Australian Gp Official Thread

[AleHop 0]

Why do you think I post so little nowwadays??

Sometimes it feels as if we had our own KGB agents in the forums.

No need for the real ones.

[mikathegreat2 2]

Not the best race ever. A few interesting events such as Button vs Massa & Rubens taking out Rosberg! Tut tut, would've expected better from Rubens! Well done to Vettel & also to Petrov too!

[Rainmaster 7]

Like others have said, not a classic GP but an interesting start to the season.

The New Rules:

The fears and complaints over the new tyres have proven to be largely unfounded and I thought the race was interesting from both a strategy pov and from a racing pov, with a few good overtakes/battles and plenty going on to keep us amused. Albert Park is a track which produces more racing anyway, but I'll still cautiously suggest that F1 will be more interesting this year in terms of the way the GP's play out. The new rear wing, as predicted, doesn't make much difference at all (at least in such a short 'zone' and off such a difficult corner) but it did help to create a couple of overtakes that perhaps wouldn't have been possible before; so I don't think it can really be criticised as being a failure. Still don't think KERS has any place in F1, at least in its current guise.

The Good, The Bad and The Unlucky:

• Disappointed with Sauber's disqualification, but some rules are black and white and even if a technical infringement wasn't intentional or beneficial, they need to be followed so I don't complain about that. Kobayashi, and Perez especially, did a great job today regardless.
• Vettel proved what we already know: he's great in the lead. Sadly, with Webber not really turning up here, or possibly suffering some kind of unknown car issue, we don't know how good Vettel was, although he seemed a class act.
• Hamilton drove well apart from his off track adventure at turn one, but that was probably down to an already broken undertray rather than an outright driving error. More importantly, he seemed to manage his tyres well.
• Button's poor start ruined his afternoon although that was exacerbated by his ambitious and ultimately illegal attempt to pass Massa. He should have given the position back, although I struggle to remember whether he had time to do that before Alonso got involved. In any case it was certainly obvious to me, and Brundle/DC that giving the position back was correct, even if that meant allowing Alonso through. A silly oversight from Mclaren.
• Alonso was another with a terrible start, putting himself at a positional disadvantage at the outside of turn one, but as usual he doesn't stop trying and recovers like few could. Massa showed he could at least defend a little, but that's about it.
• Petrov was very impressive and seems to have developed; maybe he feels better to be out of Kubica's shadow in the team? Heidfeld must find his best form and fast.
• Rubens has had a rookie weekend and he reminds me of DC in his last year of the sport. Mistakes, poor judgement, etc. We'll see if he keeps it up.
• Mercedes guys were plain unlucky!

Other Stuff: Turns out Red Bull don't have a start only KERS system, or so they say. They haven't used KERS because of reliability concerns (lets hope they don't get it working ): http://www.autosport...rt.php/id/90275

Conclusions? Only one: that the Brundle and DC team made the race 20% better all by themselves Thank you Beeb!

[blackpebel 0]

Other Stuff: Turns out Red Bull don't have a start only KERS system, or so they say. They haven't used KERS because of reliability concerns (lets hope they don't get it working ): http://www.autosport...rt.php/id/90275

One question, minimum car weight considered by FIA is with or without kers???

[Argento Reloaded 1]

I'm hoping against hope that Schumi goes for broke and ends up on the podium ahead of Rosberg. Forget the podium, I'll settle for him finishing ahead of Rosberg.

Foe sure! he finished his race before Nico...

Some thoughts about the race:

-finally RBull had taken a decision about n1 and 2 driver... only a season after!

- Ferrari is of pace and Massa... ok is Massa and is facing the end of his scholarship at Modena

- DOD was Sergio Pérez EXCELLENT!

- DiResta and Maldonado both did good jobs.

- D´ambrosio is not driving a F1

- Button made and horrible race and is whinning...

- Nico is faster than today MSC. And the last year too! The Merc is behind RedBull, McLaren, Ferrari and Lotus Renault.

- Regarding Team Lotus what can I say? All the Crap they talked during the preseason is only comparable to this piece of crap called F1 car!

- It seems some of the new rules worked in Melbourne. Let´s wait and see what will happen in other tracks.

[pabloh20 1]

Stars of the race: Petrov and Perez woooohooo! Very entertaining race!!!! Wonderful Petrov leading the Poochie team! Perez outperforming Koba nonetheless! Hey guys, look! And they are pay drivers!!!!!

Behind them: Hamilton, for surviving a broken car without losing much time to Vettel (granted, the car wouldn't be ill if he hadn't lock tires and mowed the parke's grass)

Alonso: awful start (although he was unlucky to get squeezed at turn 1), afterwards,a good, if not spectacular, strategic race. Big problem for Super Alonso: Petrov is his Kryptonite.

Webber/Massa/Button: If it weren't for Vettel/Alonso/Hamilton, you would never guess those guys have a potential WCC car under their asses. I lost my faith on good old Webbo. They had bad luck, teams against them and all the crap you want, but they all look just ordinary. Nice battles for TV, but they should have provided that and so much more...

Merc drivers: *sigh* (Rosberg, not his fault, to be fair)

Rubinho: *sighhhhhhhhhhh*

Question: cutting a chicane is as bad as causing a collision?

I know you have already been shown the error of your ways, but I never tire of reminding you of your bias against 'he can't press the right buttons' Hamilton and pointing out that even a blind man on a galloping horse could see the under-tray was broken before he had the slight excursion.

Also, on that note, I know of your fondness for reminding us of Hamilton's inability to press the right buttons, but I believe he has only made the same mistake once with regards to button pressing?? I would like your thoughts on today's radio messages to Alonso.

Engineer: Nandy Pandy, don't forget to use your kers.

Translation: There's a little boost button on your steering wheel that makes you go faster when you press it.

Engineer: Nandy Pandy, don't forget to use your kers.

Translation: Bollocking hell dumbo, I only told you last lap you have a boosty button. What are you, a goldfish??

Engineer: Nandy Pandy, don't forget to use all of your kers.

Translation: Seriously bollock brains??? You don't know that it recharges every lap?? Press the damn button for longer every lap for crying out loud. What the hell do you wan't - a big sign saying Red Bull disposal unit??

[elgo 1]

Button complaining about Massa pitting on purpose so he would get a drive through?! Hilarious!

[Rainmaster 7]

One question, minimum car weight considered by FIA is with or without kers???

The minimum car weight was raised this year to accommodate the reintroduction of KERS, I think. So included.

I know you have already been shown the error of your ways, but I never tire of reminding you of your bias against 'he can't press the right buttons' Hamilton and pointing out that even a blind man on a galloping horse could see the under-tray was broken before he had the slight excursion.

Also, on that note, I know of your fondness for reminding us of Hamilton's inability to press the right buttons, but I believe he has only made the same mistake once with regards to button pressing?? I would like your thoughts on today's radio messages to Alonso.

Engineer: Nandy Pandy, don't forget to use your kers.

Translation: There's a little boost button on your steering wheel that makes you go faster when you press it.

Engineer: Nandy Pandy, don't forget to use your kers.

Translation: Bollocking hell dumbo, I only told you last lap you have a boosty button. What are you, a goldfish??

Engineer: Nandy Pandy, don't forget to use all of your kers.

Translation: Seriously bollock brains??? You don't know that it recharges every lap?? Press the damn button for longer every lap for crying out loud. What the hell do you wan't - a big sign saying Red Bull disposal unit??

Yes I remember that. It was odd because he was defending at the time iirc so it would have been useful! Ah well, I guess not even Nando is perfect

[Quiet One 15]

I know you have already been shown the error of your ways, but I never tire of reminding you of your bias against 'he can't press the right buttons' Hamilton and pointing out that even a blind man on a galloping horse could see the under-tray was broken before he had the slight excursion.

Also, on that note, I know of your fondness for reminding us of Hamilton's inability to press the right buttons, but I believe he has only made the same mistake once with regards to button pressing?? I would like your thoughts on today's radio messages to Alonso.

Engineer: Nandy Pandy, don't forget to use your kers.

Translation: There's a little boost button on your steering wheel that makes you go faster when you press it.

Engineer: Nandy Pandy, don't forget to use your kers.

Translation: Bollocking hell dumbo, I only told you last lap you have a boosty button. What are you, a goldfish??

Engineer: Nandy Pandy, don't forget to use all of your kers.

Translation: Seriously bollock brains??? You don't know that it recharges every lap?? Press the damn button for longer every lap for crying out loud. What the hell do you wan't - a big sign saying Red Bull disposal unit??

Did that actually happen? Sorry, but the awful local transmission kept talking over the pits traansmissions (they always do) and I missed them!

What happened exactly?

In any case, I would laugh. I laughed at Nando being unable to overtake Petrov...again. Fanatics with no sense of humor whatsoever are not in this building, you should go look at some other driver's fanclub

[AleHop 0]

I could hear that pretty well on La Sexta: Lobato, Gené and De la Rosa having a friendly chat and suddenly Lobato cries PIT RADIO ALONSO.

- Errmm... Don't forget to use KERS (Andrea Stella)

Not much later again

- Heeelloooo, is there anybody there? KERS!!! (Stella again)

Then Mark Gené said, nah I'm positive Alonso didn't forget to use KERS. And de la Rosa replied, they have telemeters, you know?

No, it wasn't actually like that, only what Gené said more or less. The rest Paul was more accurate than me.

[dribbler 6]

In other news, 22 Heidfeld clones to be readied for Malaysia. Race time will be extended by eighteen hours for all laps to be completed.

[Insider 0]

Computer gone tits up so I am having to use iPhone instead, so I will not go into much detail in my post. (If anyone says thank the lord for that I will be very disappointed, low hanging fruit).

It's true that both Sauber cars have been disqualified, check out autosport website for details.

Vettel looked supreme, totally in control of the entire weekend. He looks relaxed, untroubled and confident. Very worrying for his competitors.

Glad to see that the drs did not guarantee the driver would make the pass, the driver still had to earn the overtake, as it should be.

Tyres were interesting in their various performance characteristics on the cars up and down the grid, although we should take into account that Albert Park is a difficult circuit to use as a yardstick to judge performance at other circuits, and the track temps were way down on what can be expected later in the year, particularly during quali. We shouldn't race to conclusions based on this race.

Whilst watching over the weekend one thought that kept entering my head was why the hell was Helmut Marko in the Red Bull garage again and what does he do and what does he add? As far as I am aware he is the head of the Red Bull young driver programme. If that is the case then surely he should be in the str garage if he is at the race at all and not at some junior formula meeting somewhere in the world representing red bull and seeking out new talent, or supporting talent in the programme at a race meeting. Surely a world championship means his job is done, time to move on to the next young up and coming driver? It couldn't be self promotion on Helmut's part, could it?

He polishes the helmuts, sorry! - helmets - especially Sebastian's.

[cavallino 2]

Behind them: Hamilton, for surviving a broken car without losing much time to Vettel (granted, the car wouldn't be ill if he hadn't lock tires and mowed the parke's grass)

the car wasn't broken. He had plenty of space. Sure he had a good rsace but let's not glorify it unreasonably.

Alonso: awful start (although he was unlucky to get squeezed at turn 1), afterwards,a good, if not spectacular, strategic race. Big problem for Super Alonso: Petrov is his Kryptonite.

Well with his usual smug conceited arroagnce he said he doesn't mind being behind Petrov because Petrov is not a title contender and he is.

Well guess what, the prophet is ready to ake a prophecy. Fernando Alonso will not be champion this year. So he can consider himself a contender all he wants, he's not in the race.

Merc drivers: *sigh* (Rosberg, not his fault, to be fair)

The lunatic crashing into Schumacher after his awesome start was his fault presumably?

Rubinho: *sighhhhhhhhhhh*

Question: cutting a chicane is as bad as causing a collision?

Rubens needs to retire. I don't knowwhat's worse but Mclaren sohuld have known exactly what would happen and done the sensible thing. There is another way of looking at it, Rubens tried to overtake and stuffed up, but we don't want to penalize that so much that drivers don't even try. Button got an unfair advantage and didn't give it back while he had the chance to.

[dribbler 6]

Button got an unfair advantage and didn't give it back while he had the chance to.

Yep. All this liaising with the FIA to see what they think and waiting for a decision is fruitless. Drivers should make up their own mind. If Button believed that the move was not contentious, he needs to re-evaluate his ability to define what is right and wrong in racing. His decision was as eyebrow raising as Alonso's last year when he cut a chicane and did not give back the position.

I still think that the car park area in turn four needs a re-think. Vettel took adavantage of having all four wheels off the track to make a move stick. That's not fair. I wonder what he would have done if there was a concrete wall on the outside of that corner?

[Insider 0]

I certainly wouldn't class Button with Massa and Webber. The later two are driving like spent forces and Jens seems fresh and pacy to me. He's always been a better driver than Mark or Felipe by a country mile. His start was compromised by the boy, Lewis wheel-spinning like crazy and compounded when he made the error of moving away from the inside and letting Petrov through. Nevertheless, he fought like crazy with Felipe 'Lock-up' Massa, who lost him 10-15 secs in a half dozen laps. The 'incident' that resulted in the drive-through was a tough call, IMHO. I have replayed the action many, many times. 1. Button was fully alongside Massa at the entry to the corner and could have expected his foe to yield but the Brazilian is a desperate man and would have none of it. 2. Massa slammed shut the door as they reached the apex. 3. Button bailed into the safety road and consequently jumped the Ferrari. 4. McLaren made completely the wrong call as Button had clearly gained and advantage, irrespective of Massa's refusal to give the corner to the charging Button. Game over. Ferrari obviously decided to utilise the incident to the 'maximum' and pulled Felipe off the track thus ensuring JB would cop a DT. In his defence, Button did not state, [as has been suggested here] that Ferrari's actions were 'underhanded'. I watched the interview and I quote: "I don't know if that was done on purpose or not, but I got a drive-through and I had to find my way through, which was quite fun but being that far back is very frustrating because the pace was much better than that." It was the interviewer who had suggested that Ferrari were acting in an 'underhanded way'. Indeed, it was a great recovery drive from the Frome Flyer and he'll be happy with 6th. If Whitmarsh had made him give up the place immediately, he may have grabbed a podium but that is the story of his career and McLaren's wobbly pit wall.

Sauber did well with their 10-bob exhaust kit and the mightily impressive Perez. I mooted they might spring a surprise and they sure did, despite the DQ. Williams have good core pace it would seem but had a bad day at the office and in Quali. STR were disappointing after a great pre-season and Nick Heidfeld seemed to be driving a completely different car to that of the mercurial Petrov. Mercedes were hopeless, to be fair. I know Michael got caught and suffered a puncture and Nico got speared by Ruben's uncontrollable Williams. Either way, 19 and 21 just won't do. All in all, the rear flap flopped and the FIA need to review their input in it's deployment or better still, become completely uninvolved in all matters of in-race strategy - because that's what it boils down to. KERS is obviously now a prime talking point at the teams that did use it and the circus rolls on. RBR are fast or rather Vettel is but I will bet a fair chunk on the fact the he has a much better car at his disposal than Webber ever will. Ferrari will be upset to have lost the pace they had in pre-season but they will be on the money shortly - you can bet on it. Game on.

[HandyNZL 1]

To KERS or not to KERS, that is the question. RBR goes without, spreads the weight around the car better and spanks everyone. Everyone else uses KERS, have destabilised cars through corners because of poor weight placement and gets spanked by a team not using it.

Expect KERS to be removed from cars more often that not, and RBR never to run it.

Flipper wings - needs to be allowed to be active at any point on the race track, but only when the car is less than a second behind....lets see what sort of racing we get then, but as I said an age ago, 600m or so at 12km/h more speed a pass does not make.

[Insider 0]

What happened to Brundle and Coulthard contention the the scrutineers may penalise Macca over hammy's barge board????

[Ikyrotz 0]

Button got an unfair advantage and didn't give it back while he had the chance to.

I have to say that Ferrari acted brilliantly in this situation. While it should have been clear to Button and to McLaren that Jenson needs to yield back his position immediately (why do the teams always think in this situation that they should consult Whiting first? Just yield the position immediately and no penalty will be given; wait a bit to make sure that there would be a penalty and there will be one), the way Ferrari handled this in the heat of the moment guaranteed that they would get maximal advantage of it: either both Alonso and Massa pass Button, or Button gets a penalty and both pass him that way. Just brilliant.

[Insider 0]

To KERS or not to KERS, that is the question. RBR goes without, spreads the weight around the car better and spanks everyone. Everyone else uses KERS, have destabilised cars through corners because of poor weight placement and gets spanked by a team not using it.

Expect KERS to be removed from cars more often that not, and RBR never to run it.

Flipper wings - needs to be allowed to be active at any point on the race track, but only when the car is less than a second behind....lets see what sort of racing we get then, but as I said an age ago, 600m or so at 12km/h more speed a pass does not make.

I'm surprised at you Kiwi. You still have to ballast the same area between driver and engine, surely. The placement location is mandatory isn't it? I may be wrong and by all means correct me. Nevertheless, a 8kph advantage is hardly worth overheating the crap out of your brakes is it?

[Insider 0]

I have to say that Ferrari acted brilliantly in this situation. While it should have been clear to Button and to McLaren that Jenson needs to yield back his position immediately (why do the teams always think in this situation that they should consult Whiting first? Just yield the position immediately and no penalty will be given; wait a bit to make sure that there would be a penalty and there will be one), the way Ferrari handled this in the heat of the moment guaranteed that they would get maximal advantage of it: either both Alonso and Massa pass Button, or Button gets a penalty and both pass him that way. Just brilliant.

Always. It's a given. If Jens had yielded immediately, he have probably made the podium.

[HandyNZL 1]

I'm surprised at you Kiwi. You still have to ballast the same area between driver and engine, surely. The placement location is mandatory isn't it? I may be wrong and by all means correct me. Nevertheless, a 8kph advantage is hardly worth overheating the crap out of your brakes is it?

Yes you do, but you use lead low down on the chassis don't ya? Not a lump of alloy and spinny gearsets stuck up on the engine...lower CoG beats higher CoG every time. And the brakes would have had any KERS stuff removed...well, to be honest it's not ON the brakes is it....the input is off the tranny.

[cavallino 2]

I have to say that Ferrari acted brilliantly in this situation.

Yes but Mclaren are muppets. They sohuld have been on the radio screaming let him through let him through, in fact as soon as he cut the corner button sohld have got off the gas.

[pabloh20 1]

Did that actually happen? Sorry, but the awful local transmission kept talking over the pits traansmissions (they always do) and I missed them!

What happened exactly?

In any case, I would laugh. I laughed at Nando being unable to overtake Petrov...again. Fanatics with no sense of humor whatsoever are not in this building, you should go look at some other driver's fanclub

It did happen, although I may have used a little bit of poetic licence

Not sure of how much time had passed between the radio messages, as they always seem to be delayed, but the way they came through the commentary was within a short space of each other, with a purely accidental sense of comic timing

I was going to liken it to the 'They are dead Dave, they are all dead' scene in Red Dwarf, but you probaly don't know what that is.

[yurp 0]

It did happen, although I may have used a little bit of poetic licence

Not sure of how much time had passed between the radio messages, as they always seem to be delayed, but the way they came through the commentary was within a short space of each other, with a purely accidental sense of comic timing

I was going to liken it to the 'They are dead Dave, they are all dead' scene in Red Dwarf, but you probaly don't know what that is.

What and Petersen? Not Petersen.

[pabloh20 1]

What and Petersen? Not Petersen.

Everybody is dead, Dave