2015 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne

[e30ernest]

What doubts are there over Bottas?

He started suffering from back pain during qualifying, and was taken to a hospital to be checked shortly after the session.

[atanatizante]

Simple question : why Ferrari race sim laps were almost identical to Merc ones?
Possible answers:
- another engine mode
- Vettel was on other tyre
- Merc cars was set almost 100% towards qualy? don't think so ...
- different fuel levels ... now seeing Ferrari qualy times could we say that Merc cars have had over 50 kg more fuel in FP2 race sim laps?

[Raleigh]

I'd assume it is just Merc running heavier.

[f1316]

There is also the possibility that by having less drag the Ferrari can actually use less fuel and hence be 'legitimately' lighter, if you know what I mean. Likewise this could aid tyre wear which, fuel loads aside, seemed to be the real strength of those long runs.

If they felt they could get these benefits in the race and no matter what they did in quali still be behind the Mercedes, you can see why Ferrari might make this choice and sacrifice some wing angle/downforce.

[Juzh]

Merc running heavier. Simple.

[Moose]

Of course, the efficiency level of these new engines is something we know nothing about yet. It could be that Ferrari have made big gains there as well as in power and drivability.

[bauc]

HAM was a class of his own today, and if ROS does not pass him at the start or in the first few laps than this race will be walk in the park for HAM.

[Artur Craft]

Rosberg was unhappy about something from the brief shots shown near the end of FP3 in the Merc garage.

Yes, I noted that too. I still suspect there was something quite wrong with his car that made braking inconsistent and hence his poor speed on S1 and S2

Hamilton to have 2011 vettel style year? We've seen what confidence can do to a man.

Possible. Rosberg did run into some trouble, though. If he had a flawless Q, I think he would have been closer.

I think Rosberg would've been on pole as usual, tbh

These are his S1/S2 from his first lap(S1 horrible, 0,1s than Ferraris):29.108, 23.192. Then, on the final he got even worse(first lap was already bad): 29.362, 23.230.

Lewis' best S1/S2 are : 28.725, 23.090. That's 0,485s faster than the first lap and 0,777s faster than Nico's second lap.

Imo, Rosberg had some brake problems since FP3(after some good runs on the Mediums in FP3, he then started going off the track. Then, when he used the Softs, he was barely faster than his own time on Mediums). In the QLF press conference he didn't want to use excuses and only said he "didn't put a lap together". When you're 0,5s slower on one lap and 0,8s in another , by S2, there is much more to it, imho.

What decresead the gap was that Rosberg was 0,2s faster than Lewis on S3, where the high speed corners prevail and braking is less of a factor.

Worth noting that it's not a setup thing, ie, one using more downforce than the other. They have the same speed traps and max speeds on each sector.

Yes and vettel didn't really improve on q2, so I don't think the Williams is necessarily faster- could have gone either way.

Seb thinks he could got p3 but I think race pace will be in Ferrari's favour.

Totally agree with you

[Vasconia]

HAM was a class of his own today, and if ROS does not pass him at the start of in the first few laps than this race will be walk in the park for HAM.

Rosberg was not happy with the car, if he has the same problems tomorrow I expect a 20-25 seconds gap.

[arahman_93]

There was nothing wrong with rosberg car he just didnt get the lap together.

http://www1.skysports.com/watch/video/s ... g-compared

[Artur Craft]

Edit: Regarding Merc: Absolute kudos to them! 1,3s. And that after all this talk of diminishing Returns.
4s faster than last year despite slightly unfavourable Aero Regulation Change (lowered nose).

Looks like a lost season with a Lewis Hamilton that has been able to correct his only slight weakness of last year (one lap pace in Q). I hope at least Nico can catch up again otherwise this is looking to be a boring season.

Don't get carried away. It's far from 4s improvement Last year, even on FP3 they were doing 1.29.3. It's that qualifying was wet. If you guess last year's pole would be around 1.28.0. The improvement is less than 2s.

This is what Rosberg said on QLF PC:

It’s not indicative of the pace difference. For sure Lewis was quick but I didn’t get my laps together today so I’m not too worried about pace – I’m not worried about pace at all to be honest.

I think Rosberg being 0,2s faster on S3(the most demanding driving wise) kind of backs him up there.

the Mercedes looks so good in the high speed corners it´s insane. Front end just sticks and the rear end just deals with it.
2012 pole - 24.922
2015 pole - 26.327
They are not that far off the V8 days now, but we´ll have to see a couple more dry races to get a better picture.

Quite indicative of how slow the 2015 cars are in corners.

Power/weight ratio of the 2012 car is 1.15 and the 2015 is 1.25.

1,4s slower with all that almost 900HP is pretty bad, in comparison, imo.

Sorry guys, I was forced to delete those data due to FOM`s rights : http://www.formula1.com/content/fom-web ... terms.html
...
Nevertheless, some interesting speed traps to analyze:

Mercedes: Lewis 317, Nico 315
Williams : Bottas 329, Massa 327
Ferrari : Vettel 327, Raikk 325
FI : Perez 325 and probably the same for Hulk
Sauber: Nasr 321, Ericss 314 but I saw both doing 325 ...
RB : Ricci 315 and probably the same for Kyvi boy
...
Hard to tell, but according to the third screenshot
TR: Sai maybe 308 and Ves 309
Macca : Button maybe 308 and Mag 306

Some of these numbers are not the same of FIA's data which are:

QUALIFYING - SPEED TRAP
POS DRIVER TEAM KM/H TIME
1 Valtteri Bottas Williams Martini Racing 329.0 17:50:50
2 Felipe Massa Williams Martini Racing 327.6 17:52:31
3 Sebastian Vettel Scuderia Ferrari 327.6 17:59:37
4 Pastor Maldonado Lotus F1 Team 327.5 17:58:50
5 Sergio Perez Sahara Force India F1 Team 325.5 17:09:53
6 Kimi Raikkonen Scuderia Ferrari 325.3 17:51:32
7 Romain Grosjean Lotus F1 Team 325.1 17:59:10
8 Marcus Ericsson Sauber F1 Team 324.7 17:14:15
9 Nico Hulkenberg Sahara Force India F1 Team 324.2 17:35:53
10 Felipe Nasr Sauber F1 Team 323.8 17:39:16
11 Nico Rosberg Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 323.1 17:52:13
12 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 323.0 17:51:41
13 Daniil Kvyat Infiniti Red Bull Racing 319.1 17:39:10
14 Daniel Ricciardo Infiniti Red Bull Racing 318.8 17:14:07
15 Carlos Sainz Jr. Scuderia Toro Rosso 315.9 17:39:26
16 Max Verstappen Scuderia Toro Rosso 314.7 17:14:25
17 Jenson Button McLaren Honda 312.8 17:06:29
18 Kevin Magnussen McLaren Honda 312.5 17:17:45

[FoxHound]

Live timing measures bottas at 331 and hamilton at 325 in Q3. Wolf blowing it out of proportions.

"As much as" does not equate to "it is".

But it is interesting that when Mercedes are down on Km/h, you suggest Wolff is "blowing it all out of proportion".
Did you not spend copious amounts of energy and posts trying to force the issue on top speed?

I'm curious as to this change of tack.

Basically Wolff is making a point, a point you seem to want to ignore.

[atanatizante]

Merc running heavier. Simple.

Then let's do some math : Kimi did a 16 lap stint in FP2 and that's almost 1/3 of the race ...
So if Merc cars were running 50 or more kilos then they were almost 3/4 of the race fueled ...
Question (coz I lost my glasses ) : what was the Merc's race sim tyre drop off?

[Artur Craft]

Whilst those stats are true they do not really give a true reflection of their respective pace. Just to give an example, between Monaco and Hungary, there was an issue for Lewis in every qualifying session:

Monaco: yellow flags (could have had pole)
Canada: poor final run for Lewis, with a couple of mistakes, (could have had pole)
Austria: ran wide and then spun (was clearly faster than Rosberg)
Silverstone: rain stopped (was clearly faster than Rosberg)
Germany: brake failure (could have had pole)
Hungary: fire (could have had pole)

If we give Lewis Austria and Silverstone and then halve the other four events, this leads to Lewis gaining 4 and Rosberg losing 4. This would lead to the overall season stats of being 11 - 8 to Lewis.

There were not many times when Lewis snatched pole off Rosberg, because Rosberg had an issue (and/or when he clearly looked faster).

If you want to be naive and really believe Rosberg is faster than Lewis then continue to do so. It's like JB said - if Lewis gets his setup right and is happy with the car then no one else may as well bother turning up. It's just last year, he had a lot of bad luck and made lots of little mistakes, pushing too hard, whilst Rosberg was consistent and careful, which worked well.

I think you're been the naive here, with all the respect. Rosberg was faster on the runs they had on Monaco and Canada(the two of them and Lewis had only a tiny inner lock up in his last lap and Rosberg's also wasn't flawless). Then, you can't predict what would happen on the others.

Rosberg was faster in Melbourne but Lewis got an extra lap. Also faster in China up untill S2, then Rosberg spun but his sector times were better than the pole. Then, there was Singapore where Lewis abused track limits on T1 and gained some time over Rosberg on S1 and snatched pole by 0.007s.

I never heard Button say such thing(seems more like a fan made up thing) and there is no way he could even know that because he had very few other drivers as team mates to compare.

[atanatizante]

Merc running heavier. Simple.

Then let's do some math : Kimi did a 16 lap stint in FP2 and that's almost 1/3 of the race ...
So if Merc cars were running 50 or more kilos then they were almost 3/4 of the race fueled ...
Question (coz I lost my glasses ) : what was the Merc's race sim tyre drop off?

What I'm trying to suggest is that Nico has a very good plan regarding tomorrow race : he learned his last year lessons and he is fully aware of the fact that he could beat Lewis only if could outsmart him!
How come? Tell me I'm a conspiracy theory fan but I think he'll go for a one stop for the race!
And he went with that plan even before he arrived to Ausy ...
Then all of a sudden in FP2 he was very pleased to see Vettel doing race sim with the medium tyre, coz this will be his main race tyre stint ...
So in FP2, FP3 and even in Qualy he was setting up his car only for how to best manage the medium tyres.
And in FP3 and Qualy he just acting and throwing lots of puffs of smoke, just to induce us a motive why all of a sudden he is losing time after the first pit stop ...
I don't have a cristall ball but that's how I do if I were Nico ...