th of the race on one set of soft tyres, inspite of that at the very end frustated a much faster car (with a much newer set of tyres), and finished ahead.
It is probably not unfair to say, Massa has Alonso to thank for his podium place, had Alonso not kept Hamilton at bay, I don't think Massa would have been able to defend his place, as awful as he was on the degrading tyres.

Maybe but it wasnt a steller drive, Brdigestone had already said that the softs would last the entire race, didnt the top 4 all drive most of the race on softs. I just think Button and Hamliton drove great races today. If Alonso had passed more at the front of the field them maybe I'd agree

I am not what you would call a hardcore racing fan, but what Alonso did today was fantastic. To hold of Lewis like that for so many laps it was great. Some think F1 is only about overtaking, but when you look into it it's much more than that and what Alonso demonstrated today was one of those aspects of racing most people don't think about.

[WhiteBlue]

Reason that Virgin started from the pots was so they could install and use a different fuel tank with a different capasity.

I think you mean pits. But even then you are massively wrong. The capacity will not change that easily. They will have to build a new monocoque with more space for fuel bladders. That is going to take them months considering that all crash tests will have to be redone. The bodywork and the wiring loom will have to be re designed and fabricated and the weight distribution redone.

[m3k]

long time reader- first time poster. after watching 21.5 hours of melbourne action over the last 3 days i have to say it was a great weekend, all categories had great races. in regards to virgin- i think that they started from pitlane just to save 2 laps of fuel

[segedunum]

The car has the downforce. I don't think it has enough to beat a redbull, but the pace is there to knock the ferraris.

I can't see it. They were still the thick end of a second away from Red Bull and Ferrari on raw qualifying pace. That can only be a lack of downforce and cornering speed. They were either unwilling or unable to trade off some straight line speed for more downforce, so that problem still exists.

The quali is the problem. When the race is underway, it's like all their problems disappear.

Their problems don't disappear in the race. It's just that their problems have become mitigated on the tracks we have had so far with the advantage in straight line speed they have. They can gain an advantage in lap time over everyone else in a relatively 'free' fashion with the effect of conserving their tyres over the race in order to gain that speed advantage. There's a few interesting side-effects going on at the moment, especially with these new regulations.

Once we get to cicruits where there are a lot of medium and high speed corners and packaging, balance and downforce is king (Malaysia, Barcelona, Silverstone and a lot of others) then we'll see what's what, but McLaren don't look completely confident about Malaysia.

[Shaddock]

To all forum participants : Who do you think drove the best race today!!

In my view, Alonso's was probably the most steller drive of all today. He made a poor start and had an unfortunate incident immediately after; But his race after the safety car period was outstanding.
He overtook the back markers easily, without wasting much time (unlike Schumacher in his Mercedes). He didn't do anything fancy after he climbed upto the top ten.

He (and his team) then went ahead with a very tricky tyre strategy. But credits to him, he looked after the tyres very well and drove a very sensible race, much unlike Massa.
Massa looked in awful shape in the last 3rd of the race. He was slipping and sliding and was all over the place. Whereas, Alonso looked very much in control; He had the same pace as Massa, if not more. After he climbed up to behind Massa, he drove very sensibly, didn't try too hard to attack Massa, kept just behind him all the way, making sure he ended the race in good shape as far as the tyres are conserned, and at the same time was ready to take advantage if Massa made a mistake.

But, his defence against Hamilton was superb. When Hamilton caught up with him, he was gaining more than a second a lap on Alonso. Inspite of that Alonso managed to defend his position and did it masterfully. =D> =D> =D>

Alonso should have been able to pass Massa like Lewis did earlier in the race - solid race not stella. Also Alonso got mugged by Webber on lap 23.

[segedunum]

Having been pessimistic about reliability (and the depth of problems they have had is a massive concern) Red Bull have no option but to work hard and wade through these issues and take it on the chin when a failure happens. They still have 17 races left, it's a long season and the scoring system this year makes it somewhat more productive to go for a race win rather than be conservative. They need to win and score heavily in the next two races though, otherwise the championship is really uphill.

The simple fact is that the Red Bull is faster than anything out there, and I don't think we've really seen how fast it is relative to the competition until they develop it a bit more. No one else has a pull-rod rear suspension, which is there specifically to package the rear end in a tighter manner. No other team can have an exhaust system on their car like Red Bull's for that reason. There are a lot of knock-on effects of various components on that car and it will take other teams a significant amount of time to catch up. The stuff on that car is not trivial and certainly not trivial to copy. The double diffuser ban next year might well make things even worse. What they have on that car is simply the way forward.

They'll just have to bite their tongues through this period and stick with it. You can feel the rest of the paddock collectively holding their breath for when that Red Bull starts finishing and winning races, and that's why you see some backhanded comments about reliability and even some strange ones about their fuel tank.

[vall]

I don't understand the logic. Years back when MS came few time from last to finish 4th or win, then it was a stellar performance. But when Alonso does the same, it is just a good race......

As for LH, yes, he did overtake several people but failed to do that when mattered most (RK and FA). So in the end of the day he finished where he was after the first corner. Besides, he destroyed his tires and started whining.

[vall]

Alonso should have been able to pass Massa like Lewis did earlier in the race - solid race not stella. Also Alonso got mugged by Webber on lap 23.

I guess he did not want to really push him that hard, but rather wait for a mistake. But amazingly Bulk did not do any at the time. For the rest of the race he was all aver the place and it some point I doubted he will even finsih.

[woohoo]

How about we begin to refer to drivers by their real names, and not some random pet names ?

[joseff]

To all forum participants : Who do you think drove the best race today!!

Driver of the day was clearly Robert Kubica. 10th to 2nd. Awesome start, made no mistakes.

[meves]

Alonso drove well but he made up most of his positions in the pits during the change from wets to slicks and then when the Merc of Rosberg and the McLaren Hamilton were called in. So a good drive but not amazing as he didn't really get past any of the lead drivers on the track like Hamilton managed.

[Dipl-Ing.]

first of all just wanted to say, "what an improvement". now i wasn't one who complained much about Bahrain but i still think they should mix things up again next year (rule wise), to make overtaking possible.

and secondly, why is it that two of the best drivers spend all their time whining about their teams. i mean Vettel should stop crying about his car, the Red Bull is far the fastest car over a lap, even over several laps. but typical RedBull it wont last a Race, now I don’t know why this always happens to Vettel and not Mark, but maybe he should look at his driving style, always pushing 110% is great for us to watch, and i love seeing him fly off the track when he's leading, but it's not to great for his car. I loved the way he jumped out and said, front right brake failure and nothing else. and the team have yet to confirm this. i mean it probably was the breaks, but again why did this happen, maybe he should take it easier and stop riding his breaks through every corner.

which leads me to whiny git number 2, Hamilton, again brilliant driver. but why does he think just because he's quick he has to win, there was no way in hell they were going to let Hamilton race Jenson on shredded tires when he got past Kubica, he would have just punted them both off into the gravel, because in the mind of Lewis, Lewis is number 1. So I think it was the right decision to get him in and let him do what Lewis does best, driving like a maniac and entertaining all of us. and that way if he would have got up to Jenson, he would have had to let him past, but how was the team supposed to know he was going to shred his tires in 15 laps.

But Lewis and Seb really need to grow up.

(PS: I hate Alonse, still he had a brilliant drive. Don’t know how you cant see that!)

[Tim.Wright]

that was Helmut Markos initial comment to Niki Lauda during the race and broadcasted by RTL. also Vettel himself admitted to a wheel problem /Vibration and the front suspension shedding sparks ,as could be seen in the onboard footage...the brake failure was a result of something else going wrong,maybe the drive pegs shearing off due to the wheel come loose..or whatever..we will surely see the vids somewhere on youtube.you can clearly see the front left is not braking when the right front is ... so true there was no brake force transmitted ..but you also did not see the black cloud of an exploding brakedisc as well...right?

I have recorded the RTL coverage of this morning, I did see the sparks but I would have thought that was the brakes exploding. Maaaybe you can see a little wheel movement but its hard to tell as the car was all over the place by then. Also I could not understand the commentry because mein deutsch ist zu scheiß.

Tim