2015 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne

[atanatizante]

Simple question : If they had a de-tuned ICE might be possible not to carry 100kg of fuel ?
So let`s say if they run with a 30% de-tuned ICE they must have had only 70kg ?
In that perspective they were at least 1 sec./lap quicker ... so in reality their gap to the others it`s much bigger than 4-5 sec., isn`t it?

It's not the ICE they've detuned though. It's the ERS that's not running at full capacity. Which actually means they're consuming more fuel than they would otherwise.

...
Well, this is what

Honda motorsport boss Yasuhisa Arai.

"Our settings are very conservative for this weekend, so that is the reason why we lose power with the MGU-K and the engine itself.

"The heat problem is not only with the engine, but also the MGU-K, we took that [reduction in] power to survive several races with the one engine."

As Honda boss said it was also the ICE and further more I don`t think they could do the race with only 100kg of fuel and they needed more which is not allowed by the rules ...
Not to mention that Melbourne race has one of the highest consumption - it not the highest - of all races in the calendar ...

[Andres125sx]

Massa 'stuck' behind Ricciardo for less than one lap, I guess.

Only because Dan entered pits, I was putting all my money Massa was unable to overtake... without crashing... as usual


I can´t help myself thinking how much I would have loved if Alonso have signed in with Williams. IMHO that car is much better than those drivers are showing

With better drivers they could have beat RBR last seson and Ferrari this one, but Bottas and Massa are not rivals for Kimi, Vettel or Ricciardo

[3jawchuck]

Does anyone have a video of the race 0?

It's available as a torrent at least.

[mrluke]

Massa 'stuck' behind Ricciardo for less than one lap, I guess.

But Massa had just come out of the pits on fresh sticky rubber and couldnt get past an under powered car on knackered tyres. Thats why he lost his position.

[henra]

Well, Vettel became 3rd before half the race and finished it about 4s ahead of Massa. And Massa returned from the pits about 2s behind him. So, where is all this pace? I see them more or less in the same level.

To me it looked as if Ferrari were in similar Save mode as Merc. Every time Felipe started an attack to close the gap, Seb responded and increased the gap again. He was simply managing the gap to Felipe while pushing as little as possible. And Merc did the same at the front. So in reality we don't know at which percentage who ran. Personally I would tend to think Merc saved more heavily than Ferrari and Ferrari a bit more than Williams. But how much sustainable pace (considering Fuel and tyres usage as well) was left, we don't know (and the Teams possibly neither - they didn't seem to try)

[Lorenzo_Bandini]

Yes, Ferrari's strongest point for many years now has been high speed corners and straight line speed looks good this year which will be useful given the long straights in Malaysia ( and if stuck behind someone). They also were purple in s1 at Barcelona in testing which is high speed.

s3 was biggest Mercedes stronghold in oz. Variety of different kinds of corners there but I suspect it was in (and coming out of) the last two where they were killing it. It's those slow corners where masses of time can be won and lost and it reminds me of s3 in Barcelona 2013.

Its quite clear how good is the work done by Mercedes. Not only because how powerful the engine is, but specially how good is the integration of the engine in the chasis and how it maximizes its strong points, for example, reaching a great level of downforce and grip in the slow corners.

Sure. Not entirely sure which part of my post you're responding to though.

My point is that Ferrari were often fastest in s1 even in quali, lost a good chunk in s2 (where Williams were closer) and Mercedes completely annihilated everyone in s3.

That reminds me of when they pulled out half a second on everyone in s3 in Spain 2013, only to a greater extent. I'm sure this car is also mighty in high speed (2013 car was no slouch) but I think they were gaining most of their time in and on the way out of slow corners.

I think Malaysia may be slightly better for the chasers and particularly Ferrari (but quali gap still about 0.7)

Ferrari was the only team in the same league than Mercedes in S3.

In quali, Raikkonen was 5 tenths slower than both Mercedes in S3. The rest ? From 8 to one second slower.

Ferrari was fast in S1, then slower than Mercedes AND Williams in S2, but only mercedes was faster than Ferrari in S3.

For me, Ferrari have more downforce than Williams, but Williams is faster as soon as there is a power sector.

[Lorenzo_Bandini]

Well, Vettel became 3rd before half the race and finished it about 4s ahead of Massa. And Massa returned from the pits about 2s behind him. So, where is all this pace? I see them more or less in the same level.

To me it looked as if Ferrari were in similar Save mode as Merc. Every time Felipe started an attack to close the gap, Seb responded and increased the gap again. He was simply managing the gap to Felipe while pushing as little as possible. And Merc did the same at the front. So in reality we don't know at which percentage who ran. Personally I would tend to think Merc saved more heavily than Ferrari and Ferrari a bit more than Williams. But how much sustainable pace (considering Fuel and tyres usage as well) was left, we don't know (and the Teams possibly neither - they didn't seem to try)

Exactly

http://macofan.com/en/index.php?page=ch ... n%20Vettel

Look how Vettel was playing with Massa. When Massa pit, Vettel up the speed and was 6 tenths faster than before. Then, just after the pit stop, Vettel was 5 tenths faster than Massa during 9 laps. Then he went on crusing mode because Rosberg was too far away. Massa up his speed, he came back to 2 seconds and then Vettel once again up his speed to do his fastest lap, and be average 4 tenths faster than Massa.

[efuloni]

Massa 'stuck' behind Ricciardo for less than one lap, I guess.

But Massa had just come out of the pits on fresh sticky rubber and couldnt get past an under powered car on knackered tyres. Thats why he lost his position.

If it was only one lap, the place to overtake would be the starting line, but Ricciardo entered the pits. And, of course, the tires were fresh, but cold. We simply can't say if he would overtake or not.

As I said before, Massa usually doesnt do fine in Australia and yesterday was only 'decent', but I dont think he lost the podium for being 'stuck behind Ricciardo'.

[Shrieker]

Pole Lap
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yASFLfmmQl8

Lewis was shifting brake balance at least 6 times per lap (and before turn 11 even twice!) and not to mention that he needs to see that value every time ... btw. this is between 52 and 57 towards front or rear?
And as some old dude said a couple of years ago, these days drivers are called playstation generation

Well yanno what they say, practice makes perfect He's probably done it a gazillion times in the simulator.

[andartop]

Having to adjust brake balance so many times over a lap is a bit scary for me. As are many other things F1 drivers have to worry about these days. Playstation indeed. Don't know how these guys manage, KERS and DRS buttons on top of all the 'normal' F1 controls were too much for me on PS3's F1 2012. The current path the sport and FIA have chosen is a bit dangerous for the drivers. Could we find ourselves in a situation similar to 1994 if for some reason they have to drop some of all these buttons at some point? Say, the FIA finds out that 1 team is somehow cheating and has no way to prove or control it, will they not be tempted to make a knee-jerk reaction and ban entirely something they shouldn't, rendering the cars unsafe in the process? It's not like they haven't done something like that in the past...

[Lorenzo_Bandini]

Dangerous because you can't do like Hamilton when you play a video games ?

[zeph]

As Honda boss said it was also the ICE and further more I don`t think they could do the race with only 100kg of fuel and they needed more which is not allowed by the rules ...
Not to mention that Melbourne race has one of the highest consumption - it not the highest - of all races in the calendar ...

They ran the engine in "fuel-save" mode for pretty much the entire race except Button's fastest lap, go figure...

Also they had the ERS in safe mode for the entire race because of the heat issues. I linked to an interview with Yasuhisa Arai in the McLaren-Honda team thread. He pretty much explains exactly what they did and why.

[andartop]

Dangerous because you can't do like Hamilton when you play a video games ?

Yes and no.

There is a growing amount of evidence that even talking using a hands free device distracts attention from driving (http://unews.utah.edu/news_releases/tal ... stracting/), so having to think about and adjust all the things current F1 drivers have to, like engine modes, brake balance, DRS, etc. on top of talking to the pits, considering strategy, tires and fuel, while competitively racing at the speeds they do, at sometimes very high temperatures, often dehydrated, and under loads of g's, might be too much to ask. Surely, there must be a cut off point to the amount of switches / functions even a superhuman driver can fiddle with several times a lap before he starts losing focus on the primary function they are supposed to be doing, driving the car. No conspiracy required to explain even the best of drivers losing control of their car at the most unlikely spot, he might have just been trying to adjust one of all these bloody switches and got it wrong..

But this is all off topic, and was not the main point of my post. Modern F1 cars are becoming increasingly reliant on too many and complex supportive technologies. If faced with a challenging situation, the FIA might decide banning one or more of those, as they have done in the past, which could automatically render cars dangerous to race as they have been designed to function with that specific technology in mind, e.g. adjusting brake balance on every other corner. If everyone can do it why have it in the first place?

The playstation bit was a reference to the post I was replying to.

Nevermind, might just be me getting old, back on topic..

[Vasconia]

Massa 'stuck' behind Ricciardo for less than one lap, I guess.

But Massa had just come out of the pits on fresh sticky rubber and couldnt get past an under powered car on knackered tyres. Thats why he lost his position.

If it was only one lap, the place to overtake would be the starting line, but Ricciardo entered the pits. And, of course, the tires were fresh, but cold. We simply can't say if he would overtake or not.

As I said before, Massa usually doesnt do fine in Australia and yesterday was only 'decent', but I dont think he lost the podium for being 'stuck behind Ricciardo'.

Exactly. Vettel was faster than Massa, he simply waited until he made his pit-stop and the increased the pace to rejoin the track in front of him. Then he managed the lap without any problem. And I am sure that Kimi could have done the same if he could have done a normal race.

[iotar__]

Was Ferrari waiting for Massa to be blocked on Saturday too, how much faster were they in qualifying? Since it's "Mercedes league" now in the race and 1,4 s in Q3, what happened there?