Formula 1 2019 - Round 1 – Australia

Harika

Let's go for another year of action, set your alarms and roll!



All sessions on Sky F1, the Online Service and tbc
Friday March 15, Free Practice 1, 1:00-2:30
Friday March 15, FP2, 5:00-6:30
Saturday March 16, FP3, 3:00-4:00
Saturday March 16, Qualifying, 6:00-7:00
Sunday March 17, Race, 5:10-7:10


Predictions:
Ferrari Win
Honda podium
No Williamspoints

AMKC

Wow your getting this one in early. So who is going to be up at 3am? I think I will get up at 5am myself 3am is just crazy early but 5am is very early too. Would 6am be to late?

Harika

AMKC wrote: »

Wow your getting this one in early. So who is going to be up at 3am? I think I will get up at 5am myself 3am is just crazy early but 5am is very early too. Would 6am be to late?

New job and those guys are not as nice with the "not doing work at work part" as the old ones :pac:
Will be up for quali at least, race might cheat with the old recording and start watching at 7.

LollipopJimmy

I'll be up for the race, I'm off the drink at the minute and eating clean as feck so itvwill keep me away from the temptation of pub/takeaway

Cookie_Monster

The only race I'll see this year. Sky NZ no longer have the rights, our local telco Spark do. But they've made such a mess of the streaming that they have been forced to give it to TVNZ to run live on free TV.

The same crowd plan on trying to stream the entire rugby world cup here too :pac:

flazio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B03MSlctsPM

Cool_CM

I'm so fecking happy!

flazio

It's very mixed feelings for me for a few reasons.
1. Obviously the sudden passing of Charlie Whiting. It's a cause of death I've seen happen much closer to home so it resonates with me a lot.
2. The new broadcast set up. No more Friday practice to catch up with Ben Edwards, Tony Dogens and Karun Chandok anymore. Am going to have to watch Sky One for qualifying and the race and I feel dirty about it having spent the last 5 years watching a combination BBC, Channel 4, Setanta and Eir Sport to fulfill my season needs. Even the highlights have been heavily shackled by Sky.
Still, looking forward to the on track action. Hopefully some pleasant surprises along the way.

Rossi IRL

Top 3 teams close enough after P1

Williams way off

Sterling Archer

Rossi IRL wrote: »

Top 3 teams close enough after P1

Williams way off

At least at there slowest they are inside the 107% rule

HighLine

Fairly sickened to wake up and see FP1&2 results. Not another f**king year of Muppet and co. having the fastest car.

Harika

It's training and marginal gaps. Tomorrow and Sunday we see as then the BS actually stops.

seamusk84

Good to see a decent turn of pace from Kimi in the Alpha.
McLaren looking fairly sluggish.
Not worried about Merc, reckon Ferrari have more pace than that and we will see it tomorrow.

flazio

Just read the 2nd practice classifications and immediately thought "2 mercs, 2 red bulls and 2 Ferraris, no wait, Raikonnen isn't Ferrari anymore."

pjohnson

Kvyat's FP1 time was set on mediums! Thats impressive. Only driver in t10 to use mediums.

Burkie1203

Stroll 0.4 ahead of Perez

Williams could be lapped 3 or 4 times on sunday

recyclebin

Those practice times are depressing alright. No shake up of the order again. Ferrari and Mercedes and Red Bull to take all the podiums again this year. Williams looking miles off. Norris and McLaren also miles off where they need to be.

HighLine

seamusk84 wrote: »

Not worried about Merc, reckon Ferrari have more pace than that and we will see it tomorrow.

Not sure if Vettel would agree with you. Depressing reading.

“What was all their bull**** about ‘oh we’re in such bad shape’ and so on?” Vettel asked after practice. “I didn’t understand that to be honest.”

However he admitted the scale of Mercedes’ advantage was unexpected. “It was a bit of a surprise. They looked really quick.

“I don’t know if it was just us struggling a bit today or also others. But as a matter of fact I think they were in a league of their own. Maybe everyone else was struggling and then we can turn it around.

“But yeah they look certainly very strong and much stronger than they claimed before the weekend.

https://www.racefans.net/2019/03/15/practice-shows-mercedes-pace-fears-were-bs-vettel/

H3llR4iser

I'd wager they'll be very close come qualifying time - also, last year Mercedes enjoyed an unexpected advantage in Melbourne as well (a lot of us, myself included, thought the championship over Saturday afternoon).

The worrying part - Williams, goodness gracious...everyone expected them to be off the pace, but 2 seconds off the nearest car is "2010 minnows" territory. It might spell a lot of trouble before season end. Claire Williams "over my dead corpse" or not, I'm feeling their only way up is to basically sell to Mercedes...

recyclebin

What changes did Williams have to make to car to make it legal for Melbourne? I'd guess the car is a hatchet job after the car they used for testing was deemed illegal.

H3llR4iser

recyclebin wrote: »

What changes did Williams have to make to car to make it legal for Melbourne? I'd guess the car is a hatchet job after the car they used for testing was deemed illegal.

It's definitely having an influence, the changes involved the suspension...but the question is how the heck did they manage to come up with a car that was very late, slow AND illegal? I feel they're unfortunately pulling a Brabham...

pjohnson

H3llR4iser wrote: »

It's definitely having an influence, the changes involved the suspension...but the question is how the heck did they manage to come up with a car that was very late, slow AND illegal? I feel they're unfortunately pulling a Brabham...

No wonder Paddy Lowe got sent from the team. Whatever else is wrong to be late making a slow illegal car is unforgivable

skipper_G

Last season Ferrari were consistently not getting the best out of their car in Practice but were on the pace for Qualy and the Race. That's why teams have simulator drivers, I'd imagine they'll be working tonight to review the data and make changes to fine tune the balance and get the car working better.

I don't know how people can read the results of 2 free practice sessions and start talking about the championship like it's already over.

The top 3 were always going to be the top 3, unless the other teams managed to pull a few hundred million dollars out of thin air.

recyclebin

skipper_G wrote: »

Last season Ferrari were consistently not getting the best out of their car in Practice but were on the pace for Qualy and the Race. That's why teams have simulator drivers, I'd imagine they'll be working tonight to review the data and make changes to fine tune the balance and get the car working better.

I don't know how people can read the results of 2 free practice sessions and start talking about the championship like it's already over.

The top 3 were always going to be the top 3, unless the other teams managed to pull a few hundred million dollars out of thin air.

I think people thought that the rule changes might mix the order up a bit and someone would do something innovative that no else did like what Brawn did with the blown diffuser. Also Red Bull have new engine supplier so thought that might push them back a bit. McLaren are a big team with money and they still can't beat the midfield. It's all very disappointing so far.

H3llR4iser

recyclebin wrote: »

I think people thought that the rule changes might mix the order up a bit and someone would do something innovative that no else did like what Brawn did with the blown diffuser. Also Red Bull have new engine supplier so thought that might push them back a bit. McLaren are a big team with money and they still can't beat the midfield. It's all very disappointing so far.

Well, in all fairness the regulatory changes were not nearly enough to "shake up the order", expecting so was always going to be unrealistic. The last two times this happened - 2009 and 2014 - it was literally generational changes, with refueling being finally ditched first and the new turbo era later.

skipper_G

H3llR4iser wrote: »

Well, in all fairness the regulatory changes were not nearly enough to "shake up the order", expecting so was always going to be unrealistic. The last two times this happened - 2009 and 2014 - it was literally generational changes, with refueling being finally ditched first and the new turbo era later.

Exactly, it's unrealistic expectations. This set of rule changes weren't that complex to work around, so for the big teams it was just a matter of assigning people to work out the solutions. Most of the grid can't do that, because they can't afford the extra staff to run concurrent development programs for two generations of the same car. I'd say 2009 was more of an anomaly than anything else

H3llR4iser

skipper_G wrote: »

Exactly, it's unrealistic expectations. This set of rule changes weren't that complex to work around, so for the big teams it was just a matter of assigning people to work out the solutions. Most of the grid can't do that, because they can't afford the extra staff to run concurrent development programs for two generations of the same car. I'd say 2009 was more of an anomaly than anything else

Yes - what happened in 2009 was simply that the "big boys" (Ferrari and...McLaren, at the time, plus BMW and Renault) got it wrong and started the new season with dogs of cars, while a few others made the right decisions (it wasn't just a matter of "trick floors").

If one looks at that season, however, it's very clear how the "economic strenght" of the teams still played a big part - both McLaren and Ferrari recovered to finish 3rd and 4th in the WCC.

Stallingrad

Having just finished watching Drive to Survive on Netflix I think I might skip watching the entire season and just watch the Netflix show next year, it is superb, unlike the racing.

Thrashssacre

Well here we go! Who’s up for quali?

AMKC

Good Morning. So who's ready for qualifying. Hope its good. I think Lewis will get pole but would love to see an upset like say Kimi or Charles Leclerc on pole on even Vettel would do.

Meh :P

The dog happened to wake me to go out at 5 to, doubt I would've got up anyway. :P

Thrashssacre

That merc looks wild..... all over the track compared to some of the others

AMKC

Red Bull Honda doing good so far. Max up in third. Not bad.

Charlie-Bravo

Jeez, Crofty is hard to listen to. Missing C4 already.

Come on the honey badger!

Thrashssacre

A Red Bull out in q1 nightmare start from them..... pace looks fairly bad

What tyres was LeClerc on?

Williams and Stroll shouldn't be out there.

AMKC

Wow Kubica got close to that barrier but sadly only last and gave himself a right rear puncture. That was a good Q1.

AMKC

Williams were terrible. Very sad to see. I thought Albon might struggle but 9th faster in Q1 not bad and a Mclaren in Q2 as well which is good.

Harika

One second between first and elimination.

AMKC

The Haas Car is not looking great this year. Kimi doing good in the Alfa.

Thrashssacre

Gasley really not very optimistic about Red Bull’s hopes this year.

Harika

Red bull looks good imo, but Mercedes is mighty. For Honda taking such a beating they look to match ferrari

Thrashssacre

Thrashssacre wrote: »

Gasley really not very optimistic about Red Bull’s hopes this year.

Yeah strange interview. Max looks to be doing quite well so far. Guess we’ll know more in 10 mins or so

Harika

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Yeah strange interview. Max looks to be doing quite well so far. Guess we’ll know more in 10 mins or so

He was knocked out by an error from the team and not his fault

Thrashssacre

With how unstable that merc looks I wonder will they eat up their tyres faster then other teams.

AMKC

I have to say Lando Norris has done good so far. Good to see a Mclaren in Q3 still. I really thought he would struggle for a bit and that Carlos would have been the one doing better in the Mclaren.

Thrashssacre

0.7 seconds between mercs and Ferrari, well that’s a bit disappointing

cherryghost

Depressing more than disappointing

Harika

Thrashssacre wrote: »

With how unstable that merc looks I wonder will they eat up their tyres faster then other teams.

The long run pace from Friday does not reflect that fear

AMKC

Ok maybe not the most exciting qualifying and a bit predictable unfortunately but Red Bull Honda and Max done well in to get 4th. Hopefully we get a good race. Anything can happen.

Certainly looks like Mercedes are on course to dominate. But I wonder if Red Bull have gotten closer to Ferrari? Max done well to get 4th there. Gasly was a bad error from the team.

Looking forward to the race tomorrow.