Australian GP 2009 ( finally! )

[meves]

2/3rds of the way through free practice 2 (I recorded it) and the bumps are causing everyone real issues in the braking areas with the lack of downforce.

[myurr]

It's interesting looking at the fastest speeds recorded by each of the drivers that KERS is not having a massive impact. Is that because of the positioning of the speed trap being too early in the straight for KERS to have had an impact (looking at the speeds this shouldn't be the case), or is it that those teams running KERS tend to be those who might be carrying more fuel during these tests and therefore have more weight to accelerate and will be slower through the last corner?

[natef1]

My God, I LOVE these new cars and the mix with the quite severe tyre graining on the softs, having finally seen them in action!

Looks like we could see a lot of mistakes and up-down periods for all drivers. The cars are hopping over the bumps which is great fun to see..

Although this may not be great for the racing, let's wait and see.

With the exception of the front wings (except maybe Ferrari and McLaren's), the cars don't look too ugly at all. In fact they really look and appear to be exciting and tough to drive..

And the slicks! Thank God they have returned! Ahh I'm loving this.

Edit : I only have a couple of issues. On most cameras (except maybe onboard) it is almost impossible to see the green stripe to indicate the soft tyres.

And as Ian Phillips said on the radio coverage, it would be nice to see when someone is using KERS.

[marinopc]

New diffuser for BMW?

[Chaparral]

Did anyone notice in P2 today how the shadows were at the end of P2 - in the race on Sunday they will still have an hour of the race to go and look at and angle of the sun - and the track is cooling down so less grip progressively - going to be very tough racing conditions to deal with....nice work from Williams Brawn Toyota and RBR - hope the RBR has the reliability this year as Webby has the pace.......

[ben_watkins]

Hamilton's radio traffic to his pit about the car's handling was broadcast. Apparently it's bottoming out so bad he can't see his braking points, hence only running 18th & 16th in FP..

Great to see Rosberg up there on the timesheets..

Be intersting to see how the KERS equiped cars get away on grid, as Anthony Davidson said in his commentry that the calculations are that it will be enough of a boost to gain 2 rows from the start!

He was also saying that he's got a bet on how many front wings will be trashed by the end of the first lap! LOL...

[natef1]

Some of the radio traffic was very interesting.

Kubica sounded incredibly grumpy, as did Bourdais. Sutil was having problems with the soft tyres. and Button sounded pretty calm and focussed on what he wanted out of the car.

According to James Allen's blog, Alonso said after the sessions that he was using KERS when exiting corners, in short bursts, which Hamilton also agreed with. Yet Alonso said in the race it's probably best to use it on the straight.

V. Interesting sessions!

[zgred]

He was also saying that he's got a bet on how many front wings will be trashed by the end of the first lap! LOL...

Maybe we can have Front Wing Trashers League - I bet for Kazuki, he showed some skills last year.

[ben_watkins]

He was also saying that he's got a bet on how many front wings will be trashed by the end of the first lap! LOL...

Maybe we can have Front Wing Trashers League - I bet for Kazuki, he showed some skills last year.

Poll started here --> viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6514

[myurr]

Did anyone notice in P2 today how the shadows were at the end of P2 - in the race on Sunday they will still have an hour of the race to go and look at and angle of the sun - and the track is cooling down so less grip progressively - going to be very tough racing conditions to deal with....nice work from Williams Brawn Toyota and RBR - hope the RBR has the reliability this year as Webby has the pace.......

Yeah, I was worrying about that too. Expect a lot of teams to get the hard tyres out of the way in the first stint so that they stand some chance of keeping tyre temperatures up with the softs as the temperatures drop. This in turn could lead to a lot of variety in pace throughout the GP as they appear to go through a really severe graining period.

This is going to be interesting - and KERS could be a massive help if overtaking is going to be a big factor (due to varying pace).

[Chaparral]

Yes myurr - the race starts at 5pm here in Australia and sunset is 7.04pm so they will be cutting it very fine - all for the sake of European TV audiences - go figure

[timbo]

I'm mostly suprised by FI solid pace. Even if I didn't expected McLaren to shine I thought they'd be ahead of FI anyway....

[myurr]

I'm mostly suprised by FI solid pace. Even if I didn't expected McLaren to shine I thought they'd be ahead of FI anyway....

Yeah they've put in some good times there. Still think McLaren pace is a little deceptive (I'm hoping anyway) as they only concentrated on long runs and put in some competitive times in that regard. Not where they'd want to be, but not as far back as the headline times suggest. Especially if they can dial out the ride height problems Hamilton was having without adversely affecting performance.

[Principessa]

Bunch of pictures online in the F1Technical gallery... more will follow during the weekend

http://www.f1technical.net/gallery/v/20 ... ?g2_page=1

[xpensive]

Ah Principessa, nice avatar by the way, after four months here I was almost beginning to doubt your existence?