2016 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, March 18-20

[Tauri_J]

http://www.ts.fi/urheilu/moottoriurheil ... +virheesta

Should be no penalty. Team sent it by e-mail but FIA somehow missed it.

[dot235]

Anyone know what came of the Bottas situation that Ted was going on about?

No. But what the heck happened to Ted? Talking gibberish throughout the whole notebook and repeatedly calling Renault team Jordan. Also Brundle looked like he was stoned.

[SiLo]

I'm interested to see how Ferrari do with the extra set of Super Soft tyres over Mercedes. Looks like Merc will go SS/S/S and Ferrari SS/S/SS or SS/SS/S.

I really can't see the SS as being a good race tyre though, even at the end of the race.

[Phillyred]

I wonder if the ban on radio messages will increase the gap between team mates this year.

That is a good question... I think it all depends on Lewis' mindset going into these races.. As we've seen in the past he sometimes gets too aggressive and cooks the tires and brakes when the situation becomes critical. In that regard I think Nico has an edge.... Then again, there were times when the team clearly led Hamilton in the wrong direction as far as pit/tire strategy so perhaps Lewis' wisdom will prevail if critical calls are left up to him.

[Dave P Fanclub]

Can Ferrari make a SS/S/SS stick over a race distance? Will they even try? The SS sounds like it's pretty durable but will they risk it?

No news on Bottas? Twitter is very quiet.

[GrizzleBoy]

I wonder if the ban on radio messages will increase the gap between team mates this year.

That is a good question... I think it all depends on Lewis' mindset going into these races.. As we've seen in the past he sometimes gets too aggressive and cooks the tires and brakes when the situation becomes critical. In that regard I think Nico has an edge.... Then again, there were times when the team clearly led Hamilton in the wrong direction as far as pit/tire strategy so perhaps Lewis' wisdom will prevail if critical calls are left up to him.

Indeed, will be interesting for sure.

Also, what about the fact that drivers can no longer be told when to let team mates through on different strategies, if they're holding up their team mate, or if theyre racing the car in front for position or not?

[Just_a_fan]

I wonder if the ban on radio messages will increase the gap between team mates this year.

That is a good question... I think it all depends on Lewis' mindset going into these races..

Hamilton thinks it's a good idea so perhaps his mindset is fine.

[ME4ME]

Last year people did ~25 laps on the soft and ~33 laps on the mediums. With the race being 58 laps i guess most drivers will do SS-S-S (6-25-27). I doubt anybody would be able to make the SS last long enough, even in the final stint. Maybe Red Bull or Kimi can do 10-33-16 but I very much doubt it would be quicker.

Toro Rosso seemed to have massive degradation in winter testing. Maybe we'll see them do SS-S-M.

[BanMeToo]

I'm interested to see how Ferrari do with the extra set of Super Soft tyres over Mercedes.

Are you sure they have an extra set? I thought in Q1 Merc used one set of SS and Ferrarri used two. That would mean overall they used they used the same amount. Am I remembering wrong?

[SPRX]

Yes. One of the reasons they haven't come out for second run was to have new set of SS available. The other being not close enough unfortunately...

[GTO99]

First off, I didn't enjoy the new quali format. It was not good at all & looks like they will revert back to the old format. [-o<

Who is this David chap who's the host commentator on Sky Sports alongside Brundle? He does not even introduce himself at the beginning of the coverage, assuming all viewers know who he is. He barely even introduced Brundle, again assuming viewers know him & his F1 background. In my view, not a very professional host.
At the beginning of the show, Brundle started by expressing how open he was to seeing the new quali format, but after just a few mins. of Q1, he was so negative. Not very open in my view. Instead of commentating on the cars, drivers & actual qualifying action that was going on, he was so focused on expressing his displeasure of the new format. Finally, towards the end of quali, (I think it was at the beginning of Q3) the host David guy had a splendid idea & informed Brundle that they should call the action on the track rather than focusing on the knock off time remaining.
Man, the duo were terrible! I was disappointed in their professionalism in doing their job.
Murray Walker & James Hunt, they're NOT. Not even close to the standard.

[atanatizante]

I heard they scrap the new qualy format and I think this was done one purpose, coz it`s very hard to understand why they even have had a single simulation of was could have happen in the real situation ...
After all bad publicity is after all ... publicity, isn`t it? and maybe that was the main target, after all ...

[Dave P Fanclub]

Does anyone know the best site for detailed race statistics these days? I just want to know on what lap each driver pitted during last year's race and what tyres they took on.

Autosport used to have all this info but they seem to have binned it, and the less said about the official F1 site the better.

[trinidefender]

Will be looking at HAAS closely this race. Let's see what they do. Hopefully they manage to get more than 5 secs TV time

[djos]

They've reversed the radio rules a little, basic strategy stuff is now allowed again!

Hooray!