2018 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, 22 -25 March

[zac510]

Season over, Mercedes WCC/WDC yet again.
See you guys in March 2019. I am not watching another free WDC for Hamilton again.

See you here again tomorrow afternoon

[atanatizante]

There`s been a funny moment between Lewis and Seb at the press conference:
Lewis : (answering at one question from the press guys) : "... I can assure you we don`t have a party mode ... I used the same modes from Q2 to end of Q3 ... so there was no extra button or extra mode that I engaged in ..."
Seb : (irritated and laughing): "What were you doing before, then?"
Lewis : (pause and turning his face towards him): " I was waiting to put a good lap in ... thus wipe the smile off your face!"

[wesley123]

Season over, Mercedes WCC/WDC yet again.
See you guys in March 2019. I am not watching another free WDC for Hamilton again.

Might want to skip that season as well, just to be sure.

- Bottas' crash - diva strikes again! It's not him it's a randomly behaving long wheel-base car fluctuating DF.

Bottas hit the first kerb too much and went on the grass in turn two. That has got absolutely nothing to do with the car.

[giantfan10]

First sector already shows the party mode. 3 tenths of a second faster than the others.

Not really... Ferrari was faster in all of the traps. That Merc is insane in high speed and low speed traction corners.

https://i.imgur.com/GNMlfnh.png

Mercedes runs higher wings, they can do that because of their engine supremacy, this allows for higher cornerspeeds and overall is the best way to spent the extra hp.

+1....
All this talk about amazing this or that by Hamilton is pretty much PR nonsense.Engine formula FTW

[Restomaniac]

Well, we just have to give Ferrari time to figure out they're car configuration.

As they changed their concept from last year, they will need a bit more time to fully understand the setup. Mercedes has a year advantage over this.

Will be okay in some races.

The problem is that they are now in Mercedes' house with the long wheelbase.
The same Mercedes who after having a diva 12 months ago have nailed 'her' down.

Just which races are Ferrari going to manage to out 'long wheel base' Mercedes? Remember they have given away their advantage in the short wheelbase tracks to RedBull now.

[Just_a_fan]

+1....
All this talk about amazing this or that by Hamilton is pretty much PR nonsense.Engine formula FTW

I'll just leave this here then...

[The_table]

I'm surprised to see Kimi doing so well...
Haas seem to be doing an amazing job.

On a side note, i was watching qualy with my dad, first thing he says "what on earth is that thing in front of the driver" ...
me:"It's for protection, new rules"
him:"But it's in front of their face, how can they see?"
me:"apparently it's not that bad"
him:"But how can they see?"
me: ...

[f1316]

I think it was a shame Bottas crashed because it gives us less of a benchmark for the Mercedes performance - for my money, Hamilton had this kind of half second gap over him all weekend, so I personally think he would have struggled to get second (particularly if Vettel hadn’t made a mistake at 13, costing himself a few tenths).

I’m personally very positive for the season ahead - Ferrari still not 100% happy with the car but still close enough to make for an interesting session and imho likely split the Mercedes.

[NathanOlder]

Not really... Ferrari was faster in all of the traps. That Merc is insane in high speed and low speed traction corners.

https://i.imgur.com/GNMlfnh.png

Mercedes runs higher wings, they can do that because of their engine supremacy, this allows for higher cornerspeeds and overall is the best way to spent the extra hp.

+1....
All this talk about amazing this or that by Hamilton is pretty much PR nonsense.Engine formula FTW

If they added downforce ue to much more power the first sector would be the smallest advantage and sectors 2 and 3 would be the largest due to the amount of corners. But its not really the case.

[atanatizante]

So Red Bull went for a one stop strategy : had they nurse that SS tyre and go longer, they could use US tyre at the final stint ... with a dry but green track and maybe a safety car period maybe it could work, don`t you think?

[Restomaniac]

I'm surprised to see Kimi doing so well...
Haas seem to be doing an amazing job.

On a side note, i was watching qualy with my dad, first thing he says "what on earth is that thing in front of the driver" ...
me:"It's for protection, new rules"
him:"But it's in front of their face, how can they see?"
me:"apparently it's not that bad"
him:"But how can they see?"
me: ...

Your answer should have been 'it's called stereopsis. You can see in much the same way as can you see through a scratch on a pair of glasses'.

[Restomaniac]

So Red Bull went for a one stop strategy : had they nurse that SS tyre and go longer, they could use US tyre at the final stint ... with a dry but green track and maybe a safety car period maybe it could work, don`t you think?

I think everyone will do 1 stop.
Mercedes and Ferrari will stop earlier for the SS and RedBull will stop later for the US.

[Fulcrum]

If there is a significant gap, which I'm not certain there is, Ferrari have a great opportunity to minimise the team points difference tomorrow considering Bottas will probably struggle to finish higher than 4th. It's not often that Kimi starts this high on the grid.

[Sieper]

Not really... Ferrari was faster in all of the traps. That Merc is insane in high speed and low speed traction corners.

https://i.imgur.com/GNMlfnh.png

Mercedes runs higher wings, they can do that because of their engine supremacy, this allows for higher cornerspeeds and overall is the best way to spent the extra hp.

+1....
All this talk about amazing this or that by Hamilton is pretty much PR nonsense.Engine formula FTW

Personally I do also believe Hamilton to be a great driver, that is why he can use the car to its fullest potential. Bottas is mostly between 0,3 and 0,6 behind. But that he has one lap so much faster then his others is not because he is bad in the other laps, it is because they can up the engine (and they already have 40 more hp then Renault and 10/15 on Ferrari without the extra 1 round boost.

[Schuttelberg]

There`s been a funny moment between Lewis and Seb at the press conference:
Lewis : (answering at one question from the press guys) : "... I can assure you we don`t have a party mode ... I used the same modes from Q2 to end of Q3 ... so there was no extra button or extra mode that I engaged in ..."
Seb : (irritated and laughing): "What were you doing before, then?"
Lewis : (pause and turning his face towards him): " I was waiting to put a good lap in ... thus wipe the smile off your face!"

The banter between them is quite funny to be honest. Hamilton seems to get extremely 'touchy' the moment someone says he's in the fastest car.