2013 Australian GP - Albert Park

[Traction]

Just wait untill we'll hit some higher temperatures circuits! Lotus really excelled on those last year. Still, qualifying is worrying.

As do RB..

[raymondu999]

Taking a look at the long runs - Alonso's peak pace isn't the best, but his pace is damn well the most consistent IMO. Plotting it out produces a beautiful curve without bumps. Raikkonen's stint pace seems to be the quickest.

I'd like a moment to go ahem

But his stints were not the fastest

Ah - but how do you know that wasn't because he was preserving tyres?

[Sevach]

Happiest Kimi ever? At least in public

[Donuts]

Just wait untill we'll hit some higher temperatures circuits! Lotus really excelled on those last year. Still, qualifying is worrying.

As do RB..

Ofcourse(but it was close between them and now it looks as though Lotus can spring a surprise), just hoping we'll have a great show.

[thomin]

Does anyone know where to get speed trap info? From the info on the TV feed it looked as if the Mercedes cars were extremely slow, very unlike the previous years.

[BlackMercedes]

No doubt that Mercedes need more down force in sepang they may fair better

[Dyanxx]

Does anyone know where to get speed trap info? From the info on the TV feed it looked as if the Mercedes cars were extremely slow, very unlike the previous years.

I've been trying to find it, they both seemed terribly slow down the straights

[Maelstrom]

Great job from Kimi and Alonso. I was really surprised by RBR... everybody and their dog was saying they'll win comfortably... that was helped along by a front row lock up in quali. But their race pace was off. They also have noticeably worser degradation than Ferrari and Lotus.

I wonder if this was due to the weather and if this will change in Malaysia.

[Juzh]

Well, congratulations to all podium finishers. RB9 simply didn't have enough tyre preservation in it, unlike lotus which was superb on its rubber, thanks to great driving from kimi. Ferrari also very good looking in alonso's hands, better on the tyres than red bull no question about it. Rb looks like mercedes in prevoius years just a bit faster, good in quali, but too hard on tyres.

[ss.vamsikrishna]

Kimi drove the race in a very intelligent way ...He has been flawless and amazing
ICEMAN rocks =D> =D> =D> =D> =D>

[BorisTheBlade]

Well, in the only statistic I saw a couple of laps before the end Nico was at 20 and Ham must have been even slower. Seb was around 5.
IIRC Nico had 295 while Seb was more around 305.

[thomin]

Very interesting start into the season. I'm happy for Kimi, that was a great race, he was managing his tires perfectly (just look at Grosjean who isn't a slouch either).
Too bad for Hülkenberg though, I would have liked to see him race and show where the Sauber is relative to the rest of the grid.
Sutil with a great race overall and Force India in general looks really good. At this point, they seem to be best of the rest, ahead of McLaren even. But despite this being the first real measure for the season, it would still be premature to judge the teams by this race. Melbourne isn't your typical course and we all know that the tires are still the biggest factor, coupled with the odd temperatures this could mean that we'll have to wait for another couple of races to see the true speed of each car, just like it was last year.

[Sevach]

Well, congratulations to all podium finishers. RB9 simply didn't have enough tyre preservation in it, unlike lotus which was superb on its rubber, thanks to great driving from kimi. Ferrari also very good looking in alonso's hands, better on the tyres than red bull no question about it. Rb looks like mercedes in prevoius years just a bit faster, good in quali, but too hard on tyres.

After their clear qualy superiority i expected a RedBull stroll, but their race pace and tyre usage was dissapointing.

Lotus superb tyre degradation.
Ferrari had awesome pace, Alonso blew Vettel away after he got past him.

[SilverArrow10]

A very exciting race and with four constructors in the top five. Might not be 2011 all over again. Well done to the teams =D>

[Maelstrom]

Kimi was very matter of fact at the post race press conference. Lotus had decided on a two stopper as their plan 'A' and were pretty sure they could pull it off despite weather being much colder than expected. Tat tells me that Lotus is atleast a step ahead of the competition on understanding the tyres. They also have a fast car. If they don't have too many reliability problems they might have a good shot of winning the championship this year.