2015 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne

[GPR-A duplicate2]

How come? Tell me I'm a conspiracy theory fan but I think he'll go for a one stop for the race!

If you are not aware, as a matter of BEING FAIR to both the drivers, Mercedes team doesn't allow one driver to do one less stop than the other. THAT IS A RULE, followed last year and will be followed this year (as long as there is no one else in driver's championship, which seems to be the case this year too).

Merc also says, they prepare both cars very much the same and with similar setups. Yes, there are things like wing levels that can be adjusted, but other than that, its almost the same setups. Last year in Suzuka, Nico was having a lot of oversteer compared to Lewis, but after race he said, they both have exactly same setup and he didn't understood why he was struggling and not Lewis.

So in FP2, FP3 and even in Qualy he was setting up his car only for how to best manage the medium tyres.

Nico was faster in FP1 and FP2 and Lewis was down by few hundredth in FP1 and one tenth in FP2. In many races last year too, Lewis had times, slower than Nico in Practice race-sims. AS RUMOURED here, if Lewis was indeed setting up his car for races last year and was sacrificing qualifying (which I don't agree as there is nothing to clearly prove), he was never 6 tenth slower anywhere.

[Lorenzo_Bandini]

http://www.nextgen-auto.com/Mercedes-A- ... 87997.html

It's in french but i will translate :

- Lauda : " Aldo Costa have design a very good car last year, but he said to me this year car is incredible, it's the best chassis we have built "

- Massa said : " The difference with Mercedes is coming out the chassis, because we have the same engine "

- With GPS data at Melbourne, Mercedes rival had realised that their advantage is mainly due to the chassis.

- Pat symonds : " On one lap, Ferrari engine is almost at the same level than Mercedes engine "

[Juzh]

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.

I aint ignoring anything.
He said 10-12, reality is 6 kmh, which is substantial still, but not to the point wolff made it out to be, and that's all there is to it. Answered adequately your biting question?

[nevill3]

I think the fact that the wind direction swung round by 180 degrees prior to qualifying contributed to Nico's poor first two sectors. Hamilton had problems at first too but managed to adapt to the new conditions bettert than Nico.......Lewis has a natural gift and is able to respond quicker. Just my take on things today.

As for the MClarens.......very little mention of the fact that JB has mentioned several times that they have less/not enough downforce this year but things will improve. Add that to running the PU at less than 100% to ensure they have a chance of surviving the race tomorrow probably accounts for their poor times today. I think they are just hoping to use this engine for the "fly-aways" and bring a much improved version for Europe.

[Just_a_fan]

The fact that they are so far ahead on lap time but not that great on top speed tells us that the Mercedes has the best downforce of the field. You can't be that quick and yet relatively slow without excellent downforce - RedBull showed us this a few years ago.

[Lorenzo_Bandini]

The fact that they are so far ahead on lap time but not that great on top speed tells us that the Mercedes has the best downforce of the field. You can't be that quick and yet relatively slow without excellent downforce - RedBull showed us this a few years ago.

Exactly, and then you have just to watch their sector time. A large part of their gain is coming from the last sector.

[atanatizante]

How come? Tell me I'm a conspiracy theory fan but I think he'll go for a one stop for the race!

If you are not aware, as a matter of BEING FAIR to both the drivers, Mercedes team doesn't allow one driver to do one less stop than the other. THAT IS A RULE, followed last year and will be followed this year (as long as there is no one else in driver's championship, which seems to be the case this year too).

Ok, so what you are saying is that they have the same race strategy even regarding their tyre choise right from the first pit stop?
And another proof to my theory is the fact that Nico being in FP3 on soft tyre he couldn't improve his FP2 time, hence his setup is more towards the medium one for the race ... but yeah, that's my hunch

[Artur Craft]

Also interesting to note that Kimi and Vettel were matched on S1/S2 but Kimi was 0,3s faster on S3.

Kimi's ideal laptime is 1.37.394. So, Ferrari could be well less than a second slower than Mercedes, maybe(just maybe as, this year, Kimi could be performing better). There were times, last year, that Alonso was 0,5-0,7s faster than Kimi. I'm just saying this to give hope to Ferrari fans that maybe they can have a much better pace in the race

About Mclaren, I just read this elsewhere:

The onboard footage I saw from qualifying suggests that both McLaren driver didn't activate DRS on their fastest laps. So are they purposedly slow ? Kevin didn't even seem to apply 100% throttle on the straights before Turn 11 and after Turn 12.

@ Lorenzo_Bandini, the problem with comparing S3 is that drivers are not matched. Rosberg is 0,2s faster than Lewis and Kimi 0,3s than Vettel, Massa 0,2s faster than Bottas. Red Bull seems horrible(poor downforce) as Sainz is slightly faster than Ricciardo....

Maybe Kimi/Massa's S3 was, driving wise, closer to Lewis's than to Nico's and, hence, the downforce gap to Mercedes would be less. Later, I'll see if I can pick up some onboard laps from qualifying to compare with Lewis's pole

[GPR-A duplicate2]

How come? Tell me I'm a conspiracy theory fan but I think he'll go for a one stop for the race!

If you are not aware, as a matter of BEING FAIR to both the drivers, Mercedes team doesn't allow one driver to do one less stop than the other. THAT IS A RULE, followed last year and will be followed this year (as long as there is no one else in driver's championship, which seems to be the case this year too).

Ok, so what you are saying is that they have the same race strategy even regarding their tyre choise right from the first pit stop?
And another proof to my theory is the fact that Nico being in FP3 on soft tyre he couldn't improve his FP2 time, hence his setup is more towards the medium one for the race ... but yeah, that's my hunch

In FP3, Nico was facing ERS issues and he was down by 9 tenth (almost 1 sec) to Lewis on final FP3 standings and didn't run for last few minutes.

As far the tyre strategy, they both typically start on same tyres. Whoever is leading at the time of first pit stop, gets the most optimum strategy and the one trails, can choose to go for different tyre strategy, BUT SAME NUMBER OF PIT STOPS.

[f300v10]

Question, for 2015 do the cars that make Q3 still get an extra set of option tires that can only be used in Q3 like I believe was the case last year?

[iotar__]

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.

How is this post surviving strict driver fanatics policy? Is this place some kind of enclave of driver fanaticism with complete disregard of reality? Not for the first or tenth time, even in this very thread. Previously Rosberg faster in Q was "an idea that will evaporate". No, it won't evaporate without time travel because it already happened. It can only evaporate along with one driver's championship or DeLorean. Now it's "naive"? You might not know what naive is then, no, it's a cold hard fact.

- How can you "give" Hamilton Austria after one of the most spectacular failures of qualifying in a dominant car? How was he clearly faster when he failed his both attempts in Q3 ? He himself, both attempts and "clearly" faster? How?
- How can you blame the rain for Silverstone ? Was it only raining for Hamilton? He was right in front of Rosberg.
- Why even bring Canada when he was slower there ? No rain, no nothing there.
- Monaco - coulda woulda shoulda. "If we give" It's not for you to give anything! It's for a driver to be faster, Hamilton was not in Monaco.
- "Could have had pole" in Germany and Hungary. Or not, how about that? Based on the whole season Rosberg's chances were significantly bigger. At worst for him it was 50/50. Not for you I guess, you give both to LH.

Another gem: "(Rosberg) he is fully aware of the fact that he could beat Lewis only if could outsmart him!" No, reality from last two seasons clearly and unquestionably showed that's not the case. There's nothing smart in being faster in Q, at the start or in the race, it's called being better and faster. One qualifying and people are losing their minds and rewriting history.

[SectorOne]

Well it was nice having the thread open for a while at least.

[PlatinumZealot]

The thread has descended into fan-boy ying yang yet again.
I'm tired of hearing about Lewis and Nico 2104 now... ughh... it's just boring..

On another note, I notice Kimi has been a bit more self critical this year. It's almost weird that he admits his driving mistakes. He never really did that before he had Vettel as his teammate.

[Lorenzo_Bandini]

Also interesting to note that Kimi and Vettel were matched on S1/S2 but Kimi was 0,3s faster on S3.

Kimi's ideal laptime is 1.37.394. So, Ferrari could be well less than a second slower than Mercedes, maybe(just maybe as, this year, Kimi could be performing better). There were times, last year, that Alonso was 0,5-0,7s faster than Kimi. I'm just saying this to give hope to Ferrari fans that maybe they can have a much better pace in the race

About Mclaren, I just read this elsewhere:

The onboard footage I saw from qualifying suggests that both McLaren driver didn't activate DRS on their fastest laps. So are they purposedly slow ? Kevin didn't even seem to apply 100% throttle on the straights before Turn 11 and after Turn 12.

@ Lorenzo_Bandini, the problem with comparing S3 is that drivers are not matched. Rosberg is 0,2s faster than Lewis and Kimi 0,3s than Vettel, Massa 0,2s faster than Bottas. Red Bull seems horrible(poor downforce) as Sainz is slightly faster than Ricciardo....

Maybe Kimi/Massa's S3 was, driving wise, closer to Lewis's than to Nico's and, hence, the downforce gap to Mercedes would be less. Later, I'll see if I can pick up some onboard laps from qualifying to compare with Lewis's pole

I can guarantee you that both mclaren was using DRS on their fast lap.

[tranquility2k4]

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.

How is this post surviving strict driver fanatics policy? Is this place some kind of enclave of driver fanaticism with complete disregard of reality? Not for the first or tenth time, even in this very thread. Previously Rosberg faster in Q was "an idea that will evaporate". No, it won't evaporate without time travel because it already happened. It can only evaporate along with one driver's championship or DeLorean. Now it's "naive"? You might not know what naive is then, no, it's a cold hard fact.

- How can you "give" Hamilton Austria after one of the most spectacular failures of qualifying in a dominant car? How was he clearly faster when he failed his both attempts in Q3 ? He himself, both attempts and "clearly" faster? How?
- How can you blame the rain for Silverstone ? Was it only raining for Hamilton? He was right in front of Rosberg.
- Why even bring Canada when he was slower there ? No rain, no nothing there.
- Monaco - coulda woulda shoulda. "If we give" It's not for you to give anything! It's for a driver to be faster, Hamilton was not in Monaco.
- "Could have had pole" in Germany and Hungary. Or not, how about that? Based on the whole season Rosberg's chances were significantly bigger. At worst for him it was 50/50. Not for you I guess, you give both to LH.

Another gem: "(Rosberg) he is fully aware of the fact that he could beat Lewis only if could outsmart him!" No, reality from last two seasons clearly and unquestionably showed that's not the case. There's nothing smart in being faster in Q, at the start or in the race, it's called being better and faster. One qualifying and people are losing their minds and rewriting history.

If you read the post without looking at who I was replying to then it may look like I'm coming up with some bizzare justification for why Hamilton is faster than Rosberg. All I was doing was playing devils advocate in response to someone who outlined how poor Hamilton's qualifying record was against Rosberg last year.

My point was quite simple - that I don't believe Rosberg is significantly faster than Lewis in qualifying as the dry qualifying head to head would suggest last year (as Lewis was ahead in almost all wet sessions). I was therefore trying to show that the facts looked at on paper do not necessarily show the full picture, as there were certainly a few qualifying sessions when Hamilton did not have a fair fight with Rosberg due to realiability and if we're talking about capable speed - he made a few mistakes or bad decisions that also affected the record.

I think over the course of a season if both Hamilton and Rosberg have the exact same realibility in qualifying sessions, without any controversy, then at best they would be equal and I'd expect Lewis to be the faster driver. People like Niki Lauda were even quoted last year as saying Rosberg openly admits that Lewis is a tenth or two quicker when all things are equal so he has to out think him. I don't see how this is me being a 'fan-boy' - I'm giving an opinion that I feel is fairly reasonable and well jusitifed?

Do you understand where I'm coming from now?