Hoping Hulk gets a ride somewhere.......;)
1) Sauber has to be gutted but should still be proud of their effort if this curvature issue can be quickly corrected without affecting performance of the car too much. 2) Perez had a fantastic debut, and Kobyashi was as aggresive as ever. 3) The tires are a very interesting issue this year, I can't wait until the super softs are one of the options in a race. 4) Petrov had the drive of the race IMO. If Kubica is unable to return (IMO chances are it was a career-ending injury), Lotus-Renault has at least one good driver. 5) Heidfeld had a poor showing, if he isn't in the top 8 within the next few races he will be sacked and replaced with Senna or Hulkenberg. 6) Vettel and Red Bull are incredibly strong and will be nearly impossible to beat. Vettel shot off for the holeshot without even using KERS. That has to be demoralizing for the others. 7) The movable wing is a bit of a novelty that didn't seem to make much difference at least at Australia. Maybe other tracks it will be more effective. 8) Correct decision to exclude HRT from participating. The easy thing would be to let them race all things considered, but there has to be some risk involved with showing up untested and dog slow. That said I hope they improve and become a real team soon. 9) Alonso had a poor start and had to fight his way back through the field. The Ferrari didn't seem as strong as it looked in winter testing. 10) Button made a poor decision not to let Massa by immediately after passing him off the track. It cost him 20+ seconds for the drive-thru penalty. Boneheaded move of the race. McLaren will be very competitive this year, racing for second behind Vettel of course.
This pic has kindof a "haunting" look to me: http://www.autoblog.com/photos/2011-australian-grand-prix-0/full/#4004125 Image Unavailable, Please Login
I feel for Mark. Much like Massa though his team mate just gets it done somehow consistently better than he does.
I actually like it. It seems it doesn't give enough help to get past an equal or near equal car... but it does get you past a much slower car. I was afraid it would be too effective, and have driver's battling to be P2 going in to the last lap... (no one wanting to be the sitting duck in P1).
VERY optimistic. Ferrari in left field again.....seems Mac has passed the Scuderia and RBR continue to dominate via Adrien Newey. I sure hope they have some upgrades for better mechanical grip back in Maranello that can be installed before next race or it could be ugly again. Petrov is not near the driver Alonso is and beat him fair and square.....shows the F150 needs a lot of work.
We should all be patient and remember it's just the first race of the season. Still plenty more to go. Ferrari were beaten today, yea, but they were not that far. I believe they're as fast as Mclaren. They just need to get adjusted to the tyres. Thats what cost Massa today..
Good race, and great drive by Vettel and Petrov. IMHO, Heidfeld is the one that should never have gotten the Renault seat as a Hulkenberg would have done a much better job.
Agreed. Do you REALLY need help to get past a much slower car? I don't think they need to be movable, just adjust them where you want them and go with it, no limit to the angles. Bet me, by the time the season ends, somebody's 'movable rear wing' is going to fail and cause a major crash, if not for that car then a car near or behind it. I think it's obvious Ferrari has a major tire issue, when they were right Alonso and Massa were setting fastest laps, but there was NO consistency. It seemed to me that Alonso - and Webber - must have changed tires about 10 times each, every time I looked up it seemed like one of those two was in the pits.
Well, it's not like he was sitting on his gearbox for half the race. Alonso actually did a good job from recovering from a poor start, but Massa once again drove backwards. He had a great start, but from then on spent his time driving his mirrors, watching other cars catch him and overtake. Sure, he spent a bunch of laps making his car very wide with Button behind, but meanwhile the cars in front motored away, and behind Alonso cruised up a few seconds a lap faster. Later on in the race, Button blew the wings off Massa's car with an easy pass. Massa didn't overtake anyone, he just went backwards - he was beaten by two Saubers, one a rookie in his first ever F1 race!!! (the fact that the Saubers were disqualified and Massa gained two positions gratis the stewards doesn't mean he drove any better). Alonso at least managed to overtake people and gain positions from the start. Sorry, but Massa is really useless, and the relative performances just today of Alonso vs. Massa is yet another illustration. It's not the car's fault that Alonso can move up the field and Massa only moves down. McLaren really surprised everyone with their pace with the untested floor/exhaust configuration, and their races were the longest runs the car has done this season, since they couldn't manage a race distance in testing! Hamilton was able to keep close to the pace of Vettel early on until he damaged the floor, so Ferrari should be worrying. McLaren leapfrogged them with one upgrade, and now instead of being second best, close to Red Bull, Ferrari is just third best and a long way back. Imagine, too, how quick the Red Bulls would be if their KERS was working!! Ferrari really needs to go into panic mode now and get working on some serious upgrades, or they are going to be left behind by Red Bull and McLaren.
I know Kubica had the bad wreck, but was I dreaming or did David Hobbs say 'had his arm whacked off' last night??????
http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=312815 Amputation was a consideration as so much damage was done to his arm, hand and shoulder. Red Bull is way strong, mc fools everyone, pirelli has much to learn, Ferrari has even more work.
From this race, it seems that it's pretty obvious .... to all but Ferrari ... that the Pirelli hard compound is junk. When Webber only spent 15 laps on the hard compound, the commentators were talking about how they should have "lasted longer". But I suspect the reason for the change was that Webber discovered how *SLOW* the hards were. Did anyone happen to notice that only one driver was subjected to *two* stints on the hard compound? Ayup. Massa -- shafted by Ferrari again. I'm beginning to think Ferrari are miffed at Schumi coming back with Brawn / Mercedes, and are taking it out on Massa. That, or they want to make sure Alonso focuses on chasing Red Bull and McLaren, instead of spending half the season trying to nerf his teammate off track (like last year). Massa had a great start from the dirty side of the track. But then he was tasked to wait for Alonso (and hold up Button in the process). And they only let Massa run 22 laps on the soft compound. But Ferrari wasn't doing much better with Alonso, doing three stops to two each by Vettel, Hamilton, and Petrov. (But then, Alonso has always been a bit hard on his tires. Hamilton used to be a tire killer, too -- but he managed on two stops, even dragging his floor.) Great new tires: they don't rubber in the track, they just generate marbles. Oh peachy. That's gonna help with passing ---- NOT. DRS: Dumb Regulation Scenarios. Watch out for the Red Bulls when they figure out how to get KERS to actually *add* power to the car. (From the interviews, it almost sounds like RBR found that using KERS hurts their engine reliability, so far.)
