2016 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, March 18-20

[giantfan10]

Okay, so here's my late post on the race. Here's what I made out of the race:

- Race was more exciting due to the bad starts of the Mercs and the red flag situation
- Mercedes were quick. There's no denying to that. The only thing that worked against them was turbulent air. Rosberg got stuck behind Kimi, whereas Hamilton was stuck behind the Toro Rosso's for the majority of the race. Performance on the Medium tire was staggering. +30 laps on that rubber and still the Ferrari of Vettel only closed in on Hamilton right at the end. Vettel was running on Softs. Hmmm... What tire were they running most of the time again in Winter testing?

So on lap 35 after pitting Vettel comes out 12 seconds behind Hamilton and catches him in 16 laps.Just like he should have with a faster albeit more fragile tire. and then turbulent air raises its ugly head. How is that an indication of some mastery of the medium tire?. Hamilton fitting the mediums was a last ditch attempt at making something happen since he was stuck in traffic... the safety car and red flag saved him.

- Turbulent air seems to be an issue for most of them. Like I said, Hamilton vs the Toro Rosso's. Palmer and Bottas behind the Haas of Grosjean and Sainz behind Bottas.
- I don't think Haas has the sheer speed for Quali, but on race trim, they look pretty decent mid pack with Grosjean behind the wheel
.looked to me like grosjean had the speed in quali but his lap was too little too late

- Don't think this weekend was the ideal way to determine the order of the pack. Might need to wait till Bahrain and Malaysia to see who is where.
cant wait for Bahrain. No rain possible .. high temperatures and a real track =D>
- Why was Magnussen pushed to the end of the pit exit? Why was he the only one to go on track when there was a red flag?

i have to rewatch the race and look for that i have no idea

[ThumbsUp]

Okay, so here's my late post on the race. Here's what I made out of the race:

- Race was more exciting due to the bad starts of the Mercs and the red flag situation
- Mercedes were quick. There's no denying to that. The only thing that worked against them was turbulent air. Rosberg got stuck behind Kimi, whereas Hamilton was stuck behind the Toro Rosso's for the majority of the race. Performance on the Medium tire was staggering. +30 laps on that rubber and still the Ferrari of Vettel only closed in on Hamilton right at the end. Vettel was running on Softs. Hmmm... What tire were they running most of the time again in Winter testing?

So on lap 35 after pitting Vettel comes out 12 seconds behind Hamilton and catches him in 16 laps.Just like he should have with a faster albeit more fragile tire. and then turbulent air raises its ugly head. How is that an indication of some mastery of the medium tire?. Hamilton fitting the mediums was a last ditch attempt at making something happen since he was stuck in traffic... the safety car and red flag saved him.

- Turbulent air seems to be an issue for most of them. Like I said, Hamilton vs the Toro Rosso's. Palmer and Bottas behind the Haas of Grosjean and Sainz behind Bottas.
- I don't think Haas has the sheer speed for Quali, but on race trim, they look pretty decent mid pack with Grosjean behind the wheel
.looked to me like grosjean had the speed in quali but his lap was too little too late

- Don't think this weekend was the ideal way to determine the order of the pack. Might need to wait till Bahrain and Malaysia to see who is where.
cant wait for Bahrain. No rain possible .. high temperatures and a real track =D>
- Why was Magnussen pushed to the end of the pit exit? Why was he the only one to go on track when there was a red flag?

i have to rewatch the race and look for that i have no idea

Magnussen had to unlap himself, and he was in between the top 10. So he could rejoin at the back of the pits.

[Mr.G]

Just to point out - don't forget that HAM ask for change of the strategy during the first stint... So the initial plan wasnt Mediums at all... For me from this race looks Ferrari very good...

[nokivasara]

So they are now saying Haas EPU software was at fault in Alonso's crash if I understood it right...

Under some closer examination, energy recovering system indeed briefly engages at the worst moment possible:

http://s11.postimg.org/3lgg4dfur/vlcsna ... 37s130.png


Alonso's strange mistake by turning back towards Gutierrez, Hass slowing down on its own at that exact time to cause the accident. Someone really made sure... Alright I'am joking. Or maybe not.

It's a right hand curve, nothing strange about his steering input. He just turns less right than GUT = moving to the left

I think the 3 tire thing is good, unless there's a red flag situation of course.
Too bad for Kimi, he drove allright until the DNF.
Haas had a great debut, second to none? This is the race for the lesser teams, this is where they can shine.
Sauber looks really bad, MRT bad.
The Renault looked OK, better than I expected, Palmer was good at wheel to wheel situations where Maldonado wasn't, that has got to be good for the team, moneywise...

I'm so glad it has started, the fight from 3rd best and down will be very interesting this year. Mercedes can win every race for all I care, there's still action to be seen further back in the field

[Manoah2u]

my personal opinion on the 1st 2016 race weekend

- elimination Qually was imho not as bad as it was presented, it was just horribly bad understood by the teams and drivers, and saw huge tactical mistakes eliminating the possibility to 'overcome' the presented 'danger' of elimination. however, inherently there is a significant matter of 'unjust' in it and the idea of having more activity towards the end was completely opposite, so i'm glad it's gone as of bahrain.

- HAAS pleasant surprise, that was amazing.

- Alonso crash was hefty but exponentially more extreme due to the sandtrap being elevated and essentially scooping up the car. if it was lower then the grass it would have had the desired result. i don't know which tool invented elevating a sandtrap.

- Verstappen has potential but needs to calm down even though he has been treated fairly indecent by Sainz and the team, starting with getting undercut whilst being the leading car [ remember the war that caused within AMG Mercedes... ] and then the team not being able to respond to Max entering the pitlane. that cost him his race. His frustrations publicly on the radio were a huge letdown and bad for his name. Just pass or accept and calm the hell down. If he had kept his cool instead of burn the team down i'm fairly positive the team would have radio-ed in more clear to sainz to swap or come in. he shoot himself in the foot.

- Ferrari screwed up their strategy. The Red flag kinda killed Vettel & Kimi's great start but they gave the win to Merc with their strategy. too bad.

- Great performance by Pascal Werhlein & Joylon Palmer.

- after 2/3 part of the race imho it became very boring. dunno why, but it just was.

[djos]

Really good drive by Daniel Ricciardo, I'm still amazed at how easily he was able to overtake the Williams and force India cars!

Looks like the Renault PU is finally coming alive, they just need decent flat out qually mode!

[nokivasara]

Yeah, Verstappen acted like a spoilt brat today.
He needs to stay out until the team says so, simple as that. And stop crying over the radio ffs.
It was the first race and already he thinks he should be let ahead of his team mate, who I think might be better than him in the long run, what a farce.

[dot235]

Yeah, Verstappen acted like a spoilt brat today.
He needs to stay out until the team says so, simple as that. And stop crying over the radio ffs.
It was the first race and already he thinks he should be let ahead of his team mate, who I think might be better than him in the long run, what a farce.

I personally love it.

All the great drivers - Alonso, Vettel, Lewis... have or have had this extreme eagerness in them. You have to have that spark in you, especially during your early days, that's what distinguishes the champions from the rest.

People may now talk rubbish about him, but more likely than not they will still think that Verstappen today was faster than Sainz and will have the guts to show for when it matters. Not saying that he did everything right by the team, but nevertheless I would even go as far as to say that overall for Verstappen's career today were more positives than negatives.

[ME4ME]

"Red Bull was here" lol

[dans79]

People may now talk rubbish about him, but more likely than not they will still think that Verstappen today was faster than Sainz and will have the guts to show for when it matters. Not saying that he did everything right by the team, but nevertheless I would even go as far as to say that overall for Verstappen's career today were more positives than negatives.

Or it shows he doesn't know how to be patiently aggressive.

[The_table]

I think Max wanted to make it absolutely clear that he does not take S**t from the team, they pitted him too late and it cost him positions.

OR

Max does not understand the new regulations with less assistance from the team and did not realize that HE had to say "i want to pit NOW".

[fawe4]

Todays crash is again a proof that sandtraps have no place on f1 circuit. What would be a perfectly normal incident, turned into serious crash that could cost a life. Sand is the only reason for formula going airborne.

The real problem is the elevation of that particular sandtrap that alonso slid into. There was a signficiant banking at the edge where the trap meets the track, almost like a banking. That is what caused the car to flip. I think if they made. The edge of the sand trap lower than the track the problem would be solved.

It would probably have the same effect. The problem was in the structure of the sand trap. The shallow one that Kvyat flipped over in Japan last year would probably at least keep him on the ground, but still without any stopping power. Every other solution is better at speeds over 250km/h. Sand traps simply are not suitable for such speeds. They are useful for lower speeds when car is slow enought that it sinks into them, safely stopping. Everything above 200km/h and car gets airborne, in best case scenario just skidding over the sand, still completely uncontrolled even when full functional. Only grass and car would slid into regular barriers and not into fences. While sticky tarmack is the best solution for most cases. It works really well when driver still has control over his vehicle, and is dependant on length of runoff, and safety of the barriers when he is just a passanger like Alonso was today.

[WaikeCU]

So on lap 35 after pitting Vettel comes out 12 seconds behind Hamilton and catches him in 16 laps.Just like he should have with a faster albeit more fragile tire. and then turbulent air raises its ugly head. How is that an indication of some mastery of the medium tire?. Hamilton fitting the mediums was a last ditch attempt at making something happen since he was stuck in traffic... the safety car and red flag saved him.

Here's a nice way to see the lap charts of the race:
http://davidor.github.io/formula1-lap-charts/#/

So, mind you that Hamilton went on the Mediums on lap 16, which was before the red flag came out on lap 18. Which meant Hamilton did 39 laps on those Mediums. Vettel came in for his last stop on lap 35, when he was leading. He eventually did 22 laps on those Softs. I still had the feeling Vettel couldn't overtake the Merc on the straights, unless Hamilton had a really bad drive off corner on to the main straight and like you've said, by the time he's closing in on the Merc, the performance of the Softs were off and the turbulent air made everything worse to attempt an overtake.

Like I said I don't think Melbourne is a circuit we can't compare the performance of the teams. It's in the nature of the circuit that it's pretty difficult to follow cars and overtake. If this was Bahrain I think Vettel would have passed Hamilton with ease. Although I'm not so sure if we can recall back in 2014.

[WaikeCU]

- Verstappen has potential but needs to calm down even though he has been treated fairly indecent by Sainz and the team, starting with getting undercut whilst being the leading car [ remember the war that caused within AMG Mercedes... ] and then the team not being able to respond to Max entering the pitlane. that cost him his race. His frustrations publicly on the radio were a huge letdown and bad for his name. Just pass or accept and calm the hell down. If he had kept his cool instead of burn the team down i'm fairly positive the team would have radio-ed in more clear to sainz to swap or come in. he shoot himself in the foot.

He acted all spoiled on the radio, but he really had the speed. First of all he got pitted after Sainz when he was in front of him. Then the pit crew were not ready, in which he lost a lot of time. But then he managed to close the gap to Sainz. Then it was known that Sainz had ignored the team order. When Verstappen spun, he was still able to close the gap yet again to Sainz. Well, if you ignore team orders then you really have to proof that you have a reason to ignore it and that was by passing the cars in front of you, which Sainz hasn't done.

Red bull used to do that with Ricciardo and Kvyat. Afterwards on the last lap they reversed their positions.

[Sniffit]

Todays crash is again a proof that sandtraps have no place on f1 circuit. What would be a perfectly normal incident, turned into serious crash that could cost a life. Sand is the only reason for formula going airborne.

Don't be silly, we get proof that this sport is dangerous, is hard, require some real guts and the first thing you want to do is remove those things.
We want the drivers to be brave, be something more then ordinary men, idols be people we can look at and say, woah he's got some big brass ones not air line pilots going from A-B ina safe efficient manner.