2017 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, 24 - 26 March

[ripper]

Great win, but it couldn't have been possible without Merc's error.

Well that's good, let's hope that Ferrari con develop properly the car during the season in order to keep up the fight!

[cplchanb]

imo merc once again paniced and played the metric game today like they did in monaco 2015. Sure Ham was complaining about tires but they shouldve used more logic and
gut feeling instead of pitting him at the very earliest opportunity. Had he stayed out for a while longer vettel even if he got close wouldve had a mighty time getting past at which hamilton couldve been in better shape post stop. merc dominated too much that they got complacent when plan a didnt work 100%.

[RicME85]

Jock Clear almost braking down in his interview, such a pressure relieve for them. Well done to Ferrari & Vettel.

I love this place and the braking/breaking misuse

Breaking btw.

Roll on China so we get a better idea of overtaking.

[PlatinumZealot]

Jock clear said he still doesn't know which car was the faster one at the track. When HAM was in front Seb wasn't pushing and when seb was in front Ham wasn't pushing. You just lose too much pushing in dirty air!

Hamilton was never limited by Vettel, when Verstappen pitted he was 5s+ behind.

Never said he was. He just didn't push because it was pointless. Is it that you don't trust Jock Clear?

[evered7]

Ferrari on pace with Mercedes or perhaps faster. Vettel was able to keep up with Hamilton in the first stint and got pretty close before Hamilton pitted. Then was never really troubled as he had a comfortable lead for the rest of the race.

Totally deceived with the lack of pace on Friday. Will need to get to traditional tracks to see how much each of them have over the other.

Great first race after a hiatus of 4 months. Tires seems to hold well as well as shown by Vettel initially and Verstappen later. The softs guys were able to put in FP at the end of the race, which is good to see too.

A happy weekend for a Ferrari fan after a year and some.

[dans79]

They pitted him because he as losing time drastically to vettel on his last lap, just before he pit in.
Mercedes struggle for managing the tiers, even Ferrari engineer said they were surprised to see them pit early.

The same thing happened a few laps earlier. Vettel got close, and then he backed off. Most likely because he was over cooking the tires or breaks. Mercedes screwed up, end of story. They did the same thing at Monaco in 2015!

[Sevach]

Ferrari has great speed in racing trim, Vettel turned it up got within 1s of Hamilton and Mercedes got spooked.

Pitting that early was utter stupidity, they should have stayed out and made Vettel eat dirty air, or forced him to try and overtake. Without going back and looking at timing, I believe if Lewis had stayed out another 3 laps he would have come out in-front of Max.

Probably more laps than that, Hamilton took a couple of laps until he got behind Verstappen even with fresh tires.

Mercedes got spooked when Vettel lowered the gap to less than 1s, they protected against the undercut but didn't count on Max.

[GrizzleBoy]

I think we don't know for sure what the truth is.

Vettel could get as close as he wanted but couldnt pass ham even with DRS.

We don't know if Vettel was close because he was pushing much harder.

We don't know if Lewis would've been off into the distance on a new set of soft tyres instead of shredding them while learning that you still can't pass even if you're 1s a lap faster.

I don't think we really know about performance yet.

[Shrieker]

Hamilton did attempt to get close to Vettel when he was behind and the gap was around 6 seconds. Even his engineer encouraged him to close down the gap. It came down to around 5.5-6, but after that it started to open up. Ferrari and Vettel were legit faster today, Hamilton gave up the chase only after Vettel and Ferrari started pulling away using their speed.

Of course Hamilton had to lean in on the tires behind Verstappen for many laps, so that could account for some of the speed difference between Ferrari and Mercedes. Anyway, it's going to be a lot different on other tracks.

[Sevach]

Never said he was. He just didn't push because it was pointless. Is it that you don't trust Jock Clear?

I absolutely don't believe anything that comes from a leading team says, that's just common sense.

Hamilton for example will big up Ferrari, that's for certain.

[GrizzleBoy]

Hamilton did attempt to get close to Vettel when he was behind and the gap was around 6 seconds. Even his engineer encouraged him to close down the gap. It came down to around 5.5-6, but after that it started to open up. Ferrari and Vettel were legit faster today, Hamilton gave up the chase only after Vettel and Ferrari pulled away using their speed.

Lewis only got to start chasing Vet after spending lots of laps burning his tyres up behind verstappen.

People generally were hanging back in this race saving tyres because passing without compromising your tyres doesn't seem to be a thing.

[Sevach]

https://twitter.com/Jamesallenonf1/stat ... 8815609856

[hichamo]

They pitted him because he as losing time drastically to vettel on his last lap, just before he pit in.
Mercedes struggle for managing the tiers, even Ferrari engineer said they were surprised to see them pit early.

The same thing happened a few laps earlier. Vettel got close, and then he backed off. Most likely because he was over cooking the tires or breaks. Mercedes screwed up, end of story. They did the same thing at Monaco in 2015!

Vettel was behind I agree, but ham was in front so your reasoning isn't right.
And when you say Vettel get close then back off, that means that he is fast enough to cash him whenever he needs to, meaning Ferrari was faster.
That's a good reasoning.

[Chene_Mostert]

Hamilton did attempt to get close to Vettel when he was behind and the gap was around 6 seconds. Even his engineer encouraged him to close down the gap. It came down to around 5.5-6, but after that it started to open up. Ferrari and Vettel were legit faster today, Hamilton gave up the chase only after Vettel and Ferrari pulled away using their speed.

Lewis only got to start chasing Vet after spending lots of laps burning his tyres up behind verstappen.

People generally were hanging back in this race saving tyres because passing without compromising your tyres doesn't seem to be a thing.

Mercedes could not pull a gap in first stint? Why?
Seb closed up forcing early stop for Mercedes.
Very poor performance for a team with 'the best driver line up in the field' & a car that is six months ahead in terms of refinement. And so complex?

[dans79]

Vettel was behind I agree, but ham was in front so your reasoning isn't right.
And when you say Vettel get close then back off, that means that he is fast enough to cash him whenever he needs to, meaning Ferrari was faster.
That's a good reasoning.

Actually no, a lot of it comes down to who is on a lap where they are harvestng more and who is deploying more.