Spoiler Thread--Aussie GP

Actually I'm kinda digging this tire thing. It leads to a much more interesting race.

 

Who would have predicted that? Ford must be kicking itself ... the minute we leave the car does well. DC was racy throughout...

BAR was struggling. Mclaren was really eating its tires. Webber had a really close call with the backmarkers - he nearly went into the wall avoiding them. Toyota was really struggling

Alonso's pace was stunning - 13 to 3. Barrichello was nearly as good: 11 to 2.

 

Great race

Renault did an excellent job and definitely deserved their first and third
Rubens showed yet again that he deserves his Ferrari drive
Webber did well
Mclaren seem to have some speed
B.a.r has fallen something chronic

Biggest respect is to Red Bull Racing and D.C honestly like most I thought they would be fighting minardi/jordan not for podiums. D.C seems to really have been reinvigorated both in racing (im not sure he would of pulled his start line criss cross in the Mercedes, definitely overtaking move of the race) also in public appearance, he has been on a fair bit during the telecast here and really seems to have swapped pr David for race for fun David

 

Stupid Webber.... and he still got 5th.....

 

Burino was in 4th when Schumacher tangled.

Great strategy.

I knew I should have brought my Sparco suit with me to China...

 

I'm so happy for Fisichella!!
Biggest surprise so far = Red Bull

Is it me or the McLaren's weren't that fast. Kimi did okay but look at Montoya's best lap (1.28.615). Nothing great.

Schumacher/Heidfeld incident...no comments.
Dissapointing results for Trulli and Villeneuve. wake up JV!

Sato and Button not finishing the race at the very end so they can have new engines. You can't do that? Everyone will do the same from now on.
Heck...Jacques should have done the same.

 

When the new car, F2005, comes out it will the new engine called 055.

 

There was some discussion at our F1 party about Schumi's shunt, and some felt that the move was deliberate on his part to give them a reason to retire the car.

Certainly MS had to know that squeezing the other car off the track was going to force it straight through the turn, given the lack of traction on the grass. MS has also deliberately caused shunts before when it was to his advantage (Australia 94 comes to mind)

Thoughts?

Forza Rubens!

 

Schumi's line is his own, and only the brave and the brazen dare encroach upon it. Didn't he do the same to Monty last year?

 

I don't think so! MS just closed the door... expecting he'd be able to brake without incident... but when he got wheels off, he lost the ability to brake hard... but MS could not easily see that (he's got to be focused on apex and track out at that point, not his mirrors).

As another said, I suspect most future races will have numerous that just "retire"... the rules don't require a reason... at least until those rules get changed... they are bizarro rules. If you have to retire because of engine, you get penalized; but if you retire for something else (excessive understeer, for example), you get to replace the engine!?!? Somehow I don't see that rule lasting for long. If it does last, they might as well change it to "You can change your engine if you don't get any points." That's better than silly retirements.

 

I do agree that DC and the Red Bull team was a surprise contender. Ferrari pit strategy beat him and Webber though. Great drive by Barichello nonetheless, he deserves the second place.

Congratulations go out to Fisichella and Alonso for a great race. Fisichella ran a perfect race with no mistakes and Alonso has my respect for the amazing drive that he had.

2005 season is shaping up to be very interesting!

 

Coincidence? Or not?

After all, look how well corporate pressure has worked for Toyota. Micro-management, micro-results.

After a pretty good showing early, I'm guessing Trulli's tires "went walkabout" on him. But then, I had to junk the Toyota suspension on my old Celica AllTrac to get neutral handling that wasn't hard on tires, too.

I think Michael is getting ready to retire. I noticed last year, too: If he doesn't qualify well, he doesn't really try. Rubins can come up from mid-pack, or even from the back, but Michael seems to just sit back there and sulk.

Go Rubino!

 

... A race completely dominated by the first qualifying weather, and IMO makes a mockey of qualifying. I will concede that it jumbled up the grid and in some ways made the race interesting.

Drivers:
- Coulthard, brilliant drive.
- RB, very good drive.
- Alonso, excellent drive.
- Fisi, good drive, did what he had to, which was a lot easier than Alonso ... but importantly he did not throw his chance away.
- Webber, okay ... team squandered their chances.
- Heidfeld, er, over optimistic passing attempt but did not deserve to get knocked out by a poor blocking effort by MS.
- MS, yawn.
- Trulli, truly useless again and squandered a good opportunity.
- Sato, mistake in practice was costly, especially as it was on the out lap (like Villeneuve, who was a mobile chicance all weekend) ... but difficult conditions.

Teams:
- Renault, excellent.
- Red Bull, bloody excellent.
- Ferrari, appear to be fast, but not sure if it was not just another case of brilliant strategy.
- Williams, hmmm, car seems okay, but race strategy was unbelievably poor ... just like last year and the years before. They need to learn to play the modern game.
- McLaren, disappointing after early practice promise.
- Sauber ... not much changed.
- BAR, oh **** what is happening. And they purposely DNF'ed that race ... so sort of cheating already!
- Toyota, actually looked like they had some race pace ... but they fell off.

Biggest wanker of the meeting:
- Paul Stoddart. If Australia looses the GP because of this guy I'm going to be extremely pissed. I do not fully understand what game he is up to, but you cannot take a sport defined by rules to the High Court and get the rules changed ... that is just wrong you WANKER! And I guess the Australian judge is a complete moron too.

There were some good battles and I enjoyed that. Don't mind the one tyre rule so far ... as we appeared to see more on track action because of it.

Roll on Malaysia ... I think we will see over half the starters do engine swaps, which will be embarrassing for the sport.

Also has anybody thought about possible damage to these engines sitting still for 2 weeks. Will that cause any issues?

Pete

 

If you don't get your front tires beyond the mid-point of the car you're passing before turn-in, then you definitely have to yield the line. That's just racing. Some would argue you need to be even with the car before turn-in to claim the line.

 

Coulthard had a brilliant start. After that he went backwards. RB and Alonso steadily moved up the field throughout the race. So, I'd rank those in the opposite order.

Unless you are handicapping the drivers based on your own estimation of the capabilities of the cars??? I guess your ratings make sense if you are assuming Coulthard was "brilliant" because his car must be a POS because Red Bull couldn't possibly have made it good already; and Alonso was better than RB because his new Renault must still be lesser than the old Ferrari.

Agree there... truly disappointing.

Worse, he didn't seem to be able to move up the field... even there in the back. Tells me that he's fast (a good qualifier), and perhaps can hold his position, but not a head-to-head racer. A bit surprised at him languishing so.

HOWEVER, given MS was also back there, maybe it had to do with some erratic driving among the pack back there coupled with a track that's not easy to pass on.

agreed!

I've wondered the same... I don't like to let my Stradale sit for 2 weeks. It'll be interesting.

 

Maybe but his race pace was good ... and unexpected to me anyway.

That is exactly what I was doing ... I always rate drivers on what they do in the machinery they have under them. You have to rate the cars first. Thus RB coming second in the championship for the last few years is no big deal ... just about any of the drivers on the F1 grid could put the dominate Ferrari 2nd behind MS. Hopefully this year will be different and we will have a good battle with Renault ... and hopefully Webber.

The BAR's were close to the dissappointment of the meeting.

Pete

 

Agree on the BAR performance. They might realize too late what a mistake it was to let go of Dave Richards.

 

For me the qualifying was a joke....the race organizers might have well just pulled out a pack of cards and asked the driver's to choose a card to determine grid positions. It's a farce....and this is supposed to be the pinacle of motorsport! Pffffff!!

The race itself was a great disappointment. The rule changes were supposed to neutralise Ferrari and make things more exciting. Well, they certainly gave Schumacher the finger, but the race itself was otherwise as boring as hell. With no tyre changes (and the unexpected hassles that go with them) the pit stops were boringly routine, and did nothing to add to the excitement of the race.

Good for Barichello though ...and for Coulthard, Fisichella and Alonso.

I'm looking forward to the new A1 searies in September. If this is what F1 is going to become, I may just be looking for new thrills.

Cheers, MARK

 

yeah that occurred to me when schuey was finally (after looking like filling his helmut with tears because of the slow-ass marshals) pushed back on track and i commented to someone that he'd probably just go park it now so he's got a fresh engine for next race... and he did.

 

i'd like to see 3 gallon fuel tanks... make those suckers pit every few laps.

 

I would have to agree with this also. If qualifying is to take both times and combine them to make up the grid, then all of the cars need to be on a level playing field. IMHO i think the FIA needs to rethink this and state if the first qualifying session of second has a severe change in track condition then the drivers fastest times from the last practice session will be used instead of the qualifying sessions time.

As for the rules package concerning downforce and engine horsepower. The FIA is going to lose every time. Next year with the 2.4 liter V-8 rule how long will it be before we have little V-8's putting out as much as the current V-10's ??

The way i see it if Max and Bernie want to slow down F1 and control costs. They need to have a quite simple rules package stating any thing goes as long as the engine is no larger that x liters the car must have 4 wheels and pass a safety crash test..... The catcher all cars must run on Uniroyal TigerPaw P195/75R14 tires and they get one set per season and the FIA holds on to them between rounds Also any team out of the top 3 can claim 1 of the top 3 cars within 45 of the finish for $750,000. Therefore the teams would have to be willing to build a car that can be had by the competition it would take away a lot of the cloak and dagger stuff that is going on in F1 right now.

Other than that i was pissed about MS getting punted off, Rubens did drive a great race and now it look as if Renault is going to be our main comp this season not McLaren as if first thought.

Rob

 

Nah. Next year: "I'm thinking of a number between one and 1000 ...". Or a nice game of darts at the pub -- hit the number of your place on the grid.

Nah, there's some pretty exotic rubber on the street these days.

I still think they ought to make the F1 cars pass CAFE emissions standards -- that gets the megabucks of engineering by the manufacturers' teams working on something they can put on the assembly line.

After all: It's not how much they spend, it's how much they get in return for the investment.

 

What's the clarification regarding a car that retires from the race and being able to change engines for next time? Is that correct? Or do they have to prove that something broke in the engine. I thought the announcers were talking about that but we were in a bar and couldn't hear them too well.

 

The guys on SpeedTV said the rule was "any car that has finished half the race distance or more and does not take the checkered flag can change engines for the next race without penalty"

I like what BAR did, playing the rule for all it's worth