2018 Australian Grand Prix thread

[Rob Dylan]

Nobody's started this thread so I'll go ahead.

We have a Mercedes 1-2, and then a Hamilton-Verstappen so far in the sessions at Melbourne. The Red Bull are talking themselves up, so they might be sand-bagging a little before qualifying. Either way, it appears we also have our first penalty of the season!

And it's the home favourite Daniel Ricciardo...
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/134983/ricciardo-gets-melbourne-grid-penalty

We also have our first points given out this season! Two penalty points to Daniel...

[UncreativeUsername37]

The intro before the session is pretty slick, and it's futuristic without being cheesy, but it'll lose its sharpness seeing it before every practice session. And I liked the previous in-session graphics better, I liked the philosophy of the graphics just saying things without trying so hard to be a show in themselves. Okay, mostly there are a couple glyphs in the font I don't like.

As for the actual Australian Grand Prix... Red Bull are looking better than I expected, I guess. And Haas. But two practice sessions into the season is no time to get excited or angry about any possible performance levels.

Hearing everyone complain about the halo because it hasn't existed before has caused me much more suffering than the halo.

[Rob Dylan]

I can't really comment as I haven't actually seen any footage of the cars on the track yet - with testing or in practice today. As with most Australian Grands Prix, I usually miss everything until watching the highlights on Sunday afternoons.

[Bobby Doorknobs]

Hearing everyone complain about the halo because it hasn't existed before has caused me much more suffering than the halo.

Now there's a contender for forum quote of the year, if such an award were to exist.

I forgot it was Friday and therefore forgot practice was on, so I have very little idea what happened. I hear people have started writing off the season or something.

[mario]

Hearing everyone complain about the halo because it hasn't existed before has caused me much more suffering than the halo.

Now there's a contender for forum quote of the year, if such an award were to exist.

I forgot it was Friday and therefore forgot practice was on, so I have very little idea what happened. I hear people have started writing off the season or something.

It feels like, on some forums, there is a fashion for being the first to write off the season when, so far at least, it seems to be more closely matched than many were prepared to predict before this race.

As UgncreativeUsergname notes, in some ways the main interest is in the Haas-McLaren-Renault battle, where it seems that Haas, at least in Grosjean's hands, really might be the "best of the rest" behind the big three and leading that battle. There are already a few jibes about Haas's car being a "replica Ferrari", and I wouldn't be surprised if Haas start facing a bit more pressure from some of the other teams over how much technological transfer has taken place between Ferrari and Haas.

The only other aspect is that, to some extent, I am a little surprised that Renault aren't quite as competitive as first thought - there was talk before the start of the season that the parent company had set the team at Enstone the objective of finishing 4th in the WCC as a condition of increasing their investment in the team, since it would be a clear sign of improvement, but so far they seem to have taken a smaller step than I'd have expected.

[IceG]

Just watched qualifying...

The halo is awful. It spoils the cars, spoils the camera angles and hides the drivers. And the new TV screens in the garages mean you can't even see the drivers when stopped.

The new graphics are far too dark and busy - do I need the team badge and team colour, do I need the driver number, why the darker background? Felt like I was watching on a tablet - it was a 60" plasma.

Mercedes - great job Hamilton, Who will replace Bottas next year?
Ferrari - close. Kimi has started the year awake.
Red Bull - close again. Who will replace Ricciardo next year?
Renault - fine.
Haas - nice job cloning the Ferrari.
McLaren - good decision dumping Honda.
Force India - bad decision not going out in P3.
Williams - bad decision on two poor drivers. When will Kubica get a drive?
Toro Rosso - McLaren were right.
Sauber - that, with a Ferrari engine and with your wind tunnel?

Looks like it will be a close race for positions 2-6, then Haas/Renault/McLaren fighting for lower points.

But at no point during the qualifying did I feel excited or even interested - I fast-forwarded at a couple of points. Everything seemed dull. Something is missing this year but I don't know what... Perhaps it was just the cloudy overcast evening light combined with the horrid on-screen graphics?

All IMHO of course

[Benetton]

Really impressed by Haas! I actually hope they can keep their cool tomorrow and get a strong result to start the season.

Bottas' mistake was silly. Not how you keep your drive for 2019 and assuming Hamilton wins tomorrow he will already by 25 points down on Lewis.

Also impressed by Kimi.

[mario]

Really impressed by Haas! I actually hope they can keep their cool tomorrow and get a strong result to start the season.

Bottas' mistake was silly. Not how you keep your drive for 2019 and assuming Hamilton wins tomorrow he will already by 25 points down on Lewis.

Also impressed by Kimi.

It's a pretty unfortunate start to the season for Bottas, especially when you consider that his Q2 time was pretty strong - instead of a potential front row start, he is instead now going to start in 15th as that crash also wrote off his gearbox. https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/bott ... 18289/?s=1

Whilst the underlying pace of the car should be strong enough for Bottas to have hopes of getting back into the points, it means Bottas has given all of his rivals - not just Hamilton, but both Ferrari and Red Bull drivers as well - a chance to put themselves at least 10-20 points clear of him, if not more.

As driver who has sometimes shown a bit of a tendency to have a prolonged dip in form if he is lacking in confidence, this is probably the last thing he'd have wanted and something that is likely to dent that confidence.

[Aguvazk]

I like the qualy, it's interesting see the pack so close, q1 shows 2 sec between the hole field (yeah, gasly didn't finish that last flying lap, but he was in that range). Q2 was really good, with all so close. And Q3, amazing lap from Hamilton, that was a flying lap! (Obvious joke here). The halo... Meh. They have to move the on board cameras, i think one in the halo (where the Ferrari logo is) would ve a great solution.

[FullMetalJack]

Good to see the Haas pace is genuine. If Magnussen is similar to late last year, we could be in for some fireworks into turn 1.

[Fetzie]

Really impressed by Haas! I actually hope they can keep their cool tomorrow and get a strong result to start the season.

Bottas' mistake was silly. Not how you keep your drive for 2019 and assuming Hamilton wins tomorrow he will already by 25 points down on Lewis.

Also impressed by Kimi.

It's a pretty unfortunate start to the season for Bottas, especially when you consider that his Q2 time was pretty strong - instead of a potential front row start, he is instead now going to start in 15th as that crash also wrote off his gearbox. https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/bott ... 18289/?s=1

Whilst the underlying pace of the car should be strong enough for Bottas to have hopes of getting back into the points, it means Bottas has given all of his rivals - not just Hamilton, but both Ferrari and Red Bull drivers as well - a chance to put themselves at least 10-20 points clear of him, if not more.

As driver who has sometimes shown a bit of a tendency to have a prolonged dip in form if he is lacking in confidence, this is probably the last thing he'd have wanted and something that is likely to dent that confidence.

And not only did he lose a lot of points for this weekend, but he now has 1 less gearbox for the season (and they only get 3 to begin with). That Merc was pretty damn reliable last season, but I don't know if he can get 10+ races out of the remaining gearboxes.

[BigG80]

If he's taking a penalty for changing the gearbox then it's a new box and he still has 3.

[Rob Dylan]

I was certainly enjoying the qualifying until I saw the difference in times between Hamilton and the rest of the field at the end! I was really impressed at just how close the top three teams were in fractions of seconds until then. I'm hoping that they're closer rather than farther.

The graphics were really annoying, mostly because they were everywhere. It all appeared very ADD, like I didn't know where my eyes were supposed to be looking at for most of it. After a while I just tried ignoring them and only looking at the cars, because otherwise I was missing important stuff for trying to see (even with an HD tv) what the time differences were in the tiny writing.

Sad for Bottas, I really hope he recovers, for the sake of the championship more than anything. Was really hoping that his win in Abu Dhabi might propel him, or at least give him momentum for this season. No points on the table yet, so I'll reserve my judgment until this time tomorrow!

[Belegur]

Well, that was one of the dullest races you're ever likely to see, Nobody can overtake, even with 3 DRS zones. At least it can only improve from here.

[IceG]

The graphics were really annoying, mostly because they were everywhere. It all appeared very ADD, like I didn't know where my eyes were supposed to be looking at for most of it.

Exactly.

The race was dull as ditchwater. Everything seemed slow and heavy - again was it the light or the dark graphics or what? And there was virtually no racing - just a procession.

Sky UK want £18/month for F1 (~£9/race) from a new subscriber; I get it grandfathered in on an old subscription. After 33 years watching I would not pay those prices.

For me F1 just became an "if its on and I have time" rather than a must watch.

[tommykl]

For what it's worth, I thought this race was better than last year's, although I'm well aware that's not saying much.

[dinizintheoven]

Now I've seen it on screen, does anyone think Sauber's flat-ended nosecone looks similar to the 2016 Manor?

[Barbazza]

The biggest problem I had was with the graphics. Assuming it was a human operating the list on the left of the screen, it took them about half an hour to get Gasly and Ericsson listed as retired and even then their race positions stayed on screen for a bit. Did anyone else notice that for the first half of the race the 'purple secto' graphic was in OCD mode but we never got a 'fastest lap' flash once? In the second half it was the exact opposite. I also particularly enjoyed the time when we got a gap on screen between 'LASTNAME' and 'LASTNAME' making it seem even more like I was watching a bad Playstation game.

The racing was OK, not brilliant but not awful. The halos I think most of us hate, so not much to add there!

[Nuppiz]

Yep, every time they get new TV graphics it takes a couple of races before everything actually works properly. Their QA team for that is terrible or doesn't exist at all.

Watching "LASTNAME" and "LASTNAME" duke it out certainly felt like watching a race broadcast over at the PMMF subforum.

[good_Ralf]

Looking at the lap time data for the race, I noticed some trivial but interesting details:

- Hamilton was the fastest driver on 26 individual green-flag laps, while Vettel was the fastest on just 13. So based on that fact, Hamilton was easily the quickest driver on the track today.
- Gasly and Leclerc both spun/went off on lap 6, although the gap between them at the start of the lap was about 1.2s, too big a gap to suggest they'd collided. Hartley also went off a couple of times near the end.

[Rob Dylan]

I actually quite enjoyed that race, to throw out the contrary opinion. It wasn't anything special, but the Haas retirements were just awful to watch - such a shame that they didn't capitalise on their incredible pace from this year. Great job from Alonso, and hopefully we'll see him back on the podium sometime very soon. Sooner rather than later I hope.

At least we have a better idea of the general order of things. I'm hoping that Red Bull improve over the race pace, as they certainly never looked like fighting at the front. But then again, their pace and Ferrari's brings shades of last year, so I don't know what we can gather from it. If we're judging from last year, Merc and Ferrari are probably terrified that Red Bull are as close as they are from the get-go - hopefully they can be race winners ASAP so that there's a genuine fight at the front. I mean that because Vettel was certainly playing down Ferrari's ability to actually win that race, and that they capitalised where they weren't really expecting to.

I'm looking forward to more Haas pace, and Toro Rosso are not looking forward to the next 20 races!

[IceG]

Apparently there was a third DRS zone in Australia...

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/braw ... e-1019316/

[AdrianBelmonte_]

Apparently there was a third DRS zone in Australia...

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/braw ... e-1019316/

...Which made possible the staggering amount of overtakes of: 0

[Rob Dylan]

I've been of the opinion that if DRS exists, drivers should be free to use it whenever they want to during the race. This is obviously harking back to the days when DRS was available all around the track during the practices and qualifying sessions. But I still think that if you're going to have it, you might as well do it all-out. Give everyone DRS, and it adds an unreliability factor if it doesn't work on some cars, and drivers have to use their own discretion as to how early they want to open it when they're racing wheel to wheel with other drivers.

But then again that's just my opinion.

[good_Ralf]

I've been of the opinion that if DRS exists, drivers should be free to use it whenever they want to during the race. This is obviously harking back to the days when DRS was available all around the track during the practices and qualifying sessions. But I still think that if you're going to have it, you might as well do it all-out. Give everyone DRS, and it adds an unreliability factor if it doesn't work on some cars, and drivers have to use their own discretion as to how early they want to open it when they're racing wheel to wheel with other drivers.

But then again that's just my opinion.

You know, I've been feeling this way about DRS for some time. Even if it fails to work in practice, this ought to be trialled in the future, as unlikely as that will be.
On another note, it's posts like these where I wish there was a 'thumbs-up' button/option on this forum.

[mario]

I actually quite enjoyed that race, to throw out the contrary opinion. It wasn't anything special, but the Haas retirements were just awful to watch - such a shame that they didn't capitalise on their incredible pace from this year. Great job from Alonso, and hopefully we'll see him back on the podium sometime very soon. Sooner rather than later I hope.

At least we have a better idea of the general order of things. I'm hoping that Red Bull improve over the race pace, as they certainly never looked like fighting at the front. But then again, their pace and Ferrari's brings shades of last year, so I don't know what we can gather from it. If we're judging from last year, Merc and Ferrari are probably terrified that Red Bull are as close as they are from the get-go - hopefully they can be race winners ASAP so that there's a genuine fight at the front. I mean that because Vettel was certainly playing down Ferrari's ability to actually win that race, and that they capitalised where they weren't really expecting to.

I'm looking forward to more Haas pace, and Toro Rosso are not looking forward to the next 20 races!

It looks like Haas's performance, as some suspected given their pace in the pre-season tests, has begun causing quite a lot of political agitation within the paddock. It seems that both Force India and McLaren have been asking for the FIA to "clarify" the relationship between Haas and Ferrari, whilst Red Bull to a lesser extent seem to also be asking similar questions. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula-one/43568043

Now, if Haas are as quick again in Bahrain as in Australia - or, given the high number of straights, perhaps start putting Red Bull under pressure - I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing a lot more agitation against Haas kicking off soon.

[Wallio]

https://www.grandprix247.com/2018/03/28 ... y-advance/

Not sure where to post this, but it seems Force India is in rather dire straits money wise and requested their FOM money early which is legal, but all teams must agree. All did....except Williams. It is not known if there is an ulterior motive at play (Haas last year blocked it, as a way to get their deposit back, once it was returned, they rescinded their veto.) or if this is purely spite. Hopefully its not as grave as people are saying.

[Rob Dylan]

It's certainly not a new phenomenon for Force India to be doing that, but it's never good to hear news like this. Hopefully it's nothing too serious.

On the Haas situation, knowing absolutely nothing as I do as an armchair expert, this reminds me of the furore about Brawn's development in 2009. If Haas have a decent package, quit whining (as rival teams always do) and get to making a car that can beat them. Because let's face it, McLaren will develop their car much better than Haas will, and Haas will be counting their blessings with every point they get before the summer break. If nothing is illegal, then let them have their time in the sun.

[ibsey]

Now, if Haas are as quick again in Bahrain as in Australia - or, given the high number of straights, perhaps start putting Red Bull under pressure - I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing a lot more agitation against Haas kicking off soon.

Personally I don't like the way teams only complain after Haas proves competitive. If they really felt it was an issue why not complain before the 1st race?

[FullMetalJack]

I've been of the opinion that if DRS exists, drivers should be free to use it whenever they want to during the race. This is obviously harking back to the days when DRS was available all around the track during the practices and qualifying sessions. But I still think that if you're going to have it, you might as well do it all-out. Give everyone DRS, and it adds an unreliability factor if it doesn't work on some cars, and drivers have to use their own discretion as to how early they want to open it when they're racing wheel to wheel with other drivers.

But then again that's just my opinion.

I don't like DRS at all, but this would make it a lot more tolerable at least.

[mario]

https://www.grandprix247.com/2018/03/28/fernley-williams-vetoed-our-request-for-money-advance/

Not sure where to post this, but it seems Force India is in rather dire straits money wise and requested their FOM money early which is legal, but all teams must agree. All did....except Williams. It is not known if there is an ulterior motive at play (Haas last year blocked it, as a way to get their deposit back, once it was returned, they rescinded their veto.) or if this is purely spite. Hopefully its not as grave as people are saying.

It is plausible that this could relate to back room politicking between the teams, with Williams perhaps using this as a means of exerting additional pressure on Force India. Mind you, given that Force India have started this season in a weaker position than in past seasons, there may be an element of Williams wanting to disrupt Force India's development rate in an attempt to beat them in the WCC.

Now, if Haas are as quick again in Bahrain as in Australia - or, given the high number of straights, perhaps start putting Red Bull under pressure - I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing a lot more agitation against Haas kicking off soon.

Personally I don't like the way teams only complain after Haas proves competitive. If they really felt it was an issue why not complain before the 1st race?

It should be noted that complaints were being raised about the relationship between Haas and Ferrari back in late 2015 (i.e. when the VF-16 was still being developed), and I believe that Mark Hughes noted in one column for Motorsport Magazine that the teams had been raising queries in private during 2016.

Now, it was being suggested that, since the VF-17 was more distinct from the SF70H that Ferrari used in 2017, and the upgrade path seemed different, some of those complaints died down last year (not to mention that they weren't quite so much of a threat, even if they did score quite a few more points than in 2016).

This year, now that the visual appearance of the VF-18 seems more closely aligned with Ferrari's school of thought, it seems that there was already a resurgence of those questions in the pit lane during the pre-season tests (Mark Hughes commented that there was already some disquiet amongst the teams before the first test even began). Haas's pace this season has accentuated those criticisms, but it seems that they have been there for some time and probably were being raised before Haas even came into F1.