Australian Grand Prix 2013, Melbourne - Race 1/19

Skeeter said:
Seems Mercedes are still in no mans land.
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Mostly but to be fair the cold conditions today and first race at a street circuit aren't entirely indicative of overall pace just yet.

Also merc lost too much driving slowly to try to get a two stopper to work only to switch to a three anyway, which at best would probably have just stuck lewis just a bit closer to massa and vettel anyway.

Iam sure the mclaren guys are not too happy at the moment, at least the last time they had a dog of a car they had a driver who could drag it around by the scruff of its neck this time they have a pair of drivers who are only impressive if everything is in the right place.
 
Malaysia will be hotter next week i think and it should be better for merc. they did well in barca.

mite be even closer next week!


so far looks like the right move for hamilton to leave mclaren.
 
That stat they said for Kimi, he finished every single lap last season except one, because he got lapped when he got trapped on the escape route with the locked gate.... that was pretty much the funniest moment last year, I love Kimi.

I think Hamilton still has set up improvements to come, ultimately as he does races on different tracks he'll learn more about the car and start to have a prefered setup, how that car reacts on different types of tracks, though ultimately it was being on the wrong strategy for the car that hurt him most today. Unfortunately that was all too common last year at Mclaren, would be nice if Merc had got that right from the start, Ferrari, Lotus and Red Bull got the optimum strategy for the tyres, their car and the conditions, Merc didn't, that cost Hamilton too often at Mclaren last year.

Think they screwed Massa too much though, when he got out in open air when everyone else pitted, they ruined his chance to go longer then do a faster shorter last stint. A couple of cars looked really awful on their tyres before pitting, but compared to last year more cars pitted without appearing to slide around like crazy. Everyone pitting off the super softs at the start, Vettel and co looked a bit slow but weren't sliding out of every corner.

Another piece of poor coverage was Sutil, he came out of the pits with Hamilton at the other end of the pit straight, he was only 13seconds or so behind Massa at the end of the first sector I think, then was 20 seconds down with Hamilton right behind him at the end of that lap, Sutil must have locked up badly, or gone off, done something, yet they both didn't show it and they didn't spot that he lost 6-7 seconds somewhere on that lap... while also predicting Sutil would lose out on points due to how slow he was... then didn't even lose one more position.
 
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Very odd feeling watching that. It's the first time in years where I haven't been routing for two drivers from the same team and also where expectations for those drivers and that team haven't been extremely high.

I think it meant I was less emotionally involved but was able to enjoy the race as a whole from the front of the grid to the back.

It's going to take a bit of getting used to. :p
 
Anyone else pleased to see Massa somewhat close to his best? Very bad strategy call cost him big time today. A lot of positives for him to takeaway from today's race.

Good to see Ferrari giving him first dibs on strategy too.
 
The program that follows the F1, 9 Days In Summer, is one of the best F1 archival films ever made.

The fact it's about the best F1 engine ever and the most influential F1 car ever helps. *and my home team too :D *
 
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