F1 - 2016 Australian Grand Prix

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Winter always seems longer when you're anxiously awaiting the return of F1. That wait is finally over as the 2016 season kicks off this weekend in Melbourne.
Coming off of a respectable pre-season testing program, McLaren Honda is cautiously optimistic as it looks to shake what can only be described as a poor 2015 season. Reliability woes seem to have been sorted as do energy deployment issues and a small boost in power seems to be on tap. The true test of these things comes this weekend when all eyes are on the Woking-based squad to see if they can move past 2015's headache and heartache. If pre-season testing is an accurate indicator we can expect both cars in Q2 and a top 10 race finish from both cars.
Mercedes and Ferrari look set to pick up right where they left off in 2015 with both being at the top of the grid and with each picking up power gains in the off-season. Williams and Red Bull have expressed muted confidence as they look to see whether their 2016 offerings can move them up into territory occupied by Ferrari in 2015. Renault's understated expectations seem to be yielding positive results after a stronger-than-expected pre-season test. Force India hopes to pick up where it left off in 2015 and are confident they can do so. Sauber and Manor will hope for better seasons than last year with the latter all but guaranteed it. Newcomer Haas suffered a very disappointing series of test days so it is remains unclear what the team can do, expect them to need the first half of the season to get their 'sea legs'.

WEEKEND TV SCHEDULE (US):
Thursday March 17th, Free Practice 1, 9:30PM ET, NBCSN
Friday March 18th, Free Practice 2, 1:30AM ET, NBCSN
Friday March 18th, Free Practice 3, 10:00PM ET, NBC Sports Live Extra
Saturday March 19th, Qualifying, 2:00AM ET, NBCSN
Sunday March 20th, Australian Grand Prix, 12:00AM ET, NBCSN

CIRCUIT INFO:
Lap data

Lap length: 5.303km (3.295 miles)
Race laps: 58
Race distance: 307.574km (191.118 miles)
Pole position: Left-hand side of the track
Lap record*: 1’24.125 (226.934 kph) by Michael Schumacher, 2004
Fastest lap: 1’23.529 (228.553 kph) by Sebastian Vettel, 2011
Maximum speed: 312kph (193.868 mph)
DRS zone/s (race): First and second straight
Distance from grid to turn one: 380m
Car performance
Full throttle: 71%
Longest flat-out section: 843m
Downforce level: High
Gear changes per lap: 54
Fuel use per lap: 2.5kg
Time penalty per lap of fuel: 0.1s
Strategy
Quickest complete pit stop: 2012 21.91s by Ferrari (see full list)
2015 prime tyre**: Medium (2014: Medium)
2015 option tyre**: Soft (2012: Soft)

2015 V6 TURBO ERA RESULTS:
Race laps: 58
Pole sitter: Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes - 1:26.327
Fast race lap: Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes - 1:30.945
Podium
1. Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes
2. Nico Rosberg - Mercedes
3. Sebastian Vettel - Ferrari

*Fastest lap set during a Grand Prix
Data sources: FIA, Williams, Mercedes

albertpark_melbourne_2012.jpg
 
Boy do I love this time of year! Thanks for posting. Of note, it seems that Haas will have a revised livery including white this weekend, based on pit lane images from Twitter. And according to Cyril Abiteboul, Renault plans on tweaking its yellow livery throughout the season. Let's just hope someone can finally stick it to Mercedes.
 
The new qualifying rules will make qualifying look like a pinball game. It's probably going to be good entertainment especially for the first race of the season. I wonder if being electronically knocked out during a session is going to raise some protests. This system puts the whole process in the hands of the organizers with little or no leeway for the teams to mount a protest. The organizers can in effect organize the starting grid and who's to say they can't.
 
Give Honda another year or two then they will be competitive. Honda engineers were known to burn many midnight candles to come up with amazing engines. The new Honda CEO truly likes to make Honda as a performance car company, not a pedestrian car company of the last 8-10 years. If they invest enough resources(money, engineers and time) they may success.
 
Sooo.... that was.... interesting! Ferrari seemed to have it covered, then conspired to throw it away. McLaren, it seems, make a very strong chassis. The Mercs need a new clutch system. Haas are competitive out-of-the-box. And the Sainz-Verstappen squabble has picked up where it left off last year.

Also, the qualifying was a disaster but at least that format is now history.
 
Yes, they had unanimous agreement to revert for the next race and onwards. Ironically, with the tire rules, has the old tire rules been in place, Vettel may have had a better ending; at least there would have been incentive for a different tire strategy.
 
Originally Posted By: weasley
Haas are competitive out-of-the-box.


I was hoping for them to finish the race at best.
Sixth place and 8 points, Wow !
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Originally Posted By: Garak
Yes, they had unanimous agreement to revert for the next race and onwards. Ironically, with the tire rules, has the old tire rules been in place, Vettel may have had a better ending; at least there would have been incentive for a different tire strategy.


Wow, that's a surprise that they would move so fast. I thought they might persist with it for a couple more races. But I was rolling my eyes skyward when there were no cars on the track with 2 minutes left in Q2, and 5 minutes left in Q3. If they wanted to add suspense to the whole qualifying procedure, they sure missed it!
 
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Originally Posted By: Garak
Yes, they had unanimous agreement to revert for the next race and onwards.


Thank God. I was hoping I wouldn't have to sit through another disorganized clusterf*#k like that again. Totally ridiculous.
 
For whatever reason, Bernie wasn't there personally this weekend. So, he watched it on TV, so got the same view that the viewers did, and he wasn't happy. I'm sure sponsors weren't, either. The teams who were scrambling artificially weren't happy, either, I'm sure. So, there was good incentive to straighten this out in a hurry.
 
As I thought, the power gains Merc. and Ferrari achieved over the winter were relative to each other. If Hamilton didn't bog during launch he would've been in clean air and no one would see him again until lap traffic. As things stand now we're looking at a repeat of last year where Ferrari will have the occasional win but ultimately come up short in the constructor's (and driver's) championship.

Amid displays of great skill over the weekend, Max Verstappen also showed incredible immaturity during the race IMO. I have no doubt his time will come but he has some growing up to do before he gets there. My worry is that he understands how ahead-of-the-curve he has been to get to F1 and that all the talk of 'future WDC' goes to his head.

As for McLaren Honda, incredible shunt with Alonso and Gutierrez. Glad he's OK. My first thought after processing it was literally: a halo would've prevented egress in that particular situation. Even though the car wasn't on fire I'd feel a [censored] of a lot better if I could get away on my own. I'm not sold on halos. For the race itself I'm not convinced that even Alonso would've ended up in the points had he not went off, maybe 10th. They still need some power and their chassis looks like a real handful at the moment.

Decent showing from Renault. Palmer hung in there and looked racy at times. Pretty impressive for Magnussen to come back to where he started after the cut tire.

The thing I was most impressed with and perhaps the thing to watch out for is Red Bull. Ricciardo had a fantastic drive finishing 4th with a Renault power unit which we know isn't quite on par with the Ferrari and Merc. yet. Renault is said to have a significant power upgrade ready for Canada so even if Renault only closes part of the power gap, the combination of it and the RB chassis could play spoiler before the year is over.

Overall it was a good race and I'm glad F1 is back!
 
Max will have to watch himself. His annoyance over the radio was one thing, and it's hard to say who's really at fault. Of course, if someone makes a mistake, that doesn't justify going off on them in public, either. In any case, if he lets things get away on him, in other ways, Charlie will set him straight so fast his head will spin. Have Max ask Lewis how poorly a bad attitude served him a few years back, with drive through penalty after drive through penalty.

I'm actually surprised with what Mercedes said about their tire choice. Everyone piled on Ferrari for making the wrong choice in tires, but I thought they have to have had a reason for this. It can't be a bleedingly obvious tire choice for Mercedes and Ferrari was being deliberately obtuse. Mercedes said they almost didn't make it. They didn't expect Nico's tires to last to the end, at all, and it was a gamble. They expected them to fall off with five laps left, but a bit of luck and clean air helped out. As it was, one tire was done, but he was able to carry on.

As for the halo, I see your point, but perhaps a modification could be in order where it would be more than one piece. A piece against the ground would obviously be stuck, and that would be a problematic situation, with or without halos, of course. But, if it were a two piece unit, at least part of it could be removed, if the other part was obstructed by a barrier, bodywork, the ground, or anything else. It would be better to get part of it out of the way than nothing at all. Of course, they were saying that it does actually help egress from the car in many situations, giving the driver something to pull on to lift him up. But, we'll have to see. We can't eliminate all risk, but if we can make something safer without wrecking the sport, great. Of course, that's assuming it's helpful in the grand scheme of things rather than harmful.
 
Good point re: race control/stewards.

He was getting quite sloppy with his driving even when he slipped back a bit. We didn't even see much of that from Sainz who was also following a car very closely and had pressure from Max behind. The difference experience makes is Lewis or Kimi can hold it together while they complain.

The buzz surrounding him will eventually catapult him to a top team and I'm not suggesting that would be wrong, however, put Nasr in a Merc. and he'll probably win some races, too. Meanwhile guys like Bottas and Ricciardo may never get to drive for Merc. or Ferrari even though they're better equipped at the moment. He will surely grow during the season but I'd still question whether he needs another year before getting a drive for a works team.
 
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Don't be too hard on Verstappen. He's young, and relatively inexperienced. Remember the young overly aggressive Vettel who took out both himself and Webber trying a stupid pass? Or a young, inexperienced Grosjean who took out so many people with his over aggressive driving, that it got him banned from several races? This is a learning curve all young Formula 1 drivers go through. The only cure for inexperience is experience.
 
Verstappen will be a star, no doubt in my mind. He needs to do his time, though (as you said the only cure for inexperience is experience). The buzz surrounding him will eventually catapult him to a top team and I'm not suggesting that would be wrong, however, put Nasr in a Merc. and he'll probably win some races, too. Meanwhile guys like Bottas and Ricciardo may never get to drive for Merc. or Ferrari even though they're much better equipped at the moment. He will surely grow during the season but I'd still think he needs another year (2017) with Torro Rosso before getting a drive for a works team.
 
Originally Posted By: Garak
Max will have to watch himself. His annoyance over the radio was one thing, and it's hard to say who's really at fault. Of course, if someone makes a mistake, that doesn't justify going off on them in public, either. In any case, if he lets things get away on him, in other ways, Charlie will set him straight so fast his head will spin. Have Max ask Lewis how poorly a bad attitude served him a few years back, with drive through penalty after drive through penalty.


In my opinion Max was much more restrained than say a "mature" Alonso publicly calling the Honda engine "embarrassing" and a "GP2 engine" (not that he was wrong on either account) last year. Max was justifiably mad as his team screwed him. That said, he was quite calm and composed in the post race interviews. Much more maturity than I've seen out of other drivers (don't even get me started on behavior of the two Mercedes drivers towards each other in post race interviews).

Not only is Max very mature for his age...again he is EIGHTEEN. But he is supremely talented and he'll be replacing Kyvat at Red Bull next year (if not earlier to prevent Ferrari grabbing him up).
 
Oh, I don't have much bad to say about Max's behaviour. I'd call it near the line. Like I said, I don't know how much the team was to blame for his outburst, so I give him the benefit of the doubt. Nonetheless, sometimes a bit of politeness doesn't hurt. What I was getting at is if his behaviour does extend much, he will get slapped down hard. Swearing about his team over the air is one thing. He can also express frustration about his teammate. If he repeats that behaviour down the road about a steward or race control, well, they'll give him reasons to swear.
 
Max was not screwed by his team. I think you're lacking some objectivity when it comes to Verstappen if you think that the extended rant peppered with expletives was on par with Alonso's one transmission at Suzuka. At least Alonso had a legitimate complaint, Verstappen just thought he should be let in front because he couldn't pass on his own.

Yes, Garak, he will be slapped down if he keeps it up. Expressing frustration on the radio is one thing. Acting entitled and swearing at your team is another. Max doesn't deserve to be ahead of Sainz just because he showed up at the track on Sunday morning.
 
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