F1 2025 - Round 1 - Australia - Melbourne

WTF is this ch4 nonsense

Just watched the highlights. Delighted for Lando. Well deserved win. What a race.

Dissappinted for Carlos and Alonso.

The Rookies that went off should not be ashamed. Two experienced drivers also did.

Overall a great start to the season.

In fairness to Brundle, he did know and was aware of it being removed? The lads in commentary were saying they didn't understand the logic behind it.

Nor do I

I don't know why they didn't just tweak it to be the driver in the top 10 with the fastest lap

Because McLaren barged on for it to be removed after Danny took fastest lap from them last season.
I bet they wished they shut up now 😃

As for Lewis?
He should have retired when Max toppled him. He is only showing himself up to be a midfield driver now that he no longer has the fastest car on the grid.
Looking like he will be the highest paid wingman inF1 history at this rate !

The one issue I had with the truck today was thst it seemed to have come onto track at more or less the same time as the field were passing. Wait 30 seconds, the field will pass through behind safety car and then head out.

Been involved with these kind of things and it's hard to organise in the real world.

The COC would of called the saftey car, Got them slowed down seen if the drivers were ok.

Then has to talk to sector marshal to see what they can do, Does it need recovery. COC then needs to work out how to get recovery to that part. Hopefully putting that truck on stand by.

Back to concentrate on safety car, Is everyone in the chain? Did anyone pit and at higher speed catching up the back?

Right everyone is behind the saftey car now, The COC gives the word to deploy the truck cars are half a lap away but by the time word gets down to the driver of the truck, they are ready and off the side road and on the track they are 3 corners away, By the time you see it on the screens he is on the track and on the way. Do you stop him or let him go and tell the safety car to lower the speed as theres a truck on the track? And get the wrecked car off the track? Personally losing 8 laps behind a safety car is starting to take the piss. Same with throwing the red flags.

These marshals are the best of the best, You don't do a F1 race on your first weekend of a marshal, It takes them years to make it even into the ballot. There's no trust anymore between the control room and the guy on the track. Control room has to make every decision which means it takes time for word to get to them, then a decision is made and get that decision down to the guys on the track to do the work. The stuff I'm involved in, It's taken a while to get that mentality away from the control room and let the guys on the track make decisions and it works so much better.

Just get it done ffs. Hire more cranes, Am I the only one who remembers the marshals all running out to the gravel traps, Throwing the rope around the top of the car and a crane lifting them before the driver is not even out of the car they were that quick!

Good race but ominous for the season. McLaren were untouchable when the track was consistent and it was only the changeable weather that allowed Max to take the fight to them. Field spread in general seems way higher than the last few years but Melbourne is always an unusual circuit so we'll see how the next few races look. It feels a bit like 2013 though, with everyone likely to abandon their car and focus on the new rules when it's clear the championship is looking nowhere near as close as the previous seasons.

Max does have that uncanny ability to just always be there or thereabouts no matter how much better the machinery he's up against is, but even for him the McLarens feel like a step too far. Honestly he's doing remarkably well to even be best of the rest because that Red Bull hasn't looked like it's a match for Ferrari or Mercedes at any point in preseason or practice and once again in the hands of any other driver it's barely looking like it's capable of reaching the points nevermind the podium.

If we want a title fight it will need to be Piastri to bring it but he's massively on the back foot now and the team seem to only be paying lip service to allowing them to race, with Zak proudly proclaiming that they're allowed to only for them to jump on the radio and tell Oscar to hold position the second he's within DRS range to Norris, going on to then claim that they're free to race again once the gap had gotten sufficiently big for them to be incapable of racing. Hopefully that's not a sign of things to come.

The problem with the RB21 seems to be it being a bit understeery which is not the kind of car Max (or for that matter Lawson) likes. But even still, it was only three tenths slower than the McLarens in qualifying, mostly in the last sector. If Red Bull get that car a bit more pointy, it could well change the dynamic very quickly.

Now imagine you paid a couple of hundred dollars for a grandstand seat only to have your view blocked by a massive crane arm.

Interesting stat. Excluding that farce in Spa a few years ago, it’s the first time that the safety car has lead the most laps of a Grand Prix.

Maybe they should look to try the Formula E thing of added laps if there's long saftey cars or full course yellows (their version of VSC) I think it's about 1 extra lap for every 3 laps of safety car.

You sure? They're running at slower speeds and lower power, I'd imagine there was a bit more left in the tank then there would have been if it was an uninterrupted Grand Prix.

It was awarded to the driver with the fastest lap if they were in the top 10. I suggested tweaking it to giving it to the driver in the top 10 that had the fastest lap. This means that anyone outside the top 10 has nothing to gain (or take away from a driver in the top 10).

Of course, someone in the top 10 with a 30 second gap behind could theoretically do the same, although much less likely.