2013 Australian GP - Albert Park

[spadeflush]

The car is still better than last year's. The degradation was okay, 2 stopper was an optimistic attempt but overall, they shoudn't be too disappointed with the car's performance. They have made up a lot of ground on Lotus, Ferrari and RBR. 1st stint pace is a worry but i wonder how much a rain setup was responsible for the lack of pace today.

The biggest concern though is reliability. They have got to start getting both cars to the chequered flag. Also, their pit stops were horrible. Merc is losing a full second to a second and half to ferrari and rbr in the pits (didnt note lotus pitstop times).
Lot of scope for improvement, lets see what upgrades they bring for Malaysia

[Anon123]

The car is still better than last year's. The degradation was okay, 2 stopper was an optimistic attempt but overall, they shoudn't be too disappointed with the car's performance. They have made up a lot of ground on Lotus, Ferrari and RBR. 1st stint pace is a worry but i wonder how much a rain setup was responsible for the lack of pace today.

The biggest concern though is reliability. They have got to start getting both cars to the chequered flag. Also, their pit stops were horrible. Merc is losing a full second to a second and half to ferrari and rbr in the pits (didnt note lotus pitstop times).
Lot of scope for improvement, lets see what upgrades they bring for Malaysia

After being a Hamilton fan last year I'll take consistent 3-4 second pit stops all day long. It's not worth the gain going for stupidly fast pit stop times, lets say you gain 2 seconds over a race with super fast pit stop times that would be roughly a gain of a few hundredths per lap but you are more prone to make the sort of mistakes that cost you 4 or 5 seconds and I imagine they affect a driver's temper to.

[diego.liv]

I think you should not be worried by tyre deg:
1) maybe a set-up thought a bit more for tain that dry
2) after everyone but Sutil pit stop, Merc wasn't in good position for 2 stops strategy
3) 2nd Hamilton stint could have been few laps longer were he not have pushed on the brakes with Alonso
Add to that a bit more luck/reliability and Nico could hold Alonso back for a lap or two, helping Hamilton's stint

By the way, upgrades+non street-tracks and see what's the direction

[kilcoo316]

2012
P12 Rosberg +57.6 seconds (7th on grid) ~1 sec/lap
Pitted on laps 12 and 31

2013
P5 Hamilton +45.5 seconds (3rd on grid) ~ 0.75 sec/lap
Pitted on laps 13, 31 and 42

The modal strategy was a 2 stop in 2012. The modal strategy was a 3 stop in 2013.


Given Hamilton probably dropped some time (5-10 seconds) due to the late switch to a 3 stop, I'd think Mercedes are about where reasonable expectations would put them. Somewhere between 0.3-0.7 seconds off the pace, probably biased towards 0.7 rather than 0.3.

They look better relative to 2012 due to McLaren underperforming and to a lesser extent due to Mercedes having jumped clear of Force India and Sauber in race pace.

The telling thing will be how they will perform when the track temperatures rise.


edit: Another thing that keeps nagging at me. Hamilton's second pitstop was on lap 31. Raikkonen's was on lap 34. By lap 31, Hamilton was around 20 seconds off Raikkonen, before he stopped. Thats not solely tyre conservation due to strategy, thats raw pace, the far side of 0.5sec/lap raw pace.

edit2: More like 12-13 seconds rather than 20. Which would be ~0.4 sec/lap.

[smhasan7]

I would tend to agree 50% since it's just the first race of the season. Things change massively as the championship evolves. But things are looking positive and with the resources we have, things bode well for upcoming races. In Fernando we already have a driver we can bank upon, give him a decent car and he does the rest.
As far the tyres being heads and shoulders better for Raikkonen, I think he ran in much clearer air while Alonso was constantly trapped in traffic which must have affected his tyres. But I'm watching the race again to get a clearer view!

[jonaliew]

Being on track, I could tell you the F138 was different compared to the F2012 last year by different levels. One, the overall "drivability" on track showed that it was able to negotiate the curves much more sweetly and smoothly. When the F138 passed turn 15, I could see that the profile of the car and its overall characteristic shone through the slow corners compared the previous year.

The F138 also had a good sound to it when switching gears and slowing down to make the turn. Although my tonal inclination might not be representative of whats different in the car, it had a nice "bass" sound to it which made it feel smoother when switching gears compared to RB and the rest which were significantly louder and more rough out.

Overall, I am happy with the start we have made. It is leaps and bounds compared to where we were last year with the F2012.

[Project Four]

If you look only at Jenson's performances last year, you wouldn't think that the McLaren was that good a car. Top 3 - 4 only rather than the out and out quickest for much of the season. McLaren's big problems seem to be a car with a narrow operating window, a driver with a narrow operating window, and a relative rookie whose pace is unknown. They have no real way of judging the pace of the car or assessing it's weaknesses. They don't know if Button is extracting all the pace the car has to give, or is leaving half a second on the table because he's not comfortable with the car. Do they need to take a backward step with the performance of the car to make it more to Button's liking so that he can extract more from it, and how will that affect Perez?

I'm British so I should be a Button fan. He's a nice guy and on his day can beat anyone. But I have a niggling doubt over his ability to develop a car over a season - has he ever successfully done so? Last year when it looked like McLaren were forcing Hamilton and Button to co-develop the setup for a given weekend all they seemed to achieve was slowing Hamilton down. In his championship winning year the cars pace seemed to get worse the more they developed the car, presumably in part due to Button's feedback and preferences.

I hope that Button and McLaren are able to prove me wrong, but the signals coming from the team do not bode well. I'm a Hamilton fan so will have to admit bias here, but I feel one of the biggest thing holding back McLaren's development of the car at the moment is in fact the drivers. With the pull rod front suspension setup changes take longer to implement leading to further woe whenever a driver goes the wrong way with the setup of the car - something Button appears prone to doing.

Contrast that to Mercedes who have a proven driver who is known for being able to adapt to the car, with a really solid and consistent second driver who also seems able to adapt, with a technical team that is starting to gel, and a good baseline car with arguably the best suspension system out there. They can just chase better aero numbers now knowing that the drivers will extract the additional pace and be able to give accurate guidance about the aero balance to help the engineers choose the right compromises.

Best summary of McLaren's position I have read

[Nomore]

Being on track, I could tell you the F138 was different compared to the F2012 last year by different levels. One, the overall "drivability" on track showed that it was able to negotiate the curves much more sweetly and smoothly. When the F138 passed turn 15, I could see that the profile of the car and its overall characteristic shone through the slow corners compared the previous year.

The F138 also had a good sound to it when switching gears and slowing down to make the turn. Although my tonal inclination might not be representative of whats different in the car, it had a nice "bass" sound to it which made it feel smoother when switching gears compared to RB and the rest which were significantly louder and more rough out.

Overall, I am happy with the start we have made. It is leaps and bounds compared to where we were last year with the F2012.

thanyk you for the informations..i also notice via tv the "drivability" compared to last year

[Nando]

Obviously Webber mysteriously loses the start again and Massa mysteriously gets the wrong the strategy.
Always funny to see.

[korzeniow]

Obviously Webber mysteriously loses the start again and Massa mysteriously gets the wrong the strategy.
Always funny to see.

I don't think those are mysteries at all. Webber is known for his poor starts. Alonso is clear team lider so he gets the best strategies.

[raymondu999]

It's been an issue since always to be honest. Anyone remember him losing up to (and sometimes, more than) 10 places on lap 1 in 2002-2004? That's pre-RBR.

[CHT]

Great result for Kimi and for all F1 fans. Prior to the race, I was getting worried that RBR and Vettel is going to run away with the championship this year, but thank god that we have pirelli to produce some lousy tyres to make the race exciting.

[Juzh]

Obviously Webber mysteriously loses the start again and Massa mysteriously gets the wrong the strategy.
Always funny to see.

Webber lost all telemetry and KERS on a warm-up lap for the first 20 laps. He was unable to get the correct cluth bite point off the line. That's what horner said. It was the mclaren supplied ecu again which failed yet again.

[Bomber_Pilot]

Webber is know for having bad starts, but this time it was the ECU to be blamed (according to Horner ). Because of the ECU issues they lost the telemetry to the car, so they couldn't setup the optimal clutch bite point and they have also lost KERS.

EDIT: Juzh beat me to it

[Mysticf1]

Few pics I took on Saturday if anyone is interested

http://www.flickr.com/photos/94126578@N ... 017971486/

Any photoshop freaks know if its possible to reduce the blur from the fence?