2015 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne

[SidSidney]

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.

Well I will say that I thought it was yet another vindication for Jenson Button having that seat, and actually there are signs of hope. He drove that car with professionalism and spirit, and delivered a finish for McLaren in very trying circumstances. I honestly can't think of anyone I would rather have in the car in that situation.

In terms of speed, his very last lap was his best, 1.33.338, which actually not THAT far adrift of other's best laps:-

Ricciardo 1.32.357 (0.981)
Raikkonen 1.31.426 (1.912)
Massa 1.31.719 (1.619)
Hamilton 1.30.945 (2.393)
Verstappen 1.34.295 (-0.957) =D>
Rosberg 1.31.092 (2.246)
Nasr 1.32.612 (0.726)
Sainz 1.32.897 (0.441)

Also the best sector times, esp. in S2, were actually not far off the decent midfield - just a tenth down on Ricciardo for example:



What killed JB's race was doing 1.36's for the first 50 laps. If they can deliver just one lap like that on a day like today it is actually a little sign of hope for the future.

[Alexgtt]

Good information, thank you.

[WaikeCU]

Honestly believe that we haven't seen Mercedes on the limit at all tbh. I believe Mercedes were managing the race and Lewis managing the gap between him and Nico. Just think overall, Nico didn't have enough speed this weekend to beat Lewis. I think the biggest factor of the rule changes this season will be the restriction on PU's. 4 units instead of 5 last season and there's a potential 20 races this season. It's all about saving as much as possible whenever the moment is in place and that's the luxury position Mercedes really have at this moment.

Heartbreaking to see Max having to retire from the race. He did have a solid pace on the harder compound from the beginning. I still expect a lot from this kid.

OFF Topic: I was wondering, if K-Mag has lost a PU this race, does Alonso have 3 PU's left or does he still have 4?

[fets81]

It'll be 3 as the pu's are tied to the car not the driver

[zeph]

Heartbreaking to see Max having to retire from the race. He did have a solid pace on the harder compound from the beginning. I still expect a lot from this kid.

While I agree he did well, let's nor forget that Sainz out-qualified and out-raced him.

[zeph]

I'm going against the tide of opinion here but I was quite encouraged by McLaren today.

........................

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

Well I will say that I thought it was yet another vindication for Jenson Button having that seat, and actually there are signs of hope. He drove that car with professionalism and spirit, and delivered a finish for McLaren in very trying circumstances. I honestly can't think of anyone I would rather have in the car in that situation.

In terms of speed, his very last lap was his best, 1.33.338, which actually not THAT far adrift of other's best laps:-

..................................................

What killed JB's race was doing 1.36's for the first 50 laps. If they can deliver just one lap like that on a day like today it is actually a little sign of hope for the future.

I'm inclined to agree here. To see Button finish the race and not even be that far off the pace with a tuned-down PU shows promise. Once they get the cooling/reliability sorted out and turn it up, who knows were they'll be. Didn't I read somewhere that they turned the PU down by 30-40% to avoid overheating?

[giantfan10]

I'm going against the tide of opinion here but I was quite encouraged by McLaren today.

........................

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

Well I will say that I thought it was yet another vindication for Jenson Button having that seat, and actually there are signs of hope. He drove that car with professionalism and spirit, and delivered a finish for McLaren in very trying circumstances. I honestly can't think of anyone I would rather have in the car in that situation.

In terms of speed, his very last lap was his best, 1.33.338, which actually not THAT far adrift of other's best laps:-

..................................................

What killed JB's race was doing 1.36's for the first 50 laps. If they can deliver just one lap like that on a day like today it is actually a little sign of hope for the future.

I'm inclined to agree here. To see Button finish the race and not even be that far off the pace with a tuned-down PU shows promise. Once they get the cooling/reliability sorted out and turn it up, who knows were they'll be. Didn't I read somewhere that they turned the PU down by 30-40% to avoid overheating?

you guys really need to take of the rose colored glasses.... mclaren honda will not be competitive this year and they probably never will be with this current set of rules.....ferrari and mercedes are going to do what sit around and twiddle their thumbs while honda develops their engine?...
this myth about how much alleged power the honda has is just that a myth
button admitted that the car is lacking downforce...guess size zero means pretty much nothing too... so now mclaren has to find downforce and fix an engine that cant even be run at full power and has issues with software and drivability... good look waiting for mclaren to compete at the front of the field ... not this year

[Artur Craft]

I guess the only cool thing in the entire race was Nasr's overtake on Ricciardo.

I missed that. Only remember Nars catching Sainz on the restart(either he had a temporary problem or was napping as Ricciardo also passed him)

2015 was the 20th Australian GP held at Melbourne. As far as I can remember, this was easily the worst!

Plus Lewis seems to overly dominating this year, reminds me about how Vettel become the clear no.1 after after 2010 abu dhabi. Lets hope I am wrong

Oddest domination ever, by 1s over the line

I think some people have lost track of the typical meaning that the verb "to dominate" have had in motorsports. It seems they just like to use it, given the connotation of the term, to hype their favourite driver.

Three years of whining about Pirellis here, Red Bull's propaganda, media's drama, now you have your perfect tyres that last forever like Bridgestones and yet you complain, what did you expect from one-stoppers?

If that was true, Ericsson wouldn't have stopped for another set of Softs as he had already switched his inital Mediums, at lap 2. His team mate was lapping over 1s faster than him on Mediums tyres(that are over 1s slower, initially). That's some massive degradation, imo. With such degradation, you would never see fastest laps being recorded at the end of the stints, with cars lighter albeit with older tyres, as was the case with previous tire manufacturers

Lewis has been kind to keep the gap at just 30sec today, if he went for hammer time, the gap to Vettel could easily go to 60 secs.

pure speculation

[zeph]

I'm inclined to agree here. To see Button finish the race and not even be that far off the pace with a tuned-down PU shows promise. Once they get the cooling/reliability sorted out and turn it up, who knows were they'll be. Didn't I read somewhere that they turned the PU down by 30-40% to avoid overheating?

you guys really need to take of the rose colored glasses.... mclaren honda will not be competitive this year and they probably never will be with this current set of rules.....ferrari and mercedes are going to do what sit around and twiddle their thumbs while honda develops their engine?...
this myth about how much alleged power the honda has is just that a myth
button admitted that the car is lacking downforce...guess size zero means pretty much nothing too... so now mclaren has to find downforce and fix an engine that cant even be run at full power and has issues with software and drivability... good look waiting for mclaren to compete at the front of the field ... not this year

I don't think anybody said anything about the front of the field? I know I am not expecting anything of the sort. I'm merely not as pessimistic about McLaren's chances to turn things around as I was after Q3. I really thought they had a turd on their hands yesterday.
I don't think they'll be challenging Mercedes anytime soon, but neither would I write them off quite yet.

If I understand it correctly, the lack of cooling is the cause of many of the peripheral problems. Because the PU overheats, they can't run it at full capacity. Because they can't run the PU at full capacity, they can't make the tires work and lack downforce. As long as they can't run the PU at spec, software tweaks to improve driveability can't be judged for their effectiveness, energy harvesting does not work as intended etc. etc.

I am not an expert, and encourage others on this forum to correct me if the above is wrong, but as I understand it, getting the cooling sorted will enable them to address everything else.

[giantfan10]

i dont agree...the lack of downforce as button explained it has nothing to do with engine power....at speed A X amount of downforce is expected regardless of if you are pushing the car or its driving on its own....the car is not producing the expected downforce at speed regardless of if a mercedes engine or honda engine got it to that speed
in an interview a honda engineer said that the engine is mechanically sound... the only issue they have is programming and engine maps....they have no clue what the exact issue is and plan to go review the engine mapping and software in its entirety... he had no clue how long it would take and if they would be able to find the problem
i have never once heard mclaren list cooling as one of their problems
look at renault who have ran the engine for the entire season last year in multiple teams and still cant get their software right
ferrari have had drivability issues for pretty much the entire season last year and finally for this season they seem to have a handle on it...
its no easy fix and time is not on their side.

[PlatinumZealot]

i dont agree...the lack of downforce as button explained it has nothing to do with engine power....at speed A X amount of downforce is expected regardless of if you are pushing the car or its driving on its own....the car is not producing the expected downforce at speed regardless of if a mercedes engine or honda engine got it to that speed
in an interview a honda engineer said that the engine is mechanically sound... the only issue they have is programming and engine maps....they have no clue what the exact issue is and plan to go review the engine mapping and software in its entirety... he had no clue how long it would take and if they would be able to find the problem
i have never once heard mclaren list cooling as one of their problems
look at renault who have ran the engine for the entire season last year in multiple teams and still cant get their software right
ferrari have had drivability issues for pretty much the entire season last year and finally for this season they seem to have a handle on it...
its no easy fix and time is not on their side.

Yes you are right, cooling is not a problem for McLaren, however their main problem apart from not having good ERS maps is that they have parts that are heavily heat affected.

The Mclaren obvioulsy lacks downforce because the package is the same as launch. We macca fans have to wait a race or two to see the real aero package.

[zeph]

@giantfan10 & PlatinumZealot:

Well, this is what Honda has to say about that:

"I expected in Barcelona much better pace in Australia, but unfortunately we don't have the experience of higher temperatures so we could not [risk] losing the engine in the first race," said Honda motorsport boss Yasuhisa Arai.

"Our settings are very conservative for this weekend, so that is the reason why we lose power with the MGU-K and the engine itself.

"The heat problem is not only with the engine, but also the MGU-K, we took that [reduction in] power to survive several races with the one engine."

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/118058

And Ron Dennis before the race (view from 1:45) mentions the tire temps, among other things.

[Hail22]

Just Malfunctionadoing:




Rosberg's attempt to unsettle Vettel backfired it seems...



Nico with his blog video, being cheeky saying he'd like to invite Sebastien Vettel to have a look at Mercedes ins and outs hahaha

[Vasconia]

Well, it wasnt an spectacular race but it had its interesting moments.


Mercedes: very solid race by Lewis and a good work by Nico also. Taking into account that Lewis was stronger this weekend Nico´s work was great. But it was clear that Hamilton had something more in the pocket. I am sure that they runned trying not to hurt the engine too much. The difference between them and the others are enormous.

Ferrari: Its great to see them back. Very solid race pace by both drivers, great race by Sebastian and a very good work by Kimi too. Its nice to see him back. This will be an stellar fight. If Barcelona´s update is so big they could fight with some races (only a few of them, but its something).

Sauber: I am quite impressed, Sauber has improved a lot and their race pace was great, Nasr has impressed me a lot. I spoke bad works about thim, now its time to close muy mouth.

RB: I dont like Honer´s attitude, I think that RB manager are quite childish and disrepectful. Last war it was supposed that Renault´s engine was a pile of sh*t but they did a great job. So they cant blame only the engine.

Mclaren: I know, the last ones and 40 secons behind Perez. But they did 57 laps, with at least no reliability problems with Button(including a collision with Perez!) and showing good pace in the corners. Taking into account the pre-season testing and that they are running with a very conservative engine I think that there are some signs to be hopeful.

[Vasconia]

Massa should have been on the podium, they had track position and good pace only for Williams to mess it up again by bringing him out of the pits into traffic.

Vettel wouldn't have got passed on track, all they had to do was hold their nerve, very poor decision.

Yes but the difference between them when Vettel left the pit-stop was not only because of the time lost by Massa in the track. The laps of Vettel before he entered to change they tyres were very good too.

Vettel had the pace and he only needed to be very near before the pit-stop, make some great laps(as he died) and rejoin the track in front of Massa. But with a better strategy by Williams the differecen would be smaller.