2015 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne

[Shakeman]

Horner is a sore loser. His Red Bull outfit is fighting with other Mercedes engined cars as they were last year so this "equalisation" is aimed at one team.

Red Bull had a massive advantage for years with the Renault engine maps for EBD and tyre wear and I don't recall other team leaders bleating about the advantage they got on with it. IIRC when McLaren got close to Renault levels of engine map development they were penalised.

If the soft drink manufacturer doesn't like it they can piss off and find some other extreme sport to flog their unhealthy sugar water. F1 would miss Mercedes more than Christian bleating Horner.

Glad to see Vettel having made the right move. He obviously saw the writing on the wall.

[Gaz.]

Now imagine a race with Ricciardo, Alonso, Hamilton, Button, Rosberg, and Vettel fighting for championship.
I don't think it is an unreal scenario.

Since 1950, how many times have 6 drivers fought for a title?

There's a hell of a lot of rose tinted glasses being worn here.

[ChrisM40]

The real Fromula 1 fans enjoyed the race. The rest are just fanbois.

To me I don't care for what I don't see, and those mercedes were no where in sight so I enjoyed the tussles that were happening behind. There were some good battles, interesting strategies and stories. Those who said the race was boring are just fly by night casuals.

What rubbish.

We are used to teams dominating, drivers winning easily, teams falling back and jumping up. The problem is simply numbers, there just arent enough cars. Couple that with the poor display of engineering we saw today and the whole race just seemed low key, half hearted, amateurish and dull.

Where were the interesting strategies? I saw some poor ones, but not interesting. I saw a few decent battles, but not many. Interesting stories? Well perhaps, but most, lets face it, were negative and bad for the sport.

[presure2]

I'm going against the tide of opinion here but I was quite encouraged by McLaren today. Shock, horror I know but it's not fanboyism. I'm a fan of racing only, with no favoured team at all. I just love engineering and racing. Here are my reasons.

1. The longest that car has run in consecutive laps is 11. No matter which way you cut it, a race distance is progress, all be it at lower power levels and turned down.
2. From what I could see, even with significantly less power than Perez, be that ICE, MGU-H or K related, that car out handled the FI. It tells me most of the issue is PU related and it's a decent car underneath.
3. They haven't even started performance work yet, not even close.
4. No other team to gather any data from on PU is a severe handicap.
5. OK, not maxed the engine power levels yet but there appeared to be no cooling issues with the zero size packaging.
6. Clearly they are working on some amazingly complex electronics and control systems.
7. If they are genuinely 30% down on what the engine could reliably do, I'm not surprised by 3-4 second down.....at all. In fact I'd be quietly happy. We've seen some teams that far off with developed engine packages performing at max potential.

Taking all this into consideration by the time they're in Europe I reckon there'll be a few people reconsidering their opinions.

I agree 100%, alex.
I guess maybe I'm looking at it a little differently because I have only become a more "serious" fan of F1 over the past few years, but to me, I actually quite enjoyed the race, even with the mercs dominating the way they did.
I think we all knew they were gonna be out front anyway, it was just a matter of how far..lol
I am a Vettel fan, so I was happy to see him do well in his first race with Ferrari. Never really been a Ferarri fan, so I am a bit torn, having Vettel there.
Mclaren will get it right, just a matter of if it will be this season, or next..Hopefully Alonso will come back fine in Mylasia and get some laps on the car, and hopfully Honda will start working on getting the PU up to full speed.
Red Bull seem to be coming apart at the seams. If you ask me, people are totally ignoring how big a factor the drivers are to the team overall and how much of a diference it can make when the driver has the team all working on song...seems like Seb was really strong in this area, and he's brought that over with him to Ferarri, leaving Riccardo to pick up the pieces. Daniel is a very strong driver, IMO, and seems to have a very positive approach, but I really think Seb was (and is) a much more involved team leader kind of guy than people have given him credit for.
Sure, it takes the whole team to give the driver a winning car, but it also takes the driver being capable of taking advantage of everything he is given, and most importantly, being able to give the team back the proper feedback to continue to develop and refine the car to they're liking thruout the year, and that's something that Dan will need to work on to help get the team back fighting at the sharp end of the grid.
I almost felt bad for Lotus, with how well things had been going VS how bad things were last year, I was looking forward to seeing Grosean up there fighting for the midfield lead...Maldonado didn't even get a chance to crash himself out, for once I honestly thing I can say it wasn't 100% his fault! lmao!
Super happy for Sauber, Nasr seems like the real deal, and even with the most boring paint job on the grid, looks like they will be consistantly fighting for points like they should be.
I really like the look of the Torro Rosso car this year, and being a hardcore Toyota Celica "Rally Days" fan, I'm excited to see Sainz Jr. do well.
Verstappen is gonna be a Star. no doubt about it. Shame the car didn't make it to the end.
Overall, I'm just super happy to have F1 back and running again. Looking forward to some great racing in the next few races, and hopefully Williams, Ferarri, Ect will be able to close the gap some and catch up over the course of the year, and at least make it interesting and fight hard for P2 in the constructors championship.

[andartop]

Most boring race ever? Really? Just google 'most boring f1 race ever' and try to remember (or go back and watch) the races mentioned in the top 10 results for a good comparison guys..

Quite a few things I found very interesting:
- Ferrari vs Williams looks like it's going to be the fight to watch. With Bottas in and Kimi not running into trouble things could have been much closer, so I think there's going to be some good battles for best of the rest.
- Vettel vs Kimi. Again, without the first corner incident (assuming this was the reason for Kimi's wheel troubles) it looks like things are going to get hot.
- New blood: ok, they might not be the new Alonsos, but Nasr, Sainz and Verstappen all gave very decent and mature first time in F1 performances, so really looking forward to follow these guys.
- Sauber resurrection. Hugely flattered by the small number of cars left in the race, but still showed some good pace!
- McLaren. No matter how you see it, having one of the 'top' teams struggling at the back of the grid is promising for show later on in the year once they (hopefully) start to catch up, especially with two WDC drivers. Unless Alonso is reconsidering his options after this display...(just joking conspiracy theorists!).
- Lewis vs Rosberg: ok, this is probably a long shot, but I cannot give up hope yet that Nico will be able to challenge Lewis, at least on some of the tracks.

As far as 2015 vs the past is concerned, I think the first thing F1 needs to do is reconsider the testing ban. As I said many times before, I cannot think of any other 'sport' where competitors are banned from training. It just doesn't make any sense. Let them test on each track the day after the race to minimize costs of transferring things around, and/or just allow them to run with test/development drivers. With all other regulations stable, it is the simplest and best way to allow some teams an opportunity to catch up without punishing the teams who have done a good job.

[Mesteño]

Now imagine a race with Ricciardo, Alonso, Hamilton, Button, Rosberg, and Vettel fighting for championship.
I don't think it is an unreal scenario.

Since 1950, how many times have 6 drivers fought for a title?

There's a hell of a lot of rose tinted glasses being worn here.

6 drivers maybe never, but three good teams fighting... this is no fight.

[ChrisM40]

I personally didnt say it was the most boring, just boring. Seen it twice now, cant remember any of it. The problem was that it was also such an embarrassing display. One team cant even start, another tiptoeing round at half strength, cars breaking before they get to the grid, some teams slower than the year before, several shoddy pit stops, clumsy crashes. Everyone but Mercedes and Sauber were awful.

In Skys Paddock Live show even Hill, Herbert and Brundle could only give it 5-6 out of 10, and they usually talk it up a bit. Personally its the worse since Indy 2005, and at least that was a juicy scandal.

[Shakeman]

The Oz GP isn't a classic track and I can't really remember a race that was epic there. The lack of cars on the grid means the TV coverage was poor. Even with the likes of Caterham and Marussia in the field there was potentially interesting races within races for the director to cover. The closest to that was Button holding up Perez for a few laps. With a bigger field of cars there are numerous subplots to follow which were pretty much absent this race.

Bernie should be keeping his end of the bargain up and making sure there is a full compliment of teams that have a chance of being competitive.

[tranquility2k4]

Fastest race lap of this year was slower than last year's, and the winner's fastest lap was actually slower than the winner's fastest lap last year.

Not true. Fastest lap last year was Rosberg with a 1:32.4. This year Hamilton did a 1:30.9, so 1.5 quicker, albeit, much later in the race. I don't feel Merc were pushing though - probably agreed to run engine tuned down.

[Juzh]

Their RB11 chassis isn't anything special and the Toro Rosso cars had better race pace.

Except they didn't.

[efuloni]

It may sound nonsense and odd, but it seems the only team that MAY have a chance against Merc is... McLaren.

Its simple: with all the restrictions and lack of tests, there is no way some team can reach a 1.5sec gap. And even if its smaller, like 1sec, 0.8. Doesn't matter. It would have to be the best development in all time against a very poor development of Merc.

And Hamilton said he didnt even had to go 'that fast' today. Its clear, to me, that Merc could be even faster if they wanted to. They were more than one second faster in the quali, but finished the race only 30 sec ahead of Vettel and Massa. I dont think this is only for race pace. This is Merc driving in cruise speed cause they didnt have to push 100%.

So, if Ferrari, Williams and RBR are so far behind, my only hope is McLaren. If they fix the Honda problems, there's a really small chance that they are, in fact, really really fast. They are the only ones with a great room for improvements.

[tranquility2k4]

Horner is a sore loser. His Red Bull outfit is fighting with other Mercedes engined cars as they were last year so this "equalisation" is aimed at one team.

Red Bull had a massive advantage for years with the Renault engine maps for EBD and tyre wear and I don't recall other team leaders bleating about the advantage they got on with it. IIRC when McLaren got close to Renault levels of engine map development they were penalised.

If the soft drink manufacturer doesn't like it they can piss off and find some other extreme sport to flog their unhealthy sugar water. F1 would miss Mercedes more than Christian bleating Horner.

Glad to see Vettel having made the right move. He obviously saw the writing on the wall.

Something else to remember, with Horner and Marko moaning about how rules were always changed to hurt RBR. What about last year, they had FRIC suspension banned - thinking this would hurt Merc and of course it didn't. But this is an example of this applying to another team as recently as last summer.

[radosav]

Kimi start and pit stop incident explained.

[efuloni]

Seeing the video i just got jealous for this wonderful transmission of the event. How I wish we had something like that. lol

[Alexgtt]

It may sound nonsense and odd, but it seems the only team that MAY have a chance against Merc is... McLaren.

Its simple: with all the restrictions and lack of tests, there is no way some team can reach a 1.5sec gap. And even if its smaller, like 1sec, 0.8. Doesn't matter. It would have to be the best development in all time against a very poor development of Merc.

And Hamilton said he didnt even had to go 'that fast' today. Its clear, to me, that Merc could be even faster if they wanted to. They were more than one second faster in the quali, but finished the race only 30 sec ahead of Vettel and Massa. I dont think this is only for race pace. This is Merc driving in cruise speed cause they didnt have to push 100%.

So, if Ferrari, Williams and RBR are so far behind, my only hope is McLaren. If they fix the Honda problems, there's a really small chance that they are, in fact, really really fast. They are the only ones with a great room for improvements.

I think you may have a point. The others are about where they are, small development and improvements but no leaps and bounds.

McLaren-Honda on the other hand...............who knows when that engine gets sorted?

Really please Ferrari are showing some better form.

Slightly disappointed by Williams but will reserve judgement until Bottas is back and we get to a full time racetrack.

Good to see Sauber performing well. Whatever happens off track with their problems, it'll all about on-track performance. If the car was crap I really feared for them. Not so much now.