2018 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, 22 -25 March

[Andres125sx]

I for one would love to see DRS activation happen much earlier in the straight. Possibly on or even before the apex of the corner. The balancing act of traction out of corners and gaining a good top speed could be complicated by the chance of spinning out. The car in front should also have some DRS assistance but not as apparent as the following car.

Would a driver activate DRS earlier at a place like Monaco?

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I don´t think so. Take into account F1 cars are traction limited up to 3rd or even 4th gear even in a straight, so activating DRS will reduce traction and acceleration.... and I think this would harm more than what they´d gain due to the reduced drag, but this is just my guess

However, guessing where to manually activate DRS will bring in some skill into the equation I think or some unpredictability. Just a thought though...

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Agree with that

[Just_a_fan]

One position that I maintain and I will probably be blast for saying it.

NO BLUE FLAG! You are racing. just because there is a back marker does not mean they are not racing also. Earn it!

End rant...

That doesn't work with high downforce cars on road circuits. The reason blue flags exist is because you get to the point where you can't pass, be that for car reasons or circuit reasons. Imagine no blue flags at Monaco. As soon as a backmarker was caught by a quicker car, that would be it. End of race. No one would be passing anyone, a queue would form and they'd just tool around at the backmarker's pace.

[dans79]

I am guessing you are from USA (A country I still regard very highLy) and f.e. In the NBA they have similar rules in place, budget cap, first draft etc. All to make the competition better.

Non of the budget capping systems work. Draft picks stuff can help some, but do to the nature of the sports you have to really suck for several years (5 or 6 +) so you can build up a pool of talent, and even then the odds of winning are still very long.

[Sieper]

You are from the USA see your avatar now. I am not too familiair with the NBA system intricacies but in Any case, here in europe the English football league was the firsthe major football country to divide the tv money more equal over all teams, and this massively benefited the whole competition, also the top teams. It went from many clubs being near bankrupt to a flourishing competition that everybody likes to follow, English football is now the pinnacle (next to Spanish).

I feel liberty should do something similar. Helping Sauber, Williams, McLaren, force India str. And taking away a bit from the tv money from merc Ferr and RBR.

[foxmulder_ms]

But that is the most important argument, If Mercedes do destroy the opponents a season long (and even if their customers teams would also(Williams was not too far off a few years ago) then pretty quickly somekind of rule would be introduced to kill the advantage partially.

This is a part of European culture I will never understand. Their seems to be a subconscious (for lack of a better term) urge to knock anyone down who is deemed to be doing to well.

Well, that may be so, certainly that is present in parts of my home country, I myself like to admire who is doing good, but it really has nothing to do with the reasoning in F1. There is a rule that engines must be in a certain bandwidth f.e. That is why it is beneficial for a team like Merc, the benchmark, not to push it too much, that way they can remain on top more easily as otherwise the politics of F1 (complaining RBR, Ferrari, Renault etc.) would start to weigh on FIA ruling. And I believe personally FIA is right to do so as competition is what we all like to see the most. I am guessing you are from USA (A country I still regard very highLy) and f.e. In the NBA they have similar rules in place, budget cap, first draft etc. All to make the competition better.

why?? This is a motor sport. I thought the idea was having the best engine. What happened to that idea?

You sound like RedBull bosses.. They kept telling to others "do a better job" when people whined about "aero F1". Now it is other way around same bosses of RedBull complain about an "engine F1" in a motor sport.. "Just be better!" as 2012 Horner would say. Complaining about the rules is just being sour. >50% thermal efficiency is awe inspiring, great for F1. F1 survived 5 back to back Shcumi and 4 back to back Vetel wins. Will survive Mercedes domination too.

[Sieper]

This is a part of European culture I will never understand. Their seems to be a subconscious (for lack of a better term) urge to knock anyone down who is deemed to be doing to well.

Well, that may be so, certainly that is present in parts of my home country, I myself like to admire who is doing good, but it really has nothing to do with the reasoning in F1. There is a rule that engines must be in a certain bandwidth f.e. That is why it is beneficial for a team like Merc, the benchmark, not to push it too much, that way they can remain on top more easily as otherwise the politics of F1 (complaining RBR, Ferrari, Renault etc.) would start to weigh on FIA ruling. And I believe personally FIA is right to do so as competition is what we all like to see the most. I am guessing you are from USA (A country I still regard very highLy) and f.e. In the NBA they have similar rules in place, budget cap, first draft etc. All to make the competition better.

why?? This is a motor sport. I thought the idea was having the best engine. What happened to that idea?

You sound like RedBull bosses.. They kept telling to others "do a better job" when people whined about "aero F1". Now it is other way around same bosses of RedBull complain about an "engine F1" in a motor sport.. "Just be better!" as 2012 Horner would say. Complaining about the rules is just being sour. >50% thermal efficiency is awe inspiring, great for F1. F1 survived 5 back to back Shcumi and 4 back to back Vetel wins. Will survive Mercedes domination too.

Foxmulder, the engine parity principal already exists, it is not me who came up with it. You sound Also in a very certain way

[dans79]

I feel liberty should do something similar. Helping Sauber, Williams, McLaren, force India str. And taking away a bit from the tv money from merc Ferr and RBR.

This is a lot different from all the sports here in the states, where each team has individual deals for the broadcast rights of their games.

I'm all for getting rid of the special bonuses, but in the long run it won't change a thing in my opinion. Even a budget cap won't work in F1, as it's far to easy for suppliers to to spend a lot on a teams behalf to get an edge.

[Sieper]

It will be very hard to stop the big spenders, and no need to, at least make sure the smaller spenders have Some wiggle room, haas this year, force India the passed two, the closer the better. The more competition the better.

[ENGINE TUNER]

Melbourne apparently needs 7 DRS sections.

Or everywhere! Seriously, I believe with the current cars they need to increase the DRS window to 1.5-2 seconds.

Increasing the DRS window will not help overtaking, it will only allow the trailing car catch up to the back of the leading car more quickly. The trailing car will still suffer from massive turbulence which will stop them from getting close enough to attempt a pass. Only increasing DRS length/duration or magnitude will possibly help passing, but do we really want more DRS passing?

In order to improve passing in Melbourne they need to tighten up T1 massively, and possibly t16 as well, tighten up t3, loosen up 4, tighten up t6, tighten up t9, loosen up t11, tighten up t3 massively, maybe tighten up t15.

But most importantly the cars themselves need to change, we need to go back to narrower cars, but not as narrow tires as before, raise and widen the rear wing, and massively increase underbody downforce.

[ENGINE TUNER]

I agree the 3 PU rule is destroying not only the race but the weekend. In the rain it seemed more and more people were inclined to not bring their cars out during free practice so that' s horrible for fans.

And I don't understand the need for Mercedes to always run a tiny gap with the cars behind them. From what I could see Lewis could extend his gap at will. He was in the clear air, he had no traffic. A 3 second gap with 2 Ferrari's right behind you and no Bottas means they were just asking for it. Simple as that. It's utterly mind boggling an outfit like Mercedes would run a race with so tiny a gap. I do not believe that they did not have pace in their car to have extended to at least 5 seconds.

They were saving tires, not the engine, they still needed to go 40 laps on that 1 set and would have to worry about tires for any restarts after that time.

[ENGINE TUNER]

2014 quali was wet, thus cars were out of position. Mercedes powered cars had ridicioulus engine advantage that race, but they started out of position because of rain.
Another reason for more overtakes were comically slow cars, with like no downforce at all. Fastest lap was 8.4s (!!!!!) slower than track record. New SF18 (2018 superformula chassis) cars would beat the crap out those 2014 F1 cars on some tracks, with 2/3s the power, while costing 100 times less.

2014 cars were slow because of the tires, not because of lack of DF.

[dans79]

In order to improve passing in Melbourne they need to tighten up T1 massively, and possibly t16 as well, tighten up t3, loosen up 4, tighten up t6, tighten up t9, loosen up t11, tighten up t3 massively, maybe tighten up t15.

IMO what's needed, is to remove the heavy braking/acceleration zones before the potential overtaking areas.

In general Melbourne, or any street circuit for that matter would be difficult to correct because you are bound by the limitations of the city streets.

If I was to re-work Melbourne, as i saw fit, and wasn't bound by the park constraints I would do the following:

1. Severely tighten up T1
2. convert T3 into a fast sweeping turn
3. Severely tighten up T5
4. all but remove T6
5. open up the T11 & 12 complex even more
6. Make T15 and T16 more like T11 & T12

IMO, this would make T1, T5, T9, & T13 much more natural overtaking spots, as you would have longer runs between heavy breaking zones, hopefully enough where you could close down the gap enough to attempt an overtake.

[joshuagore]

The only thing I will remember from this race is the depth of knowledge and high iq from skyF1 presenters on Vettel's pit under virtual safety car.

I too was overwhelmed by the succinct explanation for the benefit gained. It was almost as though they had been watching f1 for years and understood how vsc undercut was a thing, and that fast teams who pit as soon as it's in their favor, lose the opportunity to pit later at a street circuit where safety cars are a statistical probability...

It was so nice to hear the presenters get to this straight dope so quickly and totally not participate in any bullshittery.

Is this all a massively sarcastic conversation? Because what I heard was a ridiculous "explanation" from Crofty that instead of the fact that less time is lost pitting under yellow because the opponents are going slower, he pulled out of his ass this idea that the gain was because the pit lane isn't part of the VSC speed limit. It's frustrating watching someone being paid a lot of money to explain it to millions of viewers feed them all nonsense instead of the obvious facts. Maybe I missed it when the Sky team corrected themselves?

Anyway, I don't know why years ago there wasn't a penalty time added to pitting under a VSC to alleviate the time benefit. Simply not letting the team touch the car for the first ten seconds of the pit stop, or something like that, like a previous poster said. This would be a more fair rule change.

It's depressing to see the discussion turn into ad hominems about "you're just salty your driver lost this time". I was happy to see Ferrari win because I hope for a good title race. I still think that they won in part because of an unfair advantage from luck.

Though I agree that at the same time, everyone knew that a VSC could happen and should have had it in mind when strategizing. So credit to Ferrari for the win. Hamilton could have stayed out longer to avoid the chance of being caught out by a VSC but Mercedes choose the wrong strategy this time. Part luck, part mistake, imo. What's his name on YouTube who works for McLaren, I think made a good point saying that the root of it all was bottas crashing in Q3.

Really fun exciting race, imo. Dramatic. What a horrible break for Haas for example. For me, the analysis isn't even over yet because I get to read the coming days on this forum about estimated race pace from all the teams. Looking forward to it. Thanks everyone here for contributing!

Sorry, yes on the sarcasm. Totally agree, its a sad state when the announcers who could thrill the fans with new knowledge instead rely on defensive tropes, ferrari cheats. My goodness we can love Hami and Vettel, it is possible. Shame that the part luck/part mistake wasn't brought up as a turning point in the race and instead was a focal point of winging... But then again it took me years to figure out my initial thoughts on the racing were right and the announcers were the ones bloviating. 'Vettel Leads, Vettel Leads, Ferrari make a brilliant call, Merc have let Hami down on the math' Literally this could have been at the tip of any announcers mouth, but what do we hear, stuttering and confusion about the sport 'they love' lol.

[LionKing]

In China SC was deployed 2 laps after VSC and then all other drivers also went for slicks, including Hamilton. This shows that Vettel was right by already going to the pits under VSC. The track didn't dry out after just 2 laps for other drivers to change their minds. They just realized it was good enough for slicks. So in fact it was Hamilton who got lucky. Otherwise he would have stopped later and lost much more time.

I dont think the track was quite ready for slicks, Vettel and Co just took a gamble (worth a go). The track was not faster for Slick tyres at the time, but if you get an almost free pit stop it makes the gamble all the more tempting. "IF" the track was dry enough for the slick tyres to be faster than the inters everyone would have done the same. Vettel Pitted at the end of lap 2. The race resumed on lap 8. Plus 4 or 5 of those laps were behind the safety car. It was only 6 laps but it was probably 15+ minutes and had time to dry further.

All I'm saying is that day, Hamilton didnt get lucky. He won deservedly. Led every lap if i recall correctly after starting on pole. Completely different story to yesterday, and all I was replying about was "what goes around comes around" or "it evens itself out" is 100% rubbish.

The point is Lewis would have to pit very soon with the rapidly drying track and would have come 5-6 seconds behind Vettel without the safety car who had pit under VSC.

https://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2017/04/ ... konen-out/
".... So when the Virtual Safefy Car was triggered on Lap 2, after Stroll’s incident, they assessed risk versus reward and went for the bold option – they pitted Vettel.

Both Mercedes, both Red Bulls and Raikkonen stayed out.

Ferrari now had a split strategy across the two cars. The problem was that Raikkonen had lost a place to Ricciardo at the start and sat behind him, unable to exploit the pace of the Ferrari and play his part in the game.

By pitting under the Virtual Safety Car, a stop takes around 12-14 seconds instead of 21. When the track goes green that’s a 7-9 sec gap that the leader has to build back up ahead of his own stop. As the track was drying quickly, Hamilton would surely be in a lap or two later, as would the other leading cars and Vettel could well have been in the lead (see below) ..."

[Gaz.]

In order to improve passing in Melbourne they need to tighten up T1 massively, and possibly t16 as well, tighten up t3, loosen up 4, tighten up t6, tighten up t9, loosen up t11, tighten up t3 massively, maybe tighten up t15.

IMO what's needed, is to remove the heavy braking/acceleration zones before the potential overtaking areas.

In general Melbourne, or any street circuit for that matter would be difficult to correct because you are bound by the limitations of the city streets.

If I was to re-work Melbourne, as i saw fit, and wasn't bound by the park constraints I would do the following:

1. Severely tighten up T1
2. convert T3 into a fast sweeping turn
3. Severely tighten up T5
4. all but remove T6
5. open up the T11 & 12 complex even more
6. Make T15 and T16 more like T11 & T12

IMO, this would make T1, T5, T9, & T13 much more natural overtaking spots, as you would have longer runs between heavy breaking zones, hopefully enough where you could close down the gap enough to attempt an overtake.

If you look on google earth, T14/T16 could become one longer corner to enable closer racing onto the Walker Straight, admittedly at the expense of a touch football pitch and ten trees although they could be relocated.