2013 FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX: RACE *** SPOILERS ***

Perhaps, but there is NO CHANCE Porsche come back into F1, and they have said so publicly, so if Honda come back, so be it, but if you believe that F1 have chosen the smaller engines simply to help the large car companies who build car engines for the masses, than for who exactly would that be - Ferrari? Lotus? Mercedes? Really?

MB

 

Not saying they are, but they aren't heading in the other direction with less regulations...that is for damn sure.

MB

 

Looks like he who can best manage his tires wins. Not sure if its good or bad but that's what it's come to. Strange though that a very smooth driver like Button should suffer so badly. I'm sure a cars tire management skills will also apply.

 

That is an interesting theory. It seemed to me like LH's second stop was just bad all around, from coming in early after flat-spotting his first set of tires to having the set from that spot go off pretty quickly. His car seemed to have good pace on the last ones though.

Having Hamilton tend tires as a strategy seems a bit off to me. Merc would have been better served going with a 3-stop like everyone else and allowing him to race.

 

I think Varsha did a good job, but I would say he was more like a professor explaining what is going on. Diffey seems like he is truly excited to be watching the race.

 

No one mentioned suspension btw. Air ducts at each corner help cool/heat brake temps & feed air through to cool/heat the tires. How the merc controls those ducts and the coanda definitely influenced how they were the only folks able to get more out of the supersofts and so little if the mediums.

The Pirelli Director himself said that the low track temps were making it challenging to switch on the supersofts compound. Wider working range doesn't equate to the most effective working range; just means a level of grip can be more easily established not the most grip. So, Merc was able to somehow get more heat into the supersofts than the rest of the pack, again, most likely how they are controlling air flow of the ducts and coanda...that same effectiveness for the supersofts probably didn't lend itself as kindly to the mediums as seen from the race...how else would you explain it?

You're the only guy on or off the grid who seems to think the deg issues on the new compounds aren't a concern for most teams except Lotus...maybe you should apply for a job to guide the fellas onto the right path.

I don't recall a 3-stopper as the norm for last year's GP and it was dry & warm last year...so ya, deg is greater this year, either that or all the engineers went ape shiet together to design their cars to chew through tires.

 

So much of F1 tech & innovation find its way into road going cars for all the above monikers. Kers just made it into LaFerrari and P1 why can't the V6 turbos? It would be even more applicable to an even wider breadth of vehicles and audience; definitely greater than the small niche of supercars, hence probably why the likes of Honda, Mercedes, Porsche have great interest and motivation to develop within F1 in 2014. Big money ie ROI to be had in downsizing engines.

Ferrari have already been complaining the F1 game is all about mad aero now, above and beyond what can be applied to road going vehicles. don't you think the V6 will help bring more relevance back to F1 development?

 

Yet another new name could be looking seriously at F1’s radical engine rules for 2014.

 

Wow this would be awesome.

 

When was the last time an independent motor maker was successful?

 

*Good* question..... TAG maybe?

Even that's sketchy. Arguably, the snow blower maker funded them of course.

BRM? Climax?

However, with my Panglossian hat on, that its never happened doesn't mean it can't.

Cheers,
Ian

 

what about Dan Gurney's Eagles... is that going too far back

 

From the horse's mouth:

Source: Autosport

Boom.

 

I posted that not long after the race. From Autosport.

 

My bad on the repost

 

What do Americans understand about F1?

... Just look at the debates here.

The broadcast team will be doing well just to stop referring to Ham as being with McLaren.

With everyone going to a yellow helmet, and the change of the camera pod colors, they'll be lucky to tell the drivers apart.

 

I felt this was a very interesting picture. I believe this was taken in park ferme immediately after qualifying. Felipe is clearly pointing out the condition of Heidi's tires - and they certainly don't look good. Looking down the line - now you have to count carefully and the telephoto lens has compressed the image so it is a little difficult, but, you can see that most tires are not in great shape, but if you look carefully you can also see the Lotus's tires are clearly the best and the F138's tires also look better than most.

If I recall correctly, Red Bull almost completely ignored long runs during their last practice sessions at Barcelona and maybe this is why?

http://miascuderia.com/media/2013/2013AustralianGP/2013AustGPAfterQTires.jpg

 

The yellow helmet thing is pretty irritating. Hamilton does have the camera painted yellow but you can barely see it.

Also, Perez has a yellow helmet and looks like Hamilton in that Mclaren. So there are three Hamiltons. lol.

 

This doesn't paint a true picture. Most if not all drivers pick up a lot of rubber marbles at the in lap when the race is finished to get the minimum weight of the car higher.

 

Agreed driver do try and pick up marbles to add weight after the race, however, this shot is taken after Q and those are the tires they all started the race on.

Also IMO, there is quite a big difference between tires that have picked up marbles and what we see of the condition of the tires in the image posted.

 

Ah missed the qualifying bit.

 

Brake ducts are a minor secondary by-product to the geometry and stiffness settings of a system. I can possibly get behind your theory that the Merc found the sweet spot for the super softs which may have been a few celsius higher than the medium compounds preferred, but my only problem with this theory is that the car is somewhat lacking pace on heavy fuel loads but had excellent pace on light loads which tells me it's not a tire heat issue but rather a handling issue on full loads. W03 performed differently on full loads as did W02, but W02 to a much more radical extent.



Pirelli stated some time ago that these tires would be even more aggressive with regards to degradation as the teams were too good at making last year's tires last (by the end of the season). The tires are going to be the same issue for everyone at some point or another, no one will have the formula just right at every race. The 'everyone has the same tires and same issues' comment is not mine by the way, that's from several team engineers. Just because one team gets it right one weekend doesn't mean another won't on the following weekend. We'll see right.

Zytec designed the KERS unit for Merc engines. They blew a fortune on the thing, massively impressive unit.

 

That statement is missing the engineering directors call to bring either car in for tires. Alonso wasn't alone for his decision to tire swap, don't believe that for a moment. These guys know sector by sector down to the turn when the tires are going off per their monitoring software which calculates the loads the car is taking vs heat and speed, fuel loads, anyway it's complicated stuff and they bloody well know what these cars/tires are doing. Holding Massa out for 1 lap post Alonso once they saw their tires were collectively falling to shambles I could understand, waiting several like they did makes no sense with the information they had and the actions they had already taken with Alonso.

I'm over it. No big.

 

Malaysia....It's been raining here between 3-6 pm for the last 2 weeks...

 

Bah it always rains there. Thanks for the update as always