Australian Grand Prix 2014, Melbourne - Race 1/19

Enjoyed that. Hope Williams continue to build on their performance, that's a potential race winner they've got.
 
Great opening race of the season. :)



Ceryndrion said:
Nice to see that young kev completely demolished button there, button should just pack up and go home, he's finished.. let the new boys race you old fart..
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Can we stop the rubbish/baiting/trolling in these threads this year please?
 
Thought that was quite good. Glad my Mrs popped baby out before the start of the season so I could make use of the night feeds.

Shame for Massa, the bad luck continues. I think what he sad about a one race ban for kobi is a bit harsh.
 
So…what a good race!

Obviously it's still very early to make any firm conclusions but here's my quck run-down of what I think we've learned:

Mercedes

We expected them to be quick - and they were.

The gap wasn't as big as some were predicting but how much of this was down to Nico managing his pace we can't know. However, fantastic drive by ROS - full credit to him.

Hamilton's bad luck continues but his quail performance was encouraging and he sounded much more mature and grounded in the interview following his retirement.

My only worry (and I said it pre-season) was that we replace RBR dominance with Merc dominance and the rest of the season becomes predictable/boring again.

However, I expect more competition between ROS and HAM than there was between VET and WEB.

RBR

I thought their pre-season issues were hiding a potentially good car and Ricciardo's performance showed this. Again, another great drive (all weekend) from the young Australian.

As much as everyone enjoyed seeing Vettel DNF, I would have liked to have seen how he performed from P12. I expect he'll be competitive over the remainder of the season and I'm looking forward to the battle between the two RBR drivers.

McLaren

What a great way to start after their performance last season.

Brilliant drive from MAG and great work by BUT to get up to P4 from P10. It should be interesting to see how MAG develops over the course of the season.

Ferrari

Apparently both cars had some technical issues so today might not be the best representation of their true pace. Kimi looks to be struggling with the new brakes but Alonso looking consistent as ever.

Williams

Really unfortunate that MAS was taken out on the first lap but what a drive by BOT. Even with his puncture he managed P6. This could be a good season for Williams and it's not before time. :)

Lotus

I don't think they were expecting either car to finish considering their pre-season problems, they probably got more laps done than they were expecting.

Toro Rosso

Both drivers did well in quail and I was impressed by KYT in the race. JEV held his own as well.

Force India

A good result for Hulk despite the obligatory train. Perez starting this season where he left off last season - pretty uneventfully…

Sauber

Both cars finishing just outside the points - they don't seem to have changed much from last season.

Caterham

Obviously a shame that both cars retired after they looked consistent in pre-season testing.

Good to see Kobayashi back to his usual self. :D

Marussia

A good result for Chilton in P14 but I expect this was more to do with other cars retiring than an improvement in performance. Max maintaining his record of finishing races which I guess is a good thing but there's really not a lot of point in keeping this team.


Can't wait for Malaysia, hope HAM gets a bit more luck next time out.
 
FrankJH said:
Exactly, depending on circuit / circumstances it looks like there could be a few teams competing for wins / podiums
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In general I get the feeling that if Merc/Williams sort out qualifying then from that race I would think the Merc engines will start out front and stay out front.

I think the main reason Riccy ended up so high up the grid was mostly the rain. The only time RBR showed "genuine" pace was with soft tyres vs several mercs on the medium tyre in free practice.

A bit debatable how it will go, was Mag being held up by Riccy too much, was it the track, with a longer straight would the Merc have eaten him alive early and pulled away, who knows. Like last year when a car got artificially high you'd often see them hold everyone up for ages and be hard to pass. We have to see how Riccy is over the season in a better car, is he a very hard to pass driver, or did the track suit making it difficult to overtake, who knows.

My gut feeling is that a normal race is going to be looking a bit like Merc engines qualify 1-6 in general and few if any Renault's/Ferrari's will pass them over the season.

Anyone seen any stats, how many Merc's were over taken vs how many Merc's did the overtaking?
 
Well that race showed my true feeling for each driver. I was begging for Rosberg to get a failure, so I'm not a Mercedes fan, just a Hamilton fan after all. That or because Rosberg is a WDC contender this year, he's now the enemy as well.

I like Ricciardo and Magnussen though so that made up for the lack of Hamilton on the podium, I hope Magnussen can match Hamiltons debut season achievements, that'd be impressive stuff.
 
But you would say differnt if the collision would have cause harm to Massa, so i think a 1 race ban is fair. You cant just steam into the first corner and hope everyone moves out the way for you...
 
Great race, shows who the potential of drivers over the cars. "Fix zee car." :D
Enjoy the taste of champagne on the podium Daniel and Kevin, hope you continue to do so throughout the season. :)
 
It could be viewed that Bottas was very lucky indeed to survive his connection with the wall. Not disputing he deserved points for a good race, but do that again and he may not be so lucky


Conditions of the race will not have stressed any componants that much, will be much more interesting to see how hotter conditions etc suit, or not, the different teams / cars
 
Irish_Tom said:
Penalise the team with a fine rather than the driver specifically.
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Thats too harsh really

Unfair for Massa, but no one at fault so should be racing incident


Edit Ted in his notebook has confirmed that even if drivers finish races, if they are lapped too many times then they are unclassified in the end result ( ie with more retirements) finishers may still not get points
 
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Lopéz said:
Enjoyed that. Hope Williams continue to build on their performance, that's a potential race winner they've got.
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Everytime I see the car in the Martini colours, I like it more and more.

Was a good race, hopefully the whole season can see a good variation of positions and teams at the front, giving us some good action. :cool:
 
That was a decent race. Shame for Hami and some surprise unreliability for Mercedes given how strong they were in testing. Still, we haven't seen that kind of a gap for a while! I wonder if the other teams will be able to catch up.
 
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