Poll: Australian Grand Prix 2017, Melbourne - Race 1/20

[KiNgPiN83]

I think we have to wait and see what happens over the next 3 to 4 races but right now I think we have the following plus and negative points:

Plus points-

* Ferrari are on par/better than Mercedes. Hopefully this means we have more than just team mates challenging for poles.
* The cars look nice. They really do! Didn't help keep me entertained though.
* Sky's graphics and overlays seemed improved. Not sure on Pat Symonds as they don't appear to be using him as a technical resource. Much prefer a Ant Davidson or other ex driver with a personality.

Negative points-

* Following/overtaking doesn't appear that good due to the dirty/disturbed air from the wider cars aero heavy cars and the ability to break later into corners. This means we'll see a lot of pit stop overtaking/over/undercutting. (I'm not saying this hasn't been an issue before but these new regulations haven't addressed things in this department at all!)

* Performance. Again, it's always been an issue in that you have front runners, mid field and back markers but other than Ferrari catching Merc nothing else has improved. The new designs have done nothing to fix this... Renault and Honda definitely need to up their games too. I know he engine isn't the be all and end all but it's probably the most important piece of the puzzle when putting a car together.

Aside of positives and negatives my biggest fear is that they can't fix this formula and those negatives above. They've just introduced this massive change and can hardly tell the teams that next year will be a certain spec. I think we will be stuck with these cars and their qualities for at least 2 years now. Hopefully under Ross Brauns direction they come up with something suitable though to address these concerns regarding racing/following/overtaking etc.

I know a lot of you hate the engines but I like them. Obviously they are expensive but that's because it's still relatively new technology wise. I'm sure all other iterations in the past were just as complicated/expensive when they first came along. I'm still yet to hear one live but I've heard they are far more complex and interesting sounding rather than just a screaming beast. (I heard the screaming beasts and other than the start where you here them idle, rev up and then get going as one they do get a bit grating... maybe that was just the amount of JD the night before? :/ Who knows... either way it makes them more accessible and enjoyable for kids which has to be a good thing for the future success of the sport?) Plus the manufactures themselves aren't interested in V8's so the reversal is a moot point anyway!

However in saying all the above I'll still keep watching as I do enjoy the spectacle and the sport as a whole and with Bernie gone hopefully things can improve. The biggest problem F1 will always have is that it's fairly open and one team will always generally get it more right than everyone else and leave the rest to play catchup. Unfortunately for us Merc had it really right for the last 3 seasons. I'm a Hamilton racer fan and it's been good to see him successful but I'd prefer a bigger fight... For those that don't like that formula GP2/3 had some cracking races last year and I'd thoroughly recommend catching them for some wheel to wheel action. F1 becoming a closed formula or whatever you call it would be awful... I want to see them come up with cool stuff and look different.

Anyway, this is turning into a bit of a wall of text and my phone will probably lose it any moment so I'll stop there.

 

[RoboCod]

Not the most riveting of races but at least it bodes well for the rest of the season not just being about Mercedes.

As for the Hamilton booing, no doubt much of the crowd would have been booing Vettel too (because how often he screwed Webber). You just couldn't hear them for all the Ferrari fans cheering his win.

Booing is pathetic and really not acceptable whoever it is.

 

[poosemon]

Happy to see F1 up and running again. Will hope that a more open circuit will suit the cars better and we might get a bit more overtaking.

Think Ferrari have a top car this season, Vettel was just waiting for Hamilton to pit so he could break free from him as looked to be held up, especially once Hamilton started boo-hooing about his tyres loosing grip and the Ferrari appearing to be more capable of looking after its tyres.

Think Red Bull have some catching to do, think is a Merc vs Ferrari (and on the form of the race, strongly a Vettel vs Hamilton) Championship.

 

[CaptainRAVE]

Such an improved podium without rosberg. How quickly he will be forgotten.

 

[Emlyn_Dewar]

Wasn't it Michelins Indianapolis incident? If they had turned up with tyres that were safe everyone would have raced!

I'll give you Ferrari's Austria incident

Nah nah, remember Schumacher "trying to engineer a dead heat" at Indy, think he gave up the win. It was to "repay" Rubens for the Austria incident. Farcical F1 finishing.

 

[MissChief]

After avoiding the result all day and very nearly seeing the winner but for a timely look-away I have to say it wasn't the procession many were expecting!

The Ferrari looks far better balanced than the Mercedes who appear to have tire wear issues and, as in just about every season of the Hybrid engines, their aero doesn't work anywhere near as well when following another car. Vettel was able to maintain a decent distance so as not to be left behind at the beginning of the race and Lewis seemed to wear the tyres a little bit faster because he was pushing so hard.

Some excellent moments and the drivers now seem to realise they need to PASS people rather than just waiting for DRS so we may see some more aggression from the drivers.

One disappointment was the number of cars and runners lapped. Everyone up to 6th and Perez would have been lapped in another lap or two and I suspect Vettel eased off. Some teams really need a kick up the arse and it's shown, once again rather glaringly that you need the full aero and engine package and that **** costs money and a lot of it. With the new aero and old engine formula there's zero chance of anyone other than Ferrari or Mercedes winning a race at the moment. Unless Renault massively up their game I can't see Red bull fighting for wins at all either. Better than Mercedes or Mercedes I guess, but still disappointing. Changes need to be made, but everyone knows that.

 

[KiNgPiN83]

The problem liberty etc will have is that they've just made all the teams spend loads of money on developing these 'new' cars so they can hardly come back and tell them they now have to do y instead of x. I believe we'll be stuck with these while they mature for a couple of years. Hopefully Honda and Renault decide to develop the bejeesus out their engines though as they aren't looking good right now and we need another team or two at the front. We can't just swap silver for red.. :/

 

[jaybee]

It's all been said already but want to add that I'm disappointed the way things are looking and moving towards...

 

[Steampunk]

Remove some aero, let them use ground effects. You can do that without mandating whole new cars. The extra aero this year has encouraged the processional racing we all hated before Perelli was brought in to mix things up with limited life tyres and the artificial addition of DRS. It's was well predicted that this year's increased aero would make it harder to follow and overtake as a following car simply loses the downforce they need to make the car work.

 

[MissChief]

I'd have kept the aero the same as it is now and just given them the bigger tyres. More mechanical grip means more passing, especially in slow corners and breaking areas. We'll see what it's like at China and Bahrain.

 

[ScoobyDoo69]

Reading some of the comments here and on social media about Hamilton really confuse me. He acted really well today IMO, showed sportsmanship, even commenting (rightly) on how he feels about the show for the fans. All his radio messages were informational and not whining... never mind.

Anyway, yes boring race really. Nothing really eventful happened. Nice to see Seb winning and doing it comfortably. Bottas did well regardless of first race with the team. Shame for Ricciardo

 

[ThestigGT999]

just watched the highlights, wasn't a bad race slightly boring tbh

Forza Ferrari

 

[MissChief]

Reading some of the comments here and on social media about Hamilton really confuse me. He acted really well today IMO, showed sportsmanship, even commenting (rightly) on how he feels about the show for the fans. All his radio messages were informational and not whining... never mind.

Anyway, yes boring race really. Nothing really eventful happened. Nice to see Seb winning and doing it comfortably. Bottas did well regardless of first race with the team. Shame for Ricciardo

I think it's the good old British attitude of seeing someone be successful and then wanting to see them fall. Admittedly I'm not a huge fan (but I would like to see him do well as a British driver), but I would like to see some decent racing and of Bottas can get in amongst it then we could be in for a treat. Kimi seems like he's not hugely up for the fight TBH although that might suit Ferrari as he'll bring in steady points. I'd love to see someone willing to take the fight to Mercedes and Vettel in the seat next season but I can't really see who it'll be. Grosjean fancies the seat I think but I don't know if Ferrari fancy him. Alonso? Would he go back? New faces might mean not so much bad blood compared to when he left. Alonso might fancy the Mercedes seat though. TBH I've never really rated Wehrlein and Ocon hasn't impressed so far but it's early days.

 

[drunkenmaster]

One of the worst ever Australia races, in part because both the commentary team and the race director were utterly abysmal.

I don't think the commentators even mentioned Stroll pitting early, he was just 52 seconds down after 10 laps and they basically didn't mention it. Palmer had brake issues, but it's not clear he had them earlier in the race, just zero pace, again commentators seemed to make no mention of where he was, how he was so slow or what he was doing. I don't think the race director managed to show either Magnussen or Ericsson actually getting out of the gravel, I'm not sure how they did tbh, they both stopped fully in the gravel, did they get out because heavier cars and fat as hell rear tires let them get enough traction to get out or.. honestly have no clue.

There were some new race directors in the past couple of years because various tracks had noticeably insanely worse race direction but absolutely nothing topped this race, which was the worst choices for what to show in as long as I can remember watching F1.

Even during the race we had Ted about 20 laps after Hamilton asked about potential floor damage, to say maybe he went off. Am I wrong in thinking any time last year he'd have just walked down to Mercedes and asked them what that meant, this year a ridiculous amount of time after the incident he just basically said no clue, not even I asked Merc and they didn't know? Everything about this years show seems laughably poor.


But in terms of the cars and racing, I won't base any opinions on it, Australia has had AWFUL racing for years now. It's a dire track, it doesn't suit modern cars at all, the really tight left right in the middle of the two long straights makes it near impossible to follow closely. It looks decent in qualifying but for racing it's plainly horrible and wider cars at this track was never going to go down well. It's been bad for years, it will always be bad. They need to reprofile the track, improve another Aussie track, build a new track or dump Australia. I'm so fed up with sticking at the races that have been around for ages... when they just suck with the cars, like Monaco.

Hamilton, one of the few times that you might not want to lead. He didn't know if Vettel was going to slipstream and pass him easily as no one has raced these cars yet, I think he had a fairly rare panic and thought he had to pit and got stuck for far too long. Had he stayed out it looks likely Vettel would have been stuck, though he still might have ended up right behind Vettel if later in the race Vettel chose to stop first.

It was a bad race due to the bad track but the 'show' was made worse by the direction and utter lack of information from Brundle/Crofty. Whoever was the race director needs to never be hired again, and LIberty Media need to start moving away from tracks that while they have a nice tradition and atmosphere, just make for horrible races.

 

[Type_R]

Nah nah, remember Schumacher "trying to engineer a dead heat" at Indy, think he gave up the win. It was to "repay" Rubens for the Austria incident. Farcical F1 finishing.

See it was such a 'non-event' I had already forgotten

 

[MikeTheNative]

Racing wasn't particularly good but I at least found the battle for the podium interesting. I agree with dm regarding the race directors, graphics were broke the entire weekend and nobody seemed to have any idea what was going on.

 

[The_Abyss]

I thought the FOM director was once again next to useless, and that took away from what was a pretty average race by Melbourne's low standards. Still, it was great to have competitive F1 back. The Ferrari pace appears reasonably genuine, but I don't think that Mercedes are too far behind, if at all, as Bottas showed great pace in the second half of the race. There was clearly a lot of fuel management going on though, and I think that's the main reason the cars were slower than expected compared to the previous designs - the string of fastest laps at the end illustrated the pace that could be turned on in an instant.

 

[IPBA]

Boring race with very little going on. Not too concerned at Ferrari beating the Mercs. This race reminds of the Malaysia 2015. Classification after lap 1 was Merc/Fer/Merc just like Aus 2017. Ham pitted early as he did on Sunday. Vet went long as Ham came out in traffic, lost time and never ever looked like he could close to Vet and challenge. Also Ham was pretty quick after exiting the pits on Sunday and had Ves not been there Vet would have come out behind. Anyhow well done Ferrari and Vettel. Hoping China provides more racing and not a boring procession due to the nature of the track.

 

[Shimmy]

https://twitter.com/TommyWTF1/status/845971875968811009

 

[SoliD]

When Lewis was interviewed by Webber, it sounded like the crowd booed him, didn't it?

Not sure if it was booing or Lew shouts! Thought following the race he looked quite happy that someone other than his team mate will be challenging them!

Aussie GP is generally boring, and is only ever good because F1 is back, lets see China first!