Formula 1 2018 - Round 1 – Australia

Hopefully some better races ahead where overtaking is easier

Nice to see Grosjean go and see the mechanics after and console them a bit

flazio wrote: »

How much software can there be in the Haas air guns? It was the (un)fortunate timing of the VSC that cost him the race.

That's the thing though: it wasn't just the VSC. Hamilton could not maintain the pace in the last 5 laps. His car couldn't cope with the Ferrari's dirty air. Plus Vettle was much faster on old Ultrasofts at the end of his first stint than expected.

Gintonious wrote: »

Decent result for the title, and great to see Alonso up there in 5th.

But that was one poxy race.

The Alonso result was my highlight of the race. Would be great if McClaren put could put up a challenge this year. On the negatives what oh what has happened to the Williams team.

the_pen_turner wrote: »

only for the haas screw up it would have been a very boring race. at least with the safety car we got seb in front so it gave it a small bit of interest.

where was bottas.

Think bottas finished 8th.Tbh i really dont like that australian circuit. Where can there be excitement if there is corners everywhere. Its probably the worst circuit on the calendar

After the interview yesterday I was hoping Vettel was going to say "told you we would be parting tonight"

PukkaStukka wrote: »

That's the thing though: it wasn't just the VSC. Hamilton could not maintain the pace in the last 5 laps. His car couldn't cope with the Ferrari's dirty air. Plus Vettle was much faster on old Ultrasofts at the end of his first stint than expected.

Ham slowed down for the last 5 laps to save the engine, he was not going to pass Vettel at that point so eased off

Some boos for Hamilton on the podium too.

thierry14 wrote: »

Its not even the downforce

The rules won't let them race

3 engines a year and low fuel flow is an endurance race

They need to get rid of fuel flow crap and engine rule and let them go 100% after each other for the whole race

Fastest lap today from leaders was slower than last year and 2 seconds slower than 15 years ago

Road cars are faster than F1 in a straight line now, they need alot more straight line speed

The new cars are quick, but rules are killing them

In race pace is a joke compared to qualifying

Even when there were unlimited engines (most top teams used at least 3 per car per race), no fuel flow limits and whatnot, race pace was inherently slower than qualifying - often by as much as 4/5 seconds. People keep referring to the frankly dreadful era of refueling, when cars were developed to be qualifying machines; Yep, often they were faster in the race than in qualifying, but it was also an era of zero overtaking and "don't risk it, he's gonna stop soon".

As for speed, as I said many moons ago before the current rules were adopted, faster cars always mean less wheel-to-wheel action and less overtaking; Going through corners faster narrows the "limit", creating a much smaller margin for error and different approaches (e.g. different lines to prepare an overtake). Cars that are faster on straights mean there's physically less time to complete an overtake. It's not a random occurrence that the slower racing series (e.g. touring cars) have the most overtakes.

billybonkers wrote: »

Ham slowed down for the last 5 laps to save the engine, he was not going to pass Vettel at that point so eased off

He did indeed give up and settled for second at that stage.

Much more interestingly, nobody seems to be talking about what actually was the deciding moment of the race - this:



I'd have expected Hamilton, on fresh tires, to reign in Vettel's lead way faster after the pit stop; Instead, he actually didn't manage to gain on the Ferrari at the same rate he was doing on used tires before the stop. I distinctly thought "if there's a SC/VSC, Vettel's gonna lead" - and it happened mere moments later.

If this was a planned "strategy" on Merc/Hamilton's side, in term of managing pace, it's where their big own goal happened.

H3llR4iser wrote: »

Much more interestingly, nobody seems to be talking about what actually was the deciding moment of the race - this:



I'd have expected Hamilton, on fresh tires, to reign in Vettel's lead way faster after the pit stop; Instead, he actually didn't manage to gain on the Ferrari at the same rate he was doing on used tires before the stop. I distinctly thought "if there's a SC/VSC, Vettel's gonna lead" - and it happened mere moments later.

If this was a planned "strategy" on Merc/Hamilton's side, in term of managing pace, it's where their big own goal happened.

I sort of picked up on Hamilton's post-pitstop performance. I posted this yesterday

PukkaStukka wrote: »

That's the thing though: it wasn't just the VSC. Hamilton could not maintain the pace in the last 5 laps. His car couldn't cope with the Ferrari's dirty air. Plus Vettle was much faster on old Ultrasofts at the end of his first stint than expected.

Rather than graphs, do we have access to the actual lap times for the period between Hamilton's stop and the VSC, and we can see whether it was a case of Hamilton being slow, Vettel being fast, or a combination of both.

stevenmu wrote: »

One of the Mercedes guys said they're investigating why the software didn't warn them that they were vulnerable to a pitstop under the VSC.

It looks like they let Hamilton coast, thinking that at 11 seconds behind that he would be ahead of Vettel no matter when Vettel stopped. Their strategy software should have warned them that if there was a VSC that Vettel could out and get out still in front, in which case Hamilton could have pushed and closed the gap, but it didn't.

It makes you wonder how much of the race is being run virtually and behind the scenes compared to what we see play out on track.

that shows exactly what is wrong with the sport. its all predicted and analised to death. bann all that and we might get some racing