The Official 2015 Australian Grand Prix Thread ***SPOILERS with Flux Capacitors***

gav Wrote:
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> Obviously a farcical start with 3 missing out, and
> the 2 Lotuses not making the second lap. While
> the turn 2 crash was just a racing incident with
> no one driver to fault, it was always utterly
> stupid having an accident given the chances of
> picking up easy early season points. Probably
> more Nasr's fault than anyone's if I really wanted
> to apportion blame, but that would be extremely
> harsh.
>

Initially was about to disagree with you, was under the impression it was a simple chain of events caused by Vettel hitting the kerb, forcing Raikkonen wide who then collided with Nasr on re-entry (who subsequently hit Maldonado). However, having just watched the replay, I see what you mean - Nasr didn't exactly leave enough room for Raikkonen to return to the track. Though as you say, racing incident really - with so many cars going for the same tarmac (hell, they were three abreast during that incident) such things are bound to happen.

Lotus will be gutted though, they would have likely claimed points with Maldonado - Force India were woeful.

Really feel sorry for Button, that looks to be one dog of a Honda engine in the back of that McLaren - and unless there are drastic improvements to that engine in terms of power and reliability between now and Malaysia (very unlikely, doubt there'll be much time to develop the engine) the gap is only going to get wider. I'd say the McLaren will get mugged down the straights in Sepang, but it'd be more than that - left for dead comes to mind

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I've not seen the replay yet and I struggle to remember from being nearly asleep, but I thought on initial viewing Nasr tried to force the issue a bit too much. All of them could have left more room though, and it was just a meeting of cars really.

Anyway, best link I've seen for some time... http://www.hasmaldonadocrashedtoday.com

gav Wrote:
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> I've not seen the replay yet and I struggle to
> remember from being nearly asleep, but I thought
> on initial viewing Nasr tried to force the issue a
> bit too much. All of them could have left more
> room though, and it was just a meeting of cars
> really.
>
> Anyway, best link I've seen for some time...
> [www.hasmaldonadocrashedtoday.com]

00:15 on this link: [www.bbc.co.uk] (UK users only)

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Yet another boring race, can't wait for the next one. :-/


gav écrivait:
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> Anyway, best link I've seen for some time...
> [www.hasmaldonadocrashedtoday.com]

Big big lol at it

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So, we've got Red Bull ripping into Renault, perhaps understandingly so considering how they've somehow brought along a engine worse than what they took to Abu Dhabi, but the annoying thing is how he's now pleading to the FIA to 'equalise' the engines which basically translates as "wahhhh wahhhh, we're not winning "

I wonder if he'd be as enthusiastic as this to 'equalise' the revenue distribution amongst the teams? Nope probably not.

Also, it seems that Marko, has confirmed that there discussions with Renault about taking over STR, as they consider re-entering as a works constructors. Quite where that'd leave the Red Bull young driver scheme I don't know.

J i m Wrote:
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> Quite where that'd leave the Red
> Bull young driver scheme I don't know.

If I were, for example, Dean Stoneman (who's competing in FR3.5 this year under the Red Bull scheme), I'd be a little concerned right about now.... Alex Lynn must think he's so smart right about now!

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GPGSL -
GPGSL-3 - Pizza Party Racing manager and driver
Nations Cup - Team Scotland manager

I think this is the Golden Age over for Red Bull tbh. I'd love to see a proper Renault team again though, a yellow one with black bits. That car from a few years back looked awesome.

Horner can @#$%& off. He's just as much the petulant child that Seb Vet was when he wasn't winning. Equalise the grid indeed. LOL!

is my english too bad, or are sky just making up a story?

In reality, as Rosberg subsequently acknowledged, Hamilton was in cruise control and never really under threat. "Lewis didn’t make any mistakes and it wasn’t possible to get any closer,” the German admitted.


How do Rosberg's words prove that Lewis was in "cruise" control and "never" under threat??

Plus SkY has given MASSA and perez the same scores (a score of 6). How is that even possible? The one drove a nearly faultless race, the other was not able to overtake Jenson button in a mclaren; spun behind him losing tons of time and damaged his car?

I am finding some of the SKY stories absolutely nonsensical.

What is wrong with the f1 coverage nowadays? No-one, and I mean no one asked rosberg the most interesting question really:

"When you had a pitstop over vettel, why did you not pit for soft tyres and give it a shot overtaking lewis? Are you allowed to change strategies?"

Instead the questions were something like "Nico, how important will be to start in pole this season?" WTF??

In hindsight that's an awesome post.

I might need to start being more careful about this stuff. We all know about the commentator's curse, but I wasn't aware of a "random Internet forum poster curse". Oopsy.

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I don't think it was that bad a race though. Considering how few cars there were, and how dominant the Mercedes were, I thought we got a decent amount of action.
As season openers go, 1998 was much more boring than this, and Macca had a bigger advantage at Melbourne than Merc currently do, but we got a pretty good season after that. There's considerable scope for other teams to catch Merc up as the season progresses, and it's looking like the only team with an outside chance of challenging them is Ferrari. Seb looks like he's got all his motivation back now, and he'll need Merc to slip up a few times like they did in the middle of last year, but if they do, I sense he'll be the one who'll keep picking up the pieces. He seems to have fired Kimi up again too.

There's scope for good racing right through the field too. There's been some shuffling up(For example the Sauber was the surprise package for me), and it looks like Manor are going to make it eventually, which would be brilliant and I think that would actually boost everyone's morale. That, plus bigger grids anyway from now on as engine problems get sorted out and Williams are back up to 2 drivers... It suddenly won't look so bad.

Personally, I've got a good feeling about this season.

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Yeah one relatively quiet race doesn't automatically equate to a bad season. But it's always the negative which gets talked about most.

I remember Bahrain 2010, which was an exceedingly boring opening race and everyone was panicking. But then it went on to become a season of decent races, and a competitive year where four drivers took the title fight to the wire, and it was so nearly five.

There's plenty of time for this year to spark up, although it is unusual for Melbourne to have a processional race.

EC83 Wrote:
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> I don't think it was that bad a race though.
> Considering how few cars there were, and how
> dominant the Mercedes were, I thought we got a
> decent amount of action.
> As season openers go, 1998 was much more boring
> than this, and Macca had a bigger advantage at
> Melbourne than Merc currently do, but we got a
> pretty good season after that. There's
> considerable scope for other teams to catch Merc
> up as the season progresses, and it's looking like
> the only team with an outside chance of
> challenging them is Ferrari. Seb looks like he's
> got all his motivation back now, and he'll need
> Merc to slip up a few times like they did in the
> middle of last year, but if they do, I sense he'll
> be the one who'll keep picking up the pieces. He
> seems to have fired Kimi up again too.
>
> There's scope for good racing right through the
> field too. There's been some shuffling up(For
> example the Sauber was the surprise package for
> me), and it looks like Manor are going to make it
> eventually, which would be brilliant and I think
> that would actually boost everyone's morale. That,
> plus bigger grids anyway from now on as engine
> problems get sorted out and Williams are back up
> to 2 drivers... It suddenly won't look so bad.
>
> Personally, I've got a good feeling about this
> season.


+1

Also regarding McLaren Honda - Remember Benetton's struggles in 2001 with a returning, revolutionary wide-angled Renault V10, Fisichella pitted after the first few laps of the first test thinking the engine had a major problem as it felt underpowered - their wasn't, it was just how the engine was, first half of the season they were getting outqualified by a 4 year old engined Minardi in the hands of a young whipper-snapper Fernando Alonso, come seasons end they were points contenders!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/2015 09:06AM by thestig88.

Back then though they could test and they had more chance to develop the engine.

I think McLaren need to take some of the blame with Honda tbh, they went for tight packaging and maybe they should have played it a bit safer this year just so Honda could get upto speed.

Maybe as well Honda should forget trying to stick to the 4 engine limit and just go for it.

Quote
marcl
Maybe as well Honda should forget trying to stick to the 4 engine limit and just go for it.

I got that impression after the race. Someone was being interviewed (I can't even remember who now) and they suggested they might do that. They're already down to 3 ICEs for Alonso, so he's going to eat through his allocation rather sharpish. They can't just open the taps up as they need some data, but perhaps they'll dial it up a few notches.

I thought the race itself was very positive for Button though. They seemed to turn the wick up a little, and while Perez was certainly quicker, I expected him to breeze past Button.

I think there's still plenty to come from the car too. Herbert used the turn 11 chicane as an example of how low down on power the Honda was relative to Rosberg's Mercedes (rolls eyes) but really it should have been an example of how little running McLaren have done in testing and practice.

But if they're suffering from heat build up then Malaysia is going to be all sorts of hell for them.

Quote
marcl
I think McLaren need to take some of the blame with Honda tbh, they went for tight packaging and maybe they should have played it a bit safer this year just so Honda could get upto speed.

Oh definitely, but I think that was partly intentional (though probably not to this degree). They were never going to do anything this year, so they're trying to generate problems they might suffer from if they did it next year. It's a risk, but if they can get a few races like Melbourne under their belts then perhaps they can begin to make progress. I've used the Ferrari 640 as a similar concept with an aim to creating a challenger in subsequent years. I still think they'll be right behind the Williams/Ferrari scrap by the summer break.

I guess Magnussen's blow up was the sort of failure we should have expected, as they've done so little running it was probably a preparation issue as much as anything. I don't recall any proper mechanical failures in testing, just lots of niggly electrical and sensor issues - and that bloody seal of course (which I'm pretty sure wasn't the sort of simple rubber-style seal many were picturing, but more of a complex valve that I saw posted somewhere).