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Sakae

Race 1 - F1 2018 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX

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Hats off to Vettel. Someone told me he now has as many victories with Ferrari as my man Kimi. No small thing.

I also was told Alonso got lucky yet was chosen the driver of the day.

Funny thing.

It must have haters' heads spinning... as always.

Anyway, I might watch the race sometime but not the season, though.

Friends tell me it was all over after preseason, stillborn some say, and that the best driver in the history of F1 has, for all intents and purposes, already won his 5th championship.

Congrats to the hero and his worshipers. We do not deserve any better.

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4 hours ago, maure said:

Hats off to Vettel. Someone told me he now has as many victories with Ferrari as my man Kimi. No small thing.

I also was told Alonso got lucky yet was chosen the driver of the day.

Funny thing.

It must have haters' heads spinning... as always.

Anyway, I might watch the race sometime but not the season, though.

Friends tell me it was all over after preseason, stillborn some say, and that the best driver in the history of F1 has, for all intents and purposes, already won his 5th championship.

Congrats to the hero and his worshipers. We do not deserve any better.

We'll take the win thank you very much. We savour wins in this era of Merc dominance. U guys can take the man of the race, which is as biased as it can get

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17 hours ago, BradSpeedMan said:

Let me correct you...

Alonso got a 5th place on pure luck

Alonso is supposed to be 7th place. Thanks to HAAS double dnf. Pure luck it was.

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8 hours ago, radical-one said:

Alonso is supposed to be 7th place. Thanks to HAAS double dnf. Pure luck it was.

Well, without honda people get lot of luck. ?

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Honda's (and we can add more names to it) problems are symptom of causes rooted in nonsensical normative references IMO and various flawed strategies. If I have to lift a finger, I would point it on both, FiA's F1 division and FOM (now FOG). Mismanagement I think is a word I was looking for.

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This was a pretty embarrassing race for F1.

First: who designed the Virtual Safety Car so that no one can pass on track but the car pitting gets an advantage? Vettel was only 12 seconds ahead of Hamilton, he should not have gotten the lead. Hamilton handled the post-race conference with considerable grace considering that he just got cheated out of a win by a screw up on how the Virtual Safety Car is handled. They probably need to fix that.

Second: I am not sure I saw more than a half-dozen passes all day, certainly no more than a dozen after the first lap. Verstappen could not seem to pass anyone. DR could not pass Raikonnen. Hamilton, who is one of the better passers in the field, could not get around Vettel. Watching Bottas struggle to get around the two Force India's was painful. They probably need to change the aerodynamic rules, as there is clearly a problem passing, even with DRS. After the first lap, I think only DR actually passed anyone among the top four finishers.

Third: The rest of the field is no where near the top three. They appear to have lost ground compared to last year. We shall see if this is still the case over the next few races, but if you are going to have a racing series, you not only need to have competition at the front (which we really did not have), but you cannot have 70% of the field as also rans.

Fourth: In the U.S. ESPN has taken over the broadcasting and they used the team of Martin Brundle and someone else. It was really poor compared to David Hobbs and Steve Matchett. The two commentators droned on to the point where you quit listening to them. They were no interesting discussion during the un-interesting parts of the race. There was no pre-race show. I was watching the race with a friend, and both of us were disappointed for the same reasons. As it was a European broadcast, everything was in meters and kilometers....which is not going to sell to an American audience.

 

Anyhow, I think Liberty has a lot of work to do, having been handed a pretty screwed up race series by Bernie Ecclestone. The next engine changes are in 2021. I do not think they can wait this long. They might have to change the aerodynamic regulations during the season if no one can pass. They clearly need to change the Virtual Safety Car, or put the rule back in that you can't pit during a virtual safety car.

 

Also, not a great weekend for Verstappen, Bottas, the Haas pit crew, Honda, or Williams and its two drivers. Actually good to see Kimi competitive again. It looked like he would have secured second over Vettel if it was not for the virtual safety car pit stop.

 

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4 hours ago, Ruslan said:

Hamilton handled the post-race conference with considerable grace considering that he just got cheated out of a win by a screw up on how the Virtual Safety Car is handled.

I guess that he knew that in China in the past it was the other way around so mumbling would have made look him silly. Having said that I think that there is a yellow flag rule in the books that says that if you don't slow down you get a penalty, they should apply that rule and drop most SC or VSC, obviously if they don't enforce the yellow flag rule everybody is going to take risk and it gets dangerous for the marshals to move a car by the side of the road far from the racing line. I hate to say it but in the good old days there was no need of the SC or VSC because if you went even remotely close to a marshal you would immediately get black flagged... when did you guys last see a black flag deployed? exactly

Other than that I agree that aero is the biggest problem that F1 is facing, besides what's the point of such hyped aero devices? are they good for the show? no. Are they good for the drivers? no. They are only good for the engineers (I have said before here that my friend who works for the team you know thinks that rear diffusers are "sexy" :rolleyes: and his field of expertise are engines, they should strip him of his university degree)

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We are leaving Melbourne probably with more questions than answers. Cars are changing, tires are changing, however tracks - for most part - do not, and it affects the show. People tend to forget that term "procession" is pretty old one, and what was done over decades to have it resolved? One solution applied by RBR, they hired Newey but even he is lacking answers in today new, brave world.

One issue which was not too widely discussed I think is future of Bottas with MB. His incident might be interpreted in many ways, and obviously of those only some counts. Questions are popping up, whether Bottas revealed his limitations, and MB is OK with that. I for one think they will shrug shoulders over that and move on (for now).

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1 hour ago, Publius Cornelius Scipio said:

I guess that he knew that in China in the past it was the other way around so mumbling would have made look him silly. Having said that I think that there is a yellow flag rule in the books that says that if you don't slow down you get a penalty, they should apply that rule and drop most SC or VSC, obviously if they don't enforce the yellow flag rule everybody is going to take risk and it gets dangerous for the marshals to move a car by the side of the road far from the racing line. I hate to say it but in the good old days there was no need of the SC or VSC because if you went even remotely close to a marshal you would immediately get black flagged... when did you guys last see a black flag deployed? exactly.

Hamilton has been doing much better the couple of years with controlling his p**s-iness, and he has gotten very good about addressing the fans and paying attention to the audience. It is almost like he is American ;)

Anyhow, it was a very gracious response. Not sure Vettel would have been so controlled in the same situation and I am sure Verstappen would not be.

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1 hour ago, Publius Cornelius Scipio said:

Other than that I agree that aero is the biggest problem that F1 is facing, besides what's the point of such hyped aero devices? are they good for the show? no. Are they good for the drivers? no. They are only good for the engineers (I have said before here that my friend who works for the team you know thinks that rear diffusers are "sexy" :rolleyes: and his field of expertise are engines, they should strip him of his university degree)

Well, you may recall on a different forum many years ago, I recommended just outlawing wings all together.

I did spend the first seven years of my career working for engineering firms. So many bright people, so much idiocy.

 

 

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Just now, Publius Cornelius Scipio said:

cars and tyres are not changing fast enough for me 

To clarify - I've meant not necessarily the manner which would solve concerns with cost of overtaking. Already last year cars got wider, and tires grew as well. is it good? Well some posts on the forum would suggest unhappiness. Overtaking if it was difficult before, is even more difficult today.

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1 minute ago, Sakae said:

To clarify - I've meant not necessarily the manner which would solve concerns with cost of overtaking. Already last year cars got wider, and tires grew as well. is it good? Well some posts on the forum would suggest unhappiness. Overtaking if it was difficult before, is even more difficult today.

Yea, I thought making the tires wider was a mistake.

 

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3 minutes ago, Ruslan said:

Well, you may recall on a different forum many years ago, I recommended just outlawing wings all together.

I did spend the first seven years of my career working for engineering firms. So many bright people, so much idiocy.

 

 

yes, I seem to remember that it was the time when Patrick Head said that in order to improve F1 all of the aero stuff had to be banned, wasn't it? Besides who likes all that stuff? 

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4 minutes ago, Sakae said:

To clarify - I've meant not necessarily the manner which would solve concerns with cost of overtaking. Already last year cars got wider, and tires grew as well. is it good? Well some posts on the forum would suggest unhappiness. Overtaking if it was difficult before, is even more difficult today.

I know

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2 minutes ago, Publius Cornelius Scipio said:

yes, I seem to remember that it was the time when Patrick Head said that in order to improve F1 all of the aero stuff had to be banned, wasn't it? Besides who likes all that stuff? 

Thanks for reminding me of that. I always liked Patrick Head and thought he was always under-rated as an engineer.

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Is the reason Hamilton got passed due to Mercedes giving him the incorrect lap times to achieve? If they had given him different lap times, Hamilton would have been ahead?

This is what some articles are claiming.

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Incident on the track slowed all cars to a safety speed. There is differential in initial gap under full racing conditions, vs. trying to reach and pass pit exit under reduced speed. Initial gap between Vettel and Hamilton got consequently wiped out. There is not too much of science in that. Vettel had enough time to emerge a car length ahead of Hamilton. There was some luck in that, so much was true (put that into a computer). I do expect next race turn complete disaster for Seb, unless Ferrari managed to change on the car whatever he wants, and Hamilton fans can be happy again.   

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Could Hamilton have driven faster during the Virtual Safety Car period and guaranteed that Vettel pulled out behind him? Did Mercedes simply screw this up?

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No, he couldn't drive faster, unless he wanted to contravene basic idea of VSC, which is at its basic principle rapid (instant) enforcement of identical and reduced speed by all cars on the track. In theory it should be far more effective than presence of physical SC, and once in effect, position of all cars on the track must remain approximately the same, while holding the same gap relative to each other. Hamilton closing on pit exit was thus affected after he slowed down, which was enough for Seb exit couple of car length distances in the front of Hamilton. 

Not too much discussed, and for me it was very amusing listen Alonso after race, when he was interviewed and asked why he didn't passed Verstappen when that one was waving him off (lapped cars could get back on the leading lap). Alonso said he saw it, but he didn't take it, being concerned about his safety due fear from Vestapen's unpredictable behavior on the track, as that one does weird things. 

I said the same many times in the past, recalling once when he was diving into impossible track positions, Vettel was avoiding him, and consequently colluded with Kimi. Of course I was alone then condemning him for it, whilst  Verstappen, even on this forum, was hailed as a new "hero". Since then add Hamilton labeling Verstappen dangerous, Kimi simply complained about his defending tactics, getting off easy when he went off track, gaining position, DR labeling him fuc***g looser/nuts, and now Alonso labeling him unpredictable and crazy, not wanting to go anywhere close to him even under SC regime. That really happened in the last race; check it out.

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Just a very quick comment.

Sakae my friend, I so thought of you when I saw Seb come out in front of Hamilton after that stop. I knew you'd be as happy as I was and believe me I was happy! A great start to the season for our boy :D

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Welcome back Lyria. Yes, nice scene that was, but holding subsequently breath for an hour was not a small feat. :D

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