Australian Grand Prix

[Emmcee 0]

Do you think running these Mclarens full tilt is what caused alonso's "electric" shock failure? Sounds fees able IMO. I Beleive toro rosso did suffer ecu mapping issues aswell but not to the extent Redbull did though. Your Audi and Renault buyout scenarios seem fees able also. That's what boggles my mind, how can Renault even be thinking about buying a team again when they can't even supply there customers who pay millions a year mind you, a fast,competitive and reliable engine. It's a joke. Why can't Redbull switch engines now like the used to back in the day? To many rules and regs now. I remember back in 1992 (can't remember which team) but they were using Lamborghini engines and switched to a ford at the Belgian gp.

[BradSpeedMan 6]

I'll check it out Brad. I'm not a Twitter user, but am always up for sources of good info.

You don't need twitter to follow...

[Emmcee 0]

How did you guys rate Ricciardo's performance? I think he drove his heart out to no avail. You can't say he wasn't pushing the whole race. It was more or less how you came out of turn one on the first lap is where everyone basically stayed. Seb made a good start and that is what gave him the podium. Bit ruff out of turn one towards his teammate but I don't think he knew where kimi was tbh.

[BradSpeedMan 6]

How did you guys rate Ricciardo's performance? I think he drove his heart out to no avail. You can't say he wasn't pushing the whole race. It was more or less how you came out of turn one on the first lap is where everyone basically stayed. Seb made a good start and that is what gave him the podium. Bit ruff out of turn one towards his teammate but I don't think he knew where kimi was tbh.

Ric's always on it! Rate him in my top 5, his driving was stellar, but unfortunately couldn't do anything with his equipment

[Emmcee 0]

Yeah that's right. It's the Renault engine. Raikkonen was bloody quick in the middle part of the race inbetween his stops until his retirement. Nico and lewis were simply in a league of there own. Do you think sauber's pace in honest? Or do you think the field wil shuffle around abit more and they'll be back towards the bottom again?

[BradSpeedMan 6]

Yeah that's right. It's the Renault engine. Raikkonen was bloody quick in the middle part of the race inbetween his stops until his retirement. Nico and lewis were simply in a league of there own. Do you think sauber's pace in honest? Or do you think the field wil shuffle around abit more and they'll be back towards the bottom again?

Yep I do... plus there's Lotus now with the Merc engines, so I think Ric would've lost more places because of weaker engine

[Emmcee 0]

Yeah very true I have to agree, there is light and day with today's lotus to last years.

[jickmagger 0]

I am just glad a) Winter is over and Nobody is talking about @#!ing tyres.

[Emmcee 0]

Well everyone apparently hated the harder compound in Melbourne as there were struggling to get heat into them. Some worse than others as they jumped straight onto the softs on lap 2

[Jem of the Shire 0]

Well -

1. What the hell has Jenson done to his facial hair

2. McLaren. Dear sweet lord I never thought I'd see a McLaren that slow. What an embarrassment. We're going to have 2 world champs bringing up the rear every race, just wrong. How can they be so bad???

3. Kimi. Great to see him back in the mix. Still slower than his team-mate though; I guess Kimi must've accidentally 'developed' the Ferrari too much towards Seb's driving style.

4. Nasr. What a debut!

5. Pastor. Why oh why didn't I place a bet that he'd end up in the wall at some point

6. What was that message at the start of the race about? "Ron, I will miss you. Bernie" - the commentator didn't even mention it! What am I missing?

7. Why didn't Williams put Wolff in the race?

8. Horner. Shut up you were all smiles when Seb won 9 races in a row, tw@t.

[Emmcee 0]

Number one, Jenson is secretly ron burgundy.

2- apparently Honda wernt using full power and I don't know why. Maybe running them flatout is what zapped alonso. But fernando would've scored some points.

3- kimi was lightning quick after his first stop but it was all in vain once he retired.

4- I never thought if see a Redbull out gunned by a sauber down the straight.

5- marinara got caught up in a situation he couldn't do anything about.

6- the message on the grid was for Aussie Ron Walker who was the one who brought the gp to Melbourne all those years ago and this was his last race as he is retiring.

7- Williams couldn't give the car to anyone else as Bottas was the one who qualified the car. If he sat out the last practice session,then he could've been replaced.

8- yeah I agree to an extent. But Redbull had every aid that gave them that advantage banned at some point. Blown diffusers,flexing body parts and such but nothing has been done to Mercedes. That's his point.

[BradSpeedMan 6]

3. Kimi. Great to see him back in the mix. Still slower than his team-mate though; I guess Kimi must've accidentally 'developed' the Ferrari too much towards Seb's driving style.

Now why oh why did you have to go there? You are aware that their driving styles are basically the same right? Are you aware of the difference between Massa, Vettel and Kimi's qualifying time? Maybe you did'nt watch the start when Kimi got ahead of Vettel and decided to back out in a gentleman fashion as to not avoid a collision with his teammate. Anyway, wait for my clever chirp with Alonso and Button next week. I'll spare you the other one for the weekend past

[Emmcee 0]

Raikkonen had no choice but to get out of it as Vettel was pushing his way in, if kimi didnt back out, would have been a nasty clash. Honestly though, I think seb is abit faster than kimi going of the results in Australia, but you put kimis mid race charge into concideration, there alot closer than expected and you all know what I think of kimi but it is still early days.

[Emmcee 0]

But if we are going of driver of the Australian gp IMO you can count lewis and nico out because there cars are so so dominant, iam not taking away a well deserved 1-2 finish but there in another league. Driver of the weekend IMO was Daniel Ricciardo, call me biased if you must but given the track time he had and the puss engine in the back of that Redbull, he drove it absolutley flatout 100% of the time. You couldn't get a better result in qualify or the race than what he did. Clean race in what was a handful of a car to drive to, well done IMO, he still impresses.

[spiral.out 0]

3. Kimi. Great to see him back in the mix. Still slower than his team-mate though; I guess Kimi must've accidentally 'developed' the Ferrari too much towards Seb's driving style.

Actually his fastest lap was faster than Sebs.

[Emmcee 0]

Actually his fastest lap was faster than Sebs.

Which one you talking about? He rattled of like 5 fastest laps in a row at one point of the race, yet he couldn't do much about ricciardo despite the hp difference. I think this all comes down to this chassis, you have to be so so close to get a move done, they just look so unsettled even in the position the wouldve have been in the past to get the tow. The turbulent air coming of them must be rediculous.

[Jem of the Shire 0]

I was only teasing :-)

No chance that Alonso would've scored points, even if he was a second a lap faster than JB he'd still have been slower than everyone else

[Emmcee 0]

Well that's formula one for you, how would Honda know what benchmark to aim for in terms of performance since testing is banned? They would just have to build something with the best of what they got and know. So in terms of a "stab in the dark" engine, it has potential, you could hear the rpm difference between qualify and race. So it's going to be ages till Honda catch up and that's the fia's fault. These rediculous testing bans have to go, how can new manufacturers like Honda possible learn everything to catch up to there rivals without having the chance. It's like a yo yo, everytime a team like Mclaren makes any gain, the others have already improved on there knowledge:

[Jem of the Shire 0]

It's sad to see an F1 giant like McLaren languishing in last. They have never ever been the slowest team on the grid. I thought 2013 was bad!

A penny for Alonso's thoughts right now. He doesn't have time to wait 3 years. He'll be at Merc in 2017.

[Emmcee 0]

I rekon they'll come good, just how long is a piece of string? But when they do, you watch how's my teams switch to Honda, there will be a few I think.

[Jem of the Shire 0]

For Alonso (and Jenson too of course) it's just a gamble and although it's only been 1 race it's not looking like a good gamble for a man who is desperate to win more titles before age forces him to retire. His best hope is that there's a new set of regs in the next couple of years which mixes up the order again. Even then I wouldn't have much confidence in McLaren getting it right.

I'll make an early prediction that when Nico's contract expires next year we'll have Lewis & Fernando reunited.

[Emmcee 0]

Well lets just say nico wins the title this year, you still think then that nico would still be under lewis in terms of teams wanting drivers?

[rodders47 2]

what I am surprised about with Honda is that I would have thought that they would have mounted that F1 Power unit into some other sort of Race car and done testing with that. Surely F1 don't have a blanket ban on some parts of an F1 car being tested in a different league of race car?

[Emmcee 0]

That's a good point, but then again what info have they got to go off? If they have nothing to compare to, makes it abit hard and most likely a waste of money and resources. You couldn't be as accurate if you don't have the competition there to compare, you can only "ball park it" and that's what they have done.

[rodders47 2]

LOL well seems like the Ball Park they used was the wrong one going by the reliability :-)