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

Super race loved it.

Drivers that stood out to me were Sutil, <(given his time out last year) obviously Kimi, and Fred awesome drive as well.

Vettel great as he is nice to see him and the Bulls not having quite as easy as I thought it might be.

Webber unbelievable he was moon walking again at the start.

As for Ham he did the best he could with what Merc served up for him, certainly a step up from last years effort, maybe the tyre strategy they chose was suspect but probably would have finished in a similar position.

Just realized Webber no KERS, wheel spinning at the start.

 

Are we going to get this conspiracy BS every race this year?

Just maybe Alonso drove faster than Massa? If Massa was so fast, why didn't he finish 3rd just hanging on to Alonso's rear wing?

I thought both drivers drove to their potential. Kimi just had a better car set up for the tire strategy and drove brilliantly to exploit it. RB faded, Merc surprised us with pace, Force India shown, and McLaren disappointed.

 

Weren't you arguing with me that this low-drag spa rear wing had nothing to do with downforce make up your mind already hehe.

And most teams did a 3-4 stopper as predicted on Pirelli's new "stellar" compounds. The race showed that Lotus was leagues easiest on the tires. Mercedes were not easy on the tires at all, even though ham was out on the mediums for 10 more laps on his 2nd stint than everyone else, he was losing 0.5-1s a lap though. Sutil from force India had led the race several times and was set to at least finish 4th but then his supersofts dropped off the cliff in 3 laps, and I have to say in the race Force India was probably the 2nd easiest on the tires after Lotus with an avg of 25 laps on the mediums (times were still very competitive) and contrary to the commentator it didn't look like he was holding up Vettel because the laptimes showed Vettel was actually losing .1-.3s off sutil's pace while both Ferraris were gaining .4-.7s on Sutil/Vettel.

Malaysia will be interesting with higher track temps...I wonder if Pirelli will be as aggressive with the compounds there as well.

 

I have reviewed the data, your statement re MB losing half a second per lap is completely false. The car was fine on tires, Lotus were the only ones who really stood out regarding tire deg.

Red Bull's rear wig of course had to do with downforce, red bull simply opted for the drag benefit of the reduced rear wing which obviously didn't fare well for their tires as they were indeed sliding around a bit.

 

Be interesting to see how the 'hard' and 'medium' compounds are in the heat. 32-33C is predicted and right now according to a long term,(10 day) forecast the race weekend should be fairly dry. Of course the tropics may say otherwise.

Compounds for the first group of races
Pirelli reveals tyre compounds for first races of 2013 F1 season - F1 news - AUTOSPORT.com

 

Massa was stuck out on track with bad tires for a couple laps and he subsequently lost a lot of time. Then after Massa pitted he came out into traffic and could not push like Fernando could most of the race due to traffic. Who knows where Massa could have finished but if Fernando could have passed him then that's what he should have done, on his own. Also, NO team will ever pit the trailing car first. Priority is always given to the car with the higher position.

 

I have also become much less of a dedicated Tifosi than I used to be after all the shenanigans pulled by Ferrari in the last few years to get their golden boy Alonso up front, especially when they constantly do it artificially (team orders instead of pure driving performance and best strategy possible for both drivers).

Even today there was clearly a much worse pit strategy given to Massa's side of the garage for the first stop.

I'm still a Massa fan and glad to see he is starting strong, and of course happy to see either red car achieve a podium! I just detest team orders and preferential strategies for one driver - especially at the beginning of the season.

Ironic that Ferrari pushes Alonso so hard for victory and he hasn't come any closer to a championship than Massa did with minimal pushing from the team in 08.

 

Furthermore, it's also ironic that on today's podium, there were 3 champions with different pasts and possible futures with Ferrari:

#1 - racing for Lotus (Renault), but won championship for Ferrari, and probably won't win another championship again

#2 - racing for Ferrari, but won championship for Renault, and probably won't win another championship again (at this rate, despite the massive pushing and one-sided preferential treatment he constantly gets from the team)

#3 - racing for RBR, and probably will win more championships, and probably will win one for Ferrari in the future too (if his previous hints are to be taken seriously - I think he'll get Massa's seat next year and make Alonso look very slow - IF Alonso's supporters in the team even allow it)

Just my observations and predictions...

 

Your data is wrong. I watched the entire race and I monitored the gaps very closely; if I was wrong no one would've overtaken Hamilton, likewise Hamilton would have been catching more folks instead of moving backwards. (Pitstops not considered)

Only reason ham managed 5th was because Sutil went on supersofts on the last stint and those just fell off for him 3 laps in.

Based on the race, I would have to rank Mercedes as the second worst team, ahead of McLaren on tire deg.. and both button & checo are supposed to be geniuses at looking after their tires. Shame the car isn't letting them exploit their strengths at the moment.

 

Massa made that call btw. He explicitly said on team radio "keep me out, keep me out!" Then his race engineer let him & told him, "ok, the track is all clear and yours, lets see what we can do. Push push push."

 

I agree with some of your assessment, but not this part. Mercedes were shooting for the same 2-stop strategy that Lotus employed but Ham was driving far more conservatively than Kimi. The strategy imploded when the team implored Hamilton not to let Alonso past even though Alonso was on a different strategy. Hamilton engaged Alonso in a brilliant fight to maintain position, but it all went sideways under heavy braking and a produced flat spot. Hamilton made an unscheduled pit for tires, got a bad set and had to pit again after only 15 laps.

I think Mercedes should have gone with the driver and not engaged Alonso in a dogfight, but I thought they were good on their tires. Didn't they do 14 laps on the super softs?

 

Massa actually said "what are we going to do?". Smedley then responded as you reported. I think the call was between Smedley and Massa versus a grand conspiracy to let Alonso pass him. Felipe should have told Rob, "My tires are going off, I need to pit", which a driver should do. Smedley probably felt that if his tires were good, he should take advantage of an open track in front of him.

I understand why Felipe feels the team favors Alonso...because they do (and should). But he can't go in with a chip on his shoulder because it will impact the decisions they make on the track.

 

Say what? Go to f1fanatic.co.uk and have a look for yourself. Dont just watch the race with live timing, that conjecture only gets you so far. Have a peak after the race at the data to make sense of things. Also note Hamilton went on a massively long first stint on super sorts and made them last incredibly well, much better on the supers than just about any other team.

Regardless, tire def for W04 is in a different class altogether compared to W03.

 

That was to be my next post. Thank you.

 

I agree too....If only MS had been given that opportunity, instead of coming back to Mercedes.

 

Schu/Brawn seemed like a good pairing at the time, especially considering Button had won the WDC the previous season. Sometimes, you just can't go home again.

 

Please ... don't argue facts with the conspiracy theorists. They might start to actually believe Egyptians built the pyramids instead of space aliens and the world will end.

Fastest Lap -- hmmm... who had it?
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Evidently Red Bull and McLaren are as unaware of the Sporting Regulations about pitting the lead car before the trailing car as Ferrari are, since they brought in Webber before Vettel and Button before Perez...

Unless said regulation only applies for the first set of stops...


And I believe each of Massa's stops was quicker than Alonso's...

 

This statement is nonsense!

For example, if the "trailing" car is in serious tyre trouble and loosing heaps of lap time and the teams leading car is still doing competitive lap times on tyres that are still in good condition, then the team will adapt their strategy and pit the second car first to limit the damage caused by time lost.

Pitstops are not set in stone, they're a living entity that evolves over the course of a race based on numerous parameters. Some of these parameters are set by the team, some by the individual driver, some by the drivers race engineer, some by the oppositions tactics, some by the track conditions, some by the weather conditions.

Ferrari are in a position where by both drivers and their race engineers can decide to alter their pitstop strategy during races to what suits them best. In this respect the two different sides of the garage operate as a team within a team - hence Rob Smedley's message to Massa to continue on and push with the clear track ahead of him to see what he could do.

For Alonso's side of the garage, it was spotted that it made more sense to pit early and leap frog both Massa and Vettel.

The team principle has the option to over-rule the pitstop decision if it could cause a disadvantage, but it rarely happens.

One of the risks that is run by sticking to a pitstop plan rigidly was amply demonstrated when McLaren told Lewis Hamilton to stay out during the 2007 Chinese Grand Prix. The tyres wore down to the canvas and he ended up in the gravel trap on the way into the pitlane.



Here's Fernando's take on it (From: Formula 1® - The Official F1® Website ):

Q: (Cristobal Rosaleny - Car and Driver) A question for Fernando. Could you please describe the decision process about the second stop because it was the main point of your race and Felipe is not so happy with that. It was two or three laps later.


FA: "There is always the flexibility to anticipate the stop, delay the stop. There are some kind of laps that you programme before the race to do the stops as you predict more or less with the simulations etc.

But there is always a margin of three or four laps shorter or longer depending on how the race goes. How the race goes is the tyre degradation that you are facing through that particular race or the traffic you are facing through that race. In my case we felt we were a lot faster than the cars in front.

We stopped in lap 20 or 21. We felt we had more pace for 18 or 19 laps so it was the right time to start. It was too early then maybe that compromised the full potential of the three stops. For that we could not maybe fight with Kimi because it was too early also for three stops, I think lap 21.

It was enough to jump three place though, Sebastian, Felipe and Sutil. So it was a very good decision at the time but what we didn’t know at the time was the pace of the Lotus. So they did a better job than us and maybe we did a better job than the others in the front."


Yes Ferrari are biased towards Alonso -and why shouldn't they be? - it's the way they have raced for years now and they know that over an entire season, he's their best bet for a WDC (as recent F1 history has recently shown). They're not paying Alonso X amount of Millions more than Massa to play second fiddle!

Considering the last few seasons Massa has had with Ferrari, he's lucky to still be driving for the team (and by that very same token, he's probably lucky to still be in F1!)

 

Well, hopefully this is one of few races this year with such low track temps. Let's see proper track temps so most teams have appropriate heat in their tires.

 

I'm done arguing of the Massa thing, I'm over it. I'm just not really a Ferrari fan.



For lap by lap and all head to head comparisons this website is great, I use it to review tire degradation between the teams. MB are just fine by tire standards.

McLaren F-1 - site about team of Formula 1 Vodafone McLaren Mercedes ... UYP6RxhVsM

 

Ross Brawn doesn't seem so confident about the tyres! (From: Formula 1® - The Official F1® Website ) :

Ross Brawn, Mercedes team principal:

“We had a very good opening stint of the race, making the supersoft tyre last until lap 13 for Lewis and lap 14 for Nico. That convinced us that a two-stop strategy was feasible this afternoon. However, the balance on the medium tyre was not what we needed.

Having committed to two stops, and adjusted our pace accordingly to preserve the tyres, the decision to convert to a three-stop strategy compromised Lewis relative to those cars who had gone for three from the start. The behaviour of the tyres is something we will have to think about and understand over the next days.”

 

boom.

Whereas in contrast the Lotus', Ferraris, Force Indias were able to make them last much longer as you can tell from the race.

Taking data out of context of the race and/or driver is worse than conjecture. Each car and/or driver has a specific threshold and individual capability to cope with deg. As you can tell even the Force India handled deg on the mediums phenomenally well and better than the Merc...only reason why sutil could lead the race several times throughout the gp.

And I agree with ricksb's points that Ham having to work the tires harder to defend his position did not help things...as for the "getting a bad set of tires" well, that's a lot of speculation and a whole other debate =)

 

Strangely, Mercedes were the opposite of almost all the other teams in that they were good at looking after their super-soft compound tyres but couldn't really get the best out of the medium compound tyres.

Almost all of the other teams couldn't use the super-soft compound tyres for long (in some cases they were shot after three laps!), but they were pretty good on the medium compound.

This has to be a big concern for Mercedes (and what Ross Brawn wants to look into in more detail).

Can you imagine Lewis Hamilton spending an entire season having to drive each race at a reduced pace in order to conserve the tyres due to race tactics? - that's just going to frustrate him! - he's a born racer! - not a tyre tester!

 

Great job Kimi!

And kudos to the men in red. Someone has to keep Vettel lower on the podium (or off!).