2024 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, March 22 - 24

[selvam_e2002]

https://www.planetf1.com/news/alex-albo ... grand-prix
BREAKING: Alex Albon in, Logan Sargeant out for Australian Grand Prix

What a joke.

It is not a Joke. see the influence he has with the team. He is not that much great driver in current F1.

I think he is the one who pushed for it not the team.

[CHT]

https://www.planetf1.com/news/alex-albo ... grand-prix
BREAKING: Alex Albon in, Logan Sargeant out for Australian Grand Prix

What a joke.

It is not a Joke. see the influence he has with the team. He is not that much great driver in current F1.

I think he is the one who pushed for it not the team.

Could be sponsorship money talking

[Wouter]

Well, he IS that much better and they don’t have a spare chassis as they can’t AFFORD it. They have 24 tries to get one point and this race has the potential of chaos.

.
This isn't about money. They can afford it but .......
.

@Beri

Last winter, Williams made an awful lot of changes in work processes. The Race made a good YouTube video about it.
But this was already delaying the car. It was hanging by a thread whether the winter test could be passed and whether a second car would be ready in time for the first race. Fortunately, that was the case. But through it all, they have a backlog of parts to produce. And on top of that is a third chassis. That takes a lot of time to manufacture. So it's somewhat logical that they don't have those with them. And unprofessional it is certainly not. Because they invested the winter to sow so they can harvest in the future. For that they are only paying a price now.

.

The way Williams has started F1 2024 has laid bare the painful consequences of its much needed revolution.

It’s no secret that Williams has been battling with under-invested facilities and an outdated culture for many years, with claims of the team being 20 years behind its rivals in some areas.

But we had no idea just how desperate its situation looked ahead of the new season as team principal James Vowles and chief technical officer Pat Fry tried to get the team to leap towards the required modern standards.

The depths of a brutal winter for Williams are quite shocking, and the impact it has had on its point-less start to the new season is real - costing the team laptime and valuable cost cap resources.

If this is all sounding a bit dramatic, we promise we aren’t hamming it up. It surprised us when Vowles and Fry opened up about all this.

[Seanspeed]

Yes you can. Alex crashed here last year, he crashed here this year, he missed most of practice. Now you are putting him in the car with the added pressure of knowing he has displaced his teammate from the competition. This is not a recipe for a good performance, he's not going to be pushing to the limit because he knows that if he bins it again or makes a mistake he (and the team) is going to look like a moron.

Claiming to know how hard he's gonna push based on all this is quite an assumption leap there.

You can whine about 'fairness' all day long, but it's a team sport first and foremost, and Williams is simply doing what's best for the team. Sargeant is just not very good and thus no matter how you feel about Albon's chances, they are still almost assuredly higher than Sargeant's will be and that's the only judgement needed to justify this decision.

As others have noted, the more concerning aspect here is Williams being unable to field a spare chassis four weeks into the season.

[Cs98]

Yes you can. Alex crashed here last year, he crashed here this year, he missed most of practice. Now you are putting him in the car with the added pressure of knowing he has displaced his teammate from the competition. This is not a recipe for a good performance, he's not going to be pushing to the limit because he knows that if he bins it again or makes a mistake he (and the team) is going to look like a moron.

Claiming to know how hard he's gonna push based on all this is quite an assumption leap there.

You can whine about 'fairness' all day long, but it's a team sport first and foremost, and Williams is simply doing what's best for the team. Sargeant is just not very good and thus no matter how you feel about Albon's chances, they are still almost assuredly higher than Sargeant's will be and that's the only judgement needed to justify this decision.

Obviously no one knows the future before it has come to pass. But is it unreasonable to suggest a driver would not be at their best under those circumstances I outlined? I don't think so. In fact, Albon poses a crash risk for the remaining part of the weekend. Wouldn't be surprised if he loses them another chassi.

[SirBastianVettel]

It's a big risk that Vowles is taking here. Only if Albon scores points he'll look like a genius, in all other scenarios he will have caused damage to the team imo.

[Seanspeed]

It's a big risk that Vowles is taking here. Only if Albon scores points he'll look like a genius, in all other scenarios he will have caused damage to the team imo.

You're acting like Sargeant is some key pillar for the organization. lol

[venkyhere]

That’s 3 tenths of engine mode before and after turn 6? To me that looks like a different deployment strategy - as in where they deploy across the entire lap. Everywhere else it looks pretty much the same, or even behind redbull (which again I would have thought is the result of different deployment strategies)

Yes, it's deployment. Ferrari is accelerating more after T6 and RB is accelerating more after T13. Ferrari is carrying more speed through T5 all the way to T6 brake point, while RB is doing the same through T9-10 all the way to T11 brake point. Same nuance we saw in Bahrain and Jeddah, each team is doing things a bit differently, but overall the PU levels are the same.

RB needs to improve in slower corners, while Ferrari needs to improve in T9-10. Looks like RB might be running lower than Ferrari, but stiffer.

(1)
When both have throttle flat out, at many places, the red trace is showing a 'wavy' pattern whilst the blue is smoother. What does this indicate ? Wind ? or some bouncing/porpoising/floor-sparking ?

(2)
Looks like Ferrari still maintans the advantage it had over Redbull over the past two years - rotation in slow corners, shorter gearing in the lower gears, and superior braking.

[Seanspeed]

Obviously no one knows the future before it has come to pass. But is it unreasonable to suggest a driver would not be at their best under those circumstances I outlined? I don't think so. In fact, Albon poses a crash risk for the remaining part of the weekend. Wouldn't be surprised if he loses them another chassi.

There you go making further assumption leaps. Now not only will be not be able to push hard, he's actually likely to crash again(we'll ignore that these are actually kinda contradictory statements)!

Albon missing a bit of practice time is not ideal, but Albon being slightly behind in laps still provides a better opportunity than if the team only start Sargeant. Detach your feelings of 'fairness' from the equation and it's perfectly sensible.

[Cs98]

Obviously no one knows the future before it has come to pass. But is it unreasonable to suggest a driver would not be at their best under those circumstances I outlined? I don't think so. In fact, Albon poses a crash risk for the remaining part of the weekend. Wouldn't be surprised if he loses them another chassi.

There you go making further assumption leaps. Now not only will be not be able to push hard, he's actually likely to crash again(we'll ignore that these are actually kinda contradictory statements)!

Albon missing a bit of practice time is not ideal, but Albon being slightly behind in laps still provides a better opportunity than if the team only start Sargeant. Detach your feelings of 'fairness' from the equation and it's perfectly sensible.

Does it? Albon has had two massive crashes here in two years, completely his own fault. That obviously poses a risk to his confidence on a track he clearly struggles to drive well on. There's nothing emotional about recognizing his poor record around this track, in fact it would be emotional and irrational not to recognize it. It would also be irrational not to take into account how much pressure he is now under because of all this. If he crashes again it will look terrible for him and he will make the team look like fools for placing him in Sargeant's car. With all that weighing on him I'm expecting a conservative approach for the remainder of the weekend and no results to speak of.

[SirBastianVettel]

It's a big risk that Vowles is taking here. Only if Albon scores points he'll look like a genius, in all other scenarios he will have caused damage to the team imo.

You're acting like Sargeant is some key pillar for the organization. lol

No not at all. But if Albon doesn't score points this Sunday there will only have been downsides to this move.

[Wouter]

[Vanja #66]

(1)
When both have throttle flat out, at many places, the red trace is showing a 'wavy' pattern whilst the blue is smoother. What does this indicate ? Wind ? or some bouncing/porpoising/floor-sparking ?

No idea, perhaps sampling rates of their traces are different.

[venkyhere]

(1)
When both have throttle flat out, at many places, the red trace is showing a 'wavy' pattern whilst the blue is smoother. What does this indicate ? Wind ? or some bouncing/porpoising/floor-sparking ?

No idea, perhaps sampling rates of their traces are different.

Or is it bouncing (every car has it) causing the pressure variation from the driver's foot to the A-pedal, and these machines being so sensitive in terms of throttle, causing that wavy pattern (on closer look, even the blue trace has it, but to a lesser extent than red) in the speed trace between T6 and T9-10 as the speeds go 280+ kph.

Also, something which I find interesting is that the same 10kph min-corner-speed advantage that the Ferrari has in 100kph speed-range corners is massive in terms of lap time, compared to the same delta in 200kph speed-range corner. As the old adage goes, lap time is really sitting in the slow corners.

[dialtone]

(1)
When both have throttle flat out, at many places, the red trace is showing a 'wavy' pattern whilst the blue is smoother. What does this indicate ? Wind ? or some bouncing/porpoising/floor-sparking ?

No idea, perhaps sampling rates of their traces are different.

It’s not just sampling but they introduce jitter in these traces. So the interval between samples isn’t constant.

That being said, it’s still a little weird and was happening in Bahrain as well. I’m sure there’s a very simple explanation and it could indeed be wind.