Poll: Australian Grand Prix 2019, Melbourne - Race 1/21
- Thread starter Shimmy
- Start date
Soldato
Well done to Bottas.
But what a boring race.
But what a boring race.
Not surprised Vettel had been given the less favourable strategy and likely turned down the engine as no hope in catching the others in front. It's too early in the season to be ruffling feathers in your driver lineup. Leclerc knows the deal. Merc would have done the same so it's hardly a big deal.
Man of Honour
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- 21 Nov 2004
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Well, I didn’t expect that result. Really pleased for Bottas. Ferrari third fastest and vettel already being protected from Leclerc. Creates a headache for Merc if Bottas wins the first few.
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Soldato
I'll be interested to know what the damage was doing to Lewis' car and also when it occurred. I don't remember him hitting anything and from being quite sluggish in the 2nd phase of his start, he seemed of the pace from the start.
Soldato
Man of Honour
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New rules make overtaking worse whilst aiming to improve it? Haven’t heard that one before
Soldato
Excellent news Hamilton didn’t win!
Caporegime
Albert Park is always rubbish for overtakes, though. I'm not sure there has ever been a really good race there. I wish they'd pick better tracks for the season opener and finale.
Caporegime
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- 18 Oct 2002
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Yup, at least the season is usually done by or in Brazil now so Abu Dhabi isn't really a factor, Australia is the worst advert for F1 possible, okay good atmosphere but horrible race consistently year after year.
If a bunch of people didn't pit early for no reason after last year showed there is no reason to on these tires then we'd have had pretty much a start to finish procession except some failures, engine blow ups and some of the guys starting on harder tires maybe making up a place or two by pitting later. Instead all the guys who pit WAY too early lost an insane amount of positions and there wasn't close to a need to pit that early. I think Kimi kickstarted it and Vettel went way too early, Merc as usual over reacted to a poor strategy call from Ferrari and also pit Ham too early but with better tire wear he coped far better than Vettel did.
The season opener needs to be a track that is conducive to overtaking. How many new fans tune in for F1 and think I'll give it a shot this season, watch Australia and assume every race is like that and don't bother again assuming the rules are crap, one team wins everything and there is no overtaking. It's absurd to me that F1 hasn't realised how truly disastrous it is to have Australia (at all ) as the first race. Australia needs to build a new track or adapt something they have to F1 that allows overtaking because Albert Park is a trash race.
Monaco at least has exciting literally balls to the walls qualifying but also a dire dire race. Singapore looks great at night, qualifying is closer to Monaco levels of difficulty/exciting and the race actually has more overtaking than Australia, which considering the track style is crazy.
I think people are already massively over reacting to the gap. Same way Ham wins as slowly as possible and manages gap to the guys behind him to get the car home with as little wear and tear as possible, after they pit him too early and really after the first corner he knew 1st was gone, so he went about getting 2nd as slowly as possible in the same way. As happened so often last year, lack of big tire deg meant the softest tire was the better tire to be on for as long as you can make it work and Hamilton had zero issues maintaining the gap to Bottas until they pit him to 'cover' Vettel who pitted too early.
I do think Bottas was more aggressive and better off the start and it's a good sign, and his pace didn't drop off significantly in the second half of the race as it so often has but part of that was being on the correct tire strategy . I hope he's better this year but people are reading into the gap that he'll be in for the title, which frankly I sincerely doubt, but we'll see.
Renault at large just had a terrible day, only engine failure, wing exploded like it was made of glass... surprised frankly that with the hit on one side that it didn't snap off only the right side of the wing. Terrible start for Ricciardo. Honda get a podium so Renault and Mclaren are in a room somewhere making a voodoo doll of that Honda engine.
Associate
Completely agree. Always disappoints. Bin it, adapt it, or move it somewhere else in the season.
Soldato
What a great start to the season, factory will be buzzing tomorrow
Associate
I seem to remember Hamilton going off in Quali, as cars in parc ferme if damaged caused in that off guess they cant of fixed it? would have thought merc would have picked it up pre race if it was the case. Could be wrong though.
Great race from Max today, good to see a nice clean overtake from him against one of strongest rivals on a tricky track.
As others have echoed, never been a track for overtaking so hard to deduce much from it, however did feel to me that cars could follow a bit closer/keep up around the corners better thrn last year but could be a placebo effect.
Great result for Bottas securing max points!
Great race from Max today, good to see a nice clean overtake from him against one of strongest rivals on a tricky track.
As others have echoed, never been a track for overtaking so hard to deduce much from it, however did feel to me that cars could follow a bit closer/keep up around the corners better thrn last year but could be a placebo effect.
Great result for Bottas securing max points!
Watched a 'race' for the first time in 3 years . Two or three teams with a realistic chance of winning , if they get their garage overtaking right , others just make up the grid places , going at nearly 10 seconds slower than pole , cars sound rubbish , drivers are characterless and teams so up themselves , F1 is dead and no great loss after that utter borefest I will just wait for the F1 extremeists and apologists to tell me I'm missing the finer points of F1 now. Sorry , its just slow go cart racing for rich kids. Never again.
Caporegime
