2012 Formula One Australian Grand Prix

Hampus Andersson · Mar 18, 2012

Kartik Sri Harsha said:
But I think Redbull was going to take the place of Mclaren again because Even though Mclaren has Pace RBR matched their pace And in the further races they can over come them despite of less Mechanical grip through out the weekend

Lotus is also have ability to get podiums
But RBR and Mclaren will be the teams who take the Podiums much More through out season
Looking forward for next race

Not sure what this all had to do with my post

Not sure either that mechanical grip is the factor here either

F1 2011 Rocks! · Mar 18, 2012

Well, that was fun - I've just finished watching the recording I made. If all the other races are like that, we're going to be in for one hell of a season! Great to see Button win, but what a shame about Williams - last lap, they're on for a 6th place finish and Maldonado 'stuffs it in the hedge'. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Adam Hartwell · Mar 18, 2012

Ramon Alonso said:
and Mercedes just proved that without Super DRS their car is a dog. .

Yes... a car that puts someone 4th on the grid and infront of Vettel while it's running, with superior top-speed and amazing traction coming out of corners is a -total- dog of a car.. -.-

Hampus Andersson · Mar 18, 2012

Schumacher showed the car was pretty good. I think Vettel would have a hard time getting past Schumi in Oz.

He´s notorious when it comes to being overtaken, has a lot of racecraft to keep you behind.
You have to be creative with him if you want to get past, unless the car is miles better then his.

Péter Bártfai · Mar 19, 2012

Schumacher showed how great the car's top speed was and how well he can defend his position, but he was still not that fast with the car, even Alonso was catching up with them. And Rosberg is pretty much equal to Schumacher and you can see what kind of speed the car was good for... They say it's an improvement but they say it all the time. They were not a single bit faster in race than in last year, they were even further from the front runners tbh. They still have to improve, qualifying means nothing. Even if Alonso starts from P12, if he can finish ahead of them, Ferrari is the better car (/Alonso is a very good driver, but MSC and Rosberg are not bad drivers either if we talk about that).

Hampus Andersson · Mar 19, 2012

The car is fast. They just need to figure out how to get the car to preserve its tires better.

Josh Barton · Mar 19, 2012

Hampus Andersson said:
Schumacher showed the car was pretty good. I think Vettel would have a hard time getting past Schumi in Oz.

He´s notorious when it comes to being overtaken, has a lot of racecraft to keep you behind.
You have to be creative with him if you want to get past, unless the car is miles better then his.

Hes definetly still got all that knowledge, however in the last 2 years he has this knack of crashing randomly or taking out his front wing. Not all are his fault, but he just has this way of finding trouble somehow.....

Having said that, Pastor is much much worse in this regard though

Victor Ivanov · Mar 19, 2012

Schumi is still getting used to the bigger front wings

When he was racing they were way smaller

Hampus Andersson · Mar 19, 2012

Josh Barton said:
Hes definetly still got all that knowledge, however in the last 2 years he has this knack of crashing randomly or taking out his front wing. Not all are his fault, but he just has this way of finding trouble somehow.....

Having said that, Pastor is much much worse in this regard though

Made no mistake in Oz though.

Maldo was a rookie, it's expected to do mistakes and it's actually good.
How else will you find the limit if you never go over it?
As for Schumi making mistakes.. a consequence of trying to make up for the performance deficit.

Many focuses on maldos crash and not focus on his excellent drive.
He just showed that if you can give him a car capable of wins, he will go for it.
I actually love his attitude, he's a pure racer trying to get one more spot no matter how many laps there are left

Alonso who? That's how his mind works.

Josh Barton · Mar 19, 2012

Hampus Andersson said:
Made no mistake in Oz though.

Maldo was a rookie, it's expected to do mistakes and it's actually good.
How else will you find the limit if you never go over it?
As for Schumi making mistakes.. a consequence of trying to make up for the performance deficit.

Many focuses on maldos crash and not focus on his excellent drive.
He just showed that if you can give him a car capable of wins, he will go for it.
I actually love his attitude, he's a pure racer trying to get one more spot no matter how many laps there are left
Alonso who? That's how his mind works.

Yeah Schumi looked good in Melbourne until that issue he had, hopefully we see more of him in Sepang.

As for Pastor....that last lap he wasnt going to get Alonso, he needed to do it early in the lap and theres no real places after turn 3 to overtake unless Alonso makes a mistake. He shouldve cooled off and taken the points. Williams would be very annoyed. Last lap of the race is not the time to be trying to find the limits of the car

Hes a quick driver, but.....though I have to admit, it would be boring without him around

Omer Said · Mar 19, 2012

Amazing team radio coverage of Austrulian GP

It seems there was a problem with the blue flag marshalls.

Danny Asbury · Mar 19, 2012

Was a great race to watch, totally worth staying up to until 4 in the morning.

Jenson Button is going to cause a serious problem for Lewis, an identity crisis even. After quali, you could just tell Lewis thought he was going to show the world that he really is the #1 guy on McLaren and in Formula 1. But Button absolutely smashed him in the race, and to be honest I think Lewis might be quite baffled that another driver can go quicker than him in the same car. People say Button just kept the tires on his car better than Lewis, but if you remember in Q3 Button was actually an absurd 3 tenths down on Lewis' time through sector 1, but made some mistakes that resulted in him qualifying on P2. In the race, I think Button simply sorted out those issues, allowing him to have better overal AND single lap pace than Lewis.

And as for the Vettel being lucky stuff... oh my goodness, this arguement is just absurd. The guy is a tremendous driver. For whatever reason instead of admitting to that, people take some sort of solace from claiming he is a "good driver that's lucky." Look at the race, he was taking time away from Lewis hand over fist. The safety car just made the overtake easier, but I still think it was going to happen. Even Vettel said after the race he thought he would still get Lewis. Both of those guys had to deal with traffic.

Finally, this Massa business. He's going to stay with Ferrari this season. Ferrari is just like that. They value driver loyalty and Massa has been a trooper for them. After almost losing his life he gets back in the car, and nearly a year after that horrific incident he almost wins a race. But he didn't. You know why? Cause Ferrari told him to move over and let his teammate through. With every reason in the world to pull a "I didn't catch that last part..." he didn't. He followed orders. That's what Ferrari cares about. That've sacked great drivers in the past for not being about the team, and they keep guys around like Massa because they're all about the team. He may be gone for 2013, but he'll be there through 2012.

Hampus Andersson · Mar 19, 2012

Josh Barton said:
Yeah Schumi looked good in Melbourne until that issue he had, hopefully we see more of him in Sepang.

As for Pastor....that last lap he wasnt going to get Alonso, he needed to do it early in the lap and theres no real places after turn 3 to overtake unless Alonso makes a mistake. He shouldve cooled off and taken the points. Williams would be very annoyed. Last lap of the race is not the time to be trying to find the limits of the car Hes a quick driver, but.....though I have to admit, it would be boring without him around

Williams wasn't actually annoyed, they saw what he did in 99% of the race and just said, great race, let's take on the next race.
He haunted Alonso hoping he would do a mistake, there's still a chance even though it's ambitious considering the experience of Alonso but his mindset is what the true fighters of F1 have.
Alonso i know would do the same, but would possibly would have made a pass somewhere.
He's a fighter and i respect that a lot, just needs to realize his mistake and focus on the next.

Monaco last year he did another brilliant race before Hamilton took him out.

Hampus Andersson · Mar 19, 2012

About Hamilton/Button incident.

The race was decided in the start. Had Hamilton been first, Button would have gotten the bad pitstops and would have been passed by Vettel.

They kept him out for too long first pitstop, they pitted him right after Button etc.

Diego Lopez · Mar 20, 2012

question, shouldnt Ferrari and RBR be way ahead of the pack ever since they left the RRA? I mean im sure they are spending more than others unless Mclaren got kicked with good karma by sticking with the other smaller teams in forms of budget and personel.

Chris Jenkins · Mar 20, 2012

The RRA is still a gentleman's agreement.
However, being outside of FOTA, Red Bull and Ferrari are being offered equity shares in F1 in the new Concorde Agreement. Whereas the other teams are not.