The Australian GP Thread **Spoilers here please**

alright, I dont think some people understand why ferrari were dominant last year. Lemme try and clarify something ... but first to ellis I kindof agree that last year was boring .. but what I am seeing here is that people found this race interesting cause of the order the cars finished in. with Schumacher being a complete mess I wounder whether his day in the light has passed.

Now 2004 was dominated by ferrari but 2003 was not. The case which I looked at were due to tires. Because the big teams were running michelin in 2003 as apposed to some of them running the michelins in 2002, michelin recieved more testing millage, they produced a far better more efficient less graining tire in 2003 as upposed to 2002. Because basically in 2003 ferrari had 'hand made' or better yet specifically tailor made tires on their car the millage wasnt there. Also because they dominated the 2002 season progress was made to the bridgestones but no drastic changes made to them for they thought 'heck, we dominated last year why not this year!' plus, there was the new rules implemented and so forth. once everything settled down the following year, ferrari were once again on top of their game and dominated. well better yet bridgestone were ontop of their game - which is why last year I made the prediction that it would be a ferrari dominante season - (obviously no one siding)

We come to 2005 now, new tire regulations, obviously you cannot change your tires from Q1 - the end of the GP - Michelin did some 62,000 km in testing this winter, while bridgestone/ferrari did 12,000 km in testing (my figures might actually be in miles rather than kilometers) Michelin this year have been able to capitalize on the fact that all but three teams are using their tires, and that they were able to accumulate so many more miles than the bridgestone ferrari. It makes no difference if the bridgestones make their tires to suit the ferrari chassis, michelin were able to develop their tires further because of milage. Now what I expect, and you will all see this, and if you dont hold it against me!!!!, Ferrari will be up at the front end, in the top 8 through the first half of the season, but as soon as the going gets tough you will see them progressively get better, by 2006 (if there are no rule changes) expect ferrari to dominate for schumacher's final season (hopefully!) - why? because bridgestone dont need to please the minardis and jordans, all they need to do is find the preformance out of the ferraris. It was said on Speed during the weekend that up until 2 weeks before the season began bridgestone were looking for durablity out of their tires and not raw speed. Now because they have the durability they will be able to focus on getting those tires up to speed, because they only design them for ferrari, they will shoot past the michelin preformance once again - based on the fact that michelin is trying to make 7 teams reach peak preformance.

argue this all you want but its been proven through the last 4 seasons in formula one and will be proven yet again at seasons end.

How do you then expect to get rid of ferrari dominance - without waiting ofcourse for the end of 2006 - when f1 goes down the tube!. well look at 1999, 1997, 1996, 95, 94 .... with a few exceptions ofcourse, look at those years, no single team dominated, in 1999 up until the second last round you had four drivers in the fight for the championship, what more competition could you ask for? and it was all because everyone who had a competitive car were on the same TIRES!

through a corperate aspect this might sound dumb - why get rid of some capital interests in formula one - but to a fans perspective, it needs to be done to enjoy the sport to its fullest capacity. if everyone was on the same tires, ferrari would not have dominated the last 5 years, they could have taken some championships, but you wouldnt have seen a red washed podium or woke up to the german national anthem. It would have been diverse and interesting. this weekend you would have seen the 1 hour 14 lap qualifying with the whole grid on the track at the last 5 minutes weaving and trying to achieve maximum grid spots, and you would have also seen qualifying engines, drivers pushing at the start of the gp, trying outlandish attempts at passing, the four rookies causing massive shunts, solid bally drives and so forth. No matter what anyone says, what I saw this weekend during the gp was conservative driving to the nth degree. and pitstops that looked sooo meaningless and out of place!

also, I know someone will bring up the financial aspect, rules helping the smaller teams, etc, I would have agreed with you 5 days ago, but one mr Paul Stoddart completely changed my view on the matter. With the minardi fiasco this weekend, the media was playing it as though minardi didnt have the cash to compete this weekend, to change their car to fit 2005 regs, etc. I am sure we all heard it! The Speedtv played a press conference held on saturday with Paul Stoddart speaking, and it opened my eyes a bit.

He said basically "what kindof racing is this, where the governing body keeps screwing around with the rules, I want to race in a stable formula, one where the rules are set and dont fluctuate, and are not implemented in an illegal fashion" that basically sums it up, also a week ago sir frank williams on proposals for 2006 " does it make sense for BMW to participate in formula one when they want to slow the cars down, introduce v 8 engines when next year bmw are releasing their M5 with a V10 engine, how are they supposed to market that"
- what we the fans need to ask ourselves is what is happening to our sport. This sport which we grew up loving, watched in the wee hours of the morning with our dads when we were children, going to the grandprix's for the first time, and witnessing awesome speeds, breaking abilities that were phenominal! I personally want to see the continued development into making the sport faster, better to watch. Why hinder progression when they can nurish it. F1 is falling apart, you have seen the beginning of this in 2003 and you have seen it grow, what I recommend is shed the partisand views which divide the us and unite in a common bond to fix this pinnicle of motor racing.


One quick last thing, this post is waaayyyy to long and sorry for it!, but 2010, cars with no wings? cars with wider tires? engines that last a season? heard somewhere of v8's? does that look like vision to anyone? or just plain lets @#$%& around with this more because people will still watch dont worry - do they seriously think we're that dumb??? heheheheh what a DISASTER - (both in formula one and in the length my post )




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/06/2005 10:45PM by Marco1.

I did not think it was a good race at all, the hightlight was DC really wanted him to get 2nd webber must have been upset finishing behind his old team.

Fissi done what he needed alonso was so fast.

I aint gonna say nothing about MS at all other than i was happy that he never got away with it and nick hit him

marco1 nice post...but why is it relvent? We were discussing whether or not, in our opinion the race was good or not. It seems that the majority thought it was a let down, with a fairly large group thinking iw as an improvement over 2004 races. What does explaining the "faults" in the tyre testing regs have to do with it? :-\

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Ferrari_Fuhrer Wrote:
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> > From the back, MS can watch everyone else fly off
> the road, esp. if its wet. His only real problem
> is his tendency to get a little over-zealous when
> coming from the back of the grid

Noel's prophetic ministry strikes again! Then again, it wasn't too difficult to work out...


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it has teh potential to be good - take the engines back to one race weekend each though, encouraging some pushing at the end, and for drivers to not stop for no reason



RedSam
Winner: Not the Nickv Comment of the Year 2009
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"1st to 6th were seperated by the length of the start finish striaght at the end of the race"

Monza 1997 and Hockenheim 1998 were close races as well,but also real dullards.

Also,it seemed that almost everebody were racing with the next race in mind,not risking to overtake and mantaining the safest possible gap to the car behind.

You might as well have 6 cars within 6 seconds when it takes 18 laps to overtake a car 2 seconds slower than you.

It is the first race an i suppose that everyone is still finding the limits of tyre and engine wear ,still look at the quotes:

"I had to be careful as I was trying to conserve the engine, as we have to think about Malaysia and its high temperatures.

i think Malaysia will show performance truley of the teams.

Melbourne as always is a race where it is impossible to say who will win etc..

i expect the Renaults to win there to but with Closer opposition in the form, of Macca.

looking at JB's fastest lap..it is not bad, but look when he set it and look when he pitted to retire. abit of a insult for F1 :/ He sed BAR had tyre warming problems , but as soon as JV had got out of way he was off...

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

as brundle said we have gone back to the 80's lookinf after cars and tyres, i liked it when he said throw the red flag so i can go and find out what they are playing at they should race.

i didnt see all the race but what i did see seemed average to me. not nbad. not very good either. abit of a procession. what did brundle mean by that comment marcl? did he mean they werent 100% trying. i got that impression tbh.

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this engine rule has been a major disastor. first the cost of development was massive because it was announced so late is soo much greater than the money saved in parts, BMW had to scrap their "Very aggressive" p85 engine and are using an evolution of last years..which is a shame, really would have like to seen the power output of that engine considering some of the beasts to have come out of munich inthe last few years!

Also saving engines makes the ends of races boring. The drivers dont do anything at the start because they are protecting tyres and at the end they are preserving the engine.

Also there is level of overtaking has decreased, i mean montoya passed five cars last year at melbourne,and he wasnt even that far out of position, this year there were cars well out of position but still couldnt overtake.

I wonder if some of the younger people on this forum know how good the racing was in the '80s and '90s, what we have now is a shadow of what it used to be. I find it genuinely hard to get excited about what we have to watch now, last year it was predictable and now its just conservative driving not racing. This has to be the fault of the FIA and their new rules.

WEl they keep changin the rules to make the show better..but when u have rule changes that affect the design of cars/engines the top teams with the most money are the quickest to adapt and pull out big gaps over the smaller teams.

the show will be better when MS will quit, and Formula 1 won't be only about Ferrari. Then we can return to 02 rules without problems..and that will be a real show!

LOL at Sn0wm4n. Very simple answer to the problems in F1. I like it.

The general consensus seems to be that One engine/two races and one tyre set per weekend will not work together, and I agree.

Surely these two regulations cannot work together and one of them must be scrapped A.S.A.P. I think the spirit of not being able to get new rubber would be best served if the drivers were able to push their engines in each and every race.

They obviously build enough engines to replace a blown one after each race, so as a cost cutting issue using one engine over two weekends is pointless anyway.

Razorsedge Wrote:
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> They obviously build enough engines to replace a
> blown one after each race, so as a cost cutting
> issue using one engine over two weekends is
> pointless anyway.
>
>

Then there's the extra design work and testing to make sure the engines can last two races.

Its Monday morning, so I'll unsticky the thread now.

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.

what a crap that f1 will be better without MS. He didn't finish the race and still it was boring. It was the same as last year. But now with fisichella leading and winning the race.

like i said earlier we need more new tracks that are better to overtake. Those 'old' tracks don't have space enough to overtake safely. See next GP you can almost have 5 cars next to each other on the tarmac with still place left. Also more straights that last longer then a few meters.

like Monaco there we have the advantage if they make one mistake they crash into the wall what makes it most times a great race but else there is no action at all in that gp.

Hungary same crap, procession each year again.

yeah, but MS's incident was hilarious

_______________________________________________________

Team Japan Owner - GPGNC

I laughed hard on Saturday when the rain came down just as MIchael was coming out. I laughed even harder when he spun at turn 3 and got his ass stuck in the gravel.

I suppose I just follow the Australian attitude of going for the underdog, and because Michael is/has been so dominant, I like to see other guys win for once. So good on your Fizzy Cola, you deserved it dude.

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"Well I'll tell you kids, I'd rather walk!"

- Liam Gallagher, after being banned from Cathay Pacific Airlines for life.

Well I must say that I wasn't very entertained in this race! An absolute yawn. Kind of like when I am forced to converse with Virginia Wade!

The WTA (Women's Tennis Association) has had similar problems with their technology in recent years, with racquets becoming too big and condusive for excessive power, meaning shorter more error-strewn rallies. However, with F1 they seem to have not only maintained a stalemate situation over technology, but they have created a perfect excuse for drivers and teams not to strive to improve during a race in the name of 'conservation'. All this adds to the mainly processional, uneventful race.

I for one am glad i didn't have to pass that off as entertainment on Grandstand!