Who's Excited for Melbourne?

[muzikant]

It is Verstappen not Verbstappen
Max talk on the track
If the Honda is good enough but nobody knows... but I think Redbull is not fast enough to challenge merc and ferrari.

 

[muzikant]

R.I.P. Charlie Whiting

 

[BazzaLB]

R.I.P. Charlie Whiting

Yeah, this is extremely shocking and sad news

 

[wombat999]

Having spent a great long weekend at Phillip Island with real racing cars I could care less about the AGP, with the exception of hoping DR might put the Renault ahead of RBR and STR.
I might, just might take advantage of my free entry courtesy of Shannons and take our 934 for a visit.........maybe.
The advertising irritated me no end, 'The Place To Be Seen' is what the GP has become.

 

[Hitman65]

Just a pity most of the races can only be watched on an hours replay tye following day since Foxtel took it over....

 

[Mark Ratzenbacher]

Patrick Stewart´s shooey by far the most exciting and rememberable event of the Aussie GP of the last years.

Sure looking forward to the first GP of the year, as everyone is now laying out their cards in the open.

Its going to be a sad event and if it´d be me, i would delay or cancel the AUS GP to honour Charlie.
Life is far more important than fast super-expensive cars going in circles.

 

[rubaru]

Its going to be a sad event and if it´d be me, i would delay or cancel the AUS GP to honour Charlie. Life is far more important than fast super-expensive cars going in circles.

I would like to think Charlie Whiting would prefer the race to go on as planned. A tribute during the opening grid introductions would be great, but not to cancel the race entirely. And fast, super-expensive cars going in circles was Charlie Whiting's livelihood and legacy.

 

[JPL083]

Goodbye Charlie... Goodbye

 

[MarkR]

Hope over experience keeps me optimistic that we will get an exciting F1 Season. If they put on a great show I'm sure that would be good enough for Charlie, it's what he lived for.

For me F1 desperately needs a ballast or BoP style means of levelling out performance, this has worked for horse racing for centuries. Most of us, the paying public, want to see a race not a procession. If F1 captured even 50% of the racing spirit of MotoGP I'd be deliriously happy.

There are so many ways to improve F1, here are a few:

- Cap the spending and team numbers. I don't care if Mercedes has more money than Ferrari. I do want to know if the same number of Mercedes engineers working with the same budget are better than the same number of engineers from Ferrari et al.

- BoP or Ballast the winning cars. If the drivers are as good as they claim they won't mind and can prove their ability. Making the previous race winner drive the next race in the 2 seater car with a public vote chosen celebrity by the public in the back ought to sort things out.

- Monaco to be raced in a F1 approved Go-Kart running a single selected F1 engine for the year. All standard, narrow, no set-ups allowed. A true driver ability competition. Monaco gets a real race and they can parade the real F1 cars around afterwards in line to avoid any contractual issues.

 

[Jonathan Young]

I’m looking forward to it as I do every year, but there’s no doubt that F1 has a lot to do to make it as interesting as it once was. Still, looking forward to seeing if Merc has been sandbagging, if LeClerc can embarrass Vettel and what’s going to happen in the midfield. Praying for a miracle at Mclaren.

On a side note, I bought F1 2018 the other day, not having played a Codie’s F1 game for years. I was shocked to see how good it is, can’t believe how I’ve been missing out all this time!

 

[Turk]

For me F1 desperately needs a ballast or BoP style means of levelling out performance, this has worked for horse racing for centuries. Most of us, the paying public, want to see a race not a procession. If F1 captured even 50% of the racing spirit of MotoGP I'd be deliriously happy.

I don't know that BOP would work with those wile F1 engineers. Most the series that use them have aren't doing as much development as F1 is.

I think 2018 was a big improvement of previous years.

- Cap the spending and team numbers. I don't care if Mercedes has more money than Ferrari. I do want to know if the same number of Mercedes engineers working with the same budget are better than the same number of engineers from Ferrari et al.

Spending could be another hard thing to track in F1. Big teams like Mercedes have already spent millions on infrastructure to support the construction of F1 cars. Putting a cap on other teams means they wouldn't be able to spend money building similar infrastructure to catch up.

I think putting a cap on people would be a good way of limiting what the big teams can do. If everyone is limited to having say 12 aero engineers it wouldn't really matter how much money the big guys have, they'd have no means to spend it any faster than the small teams.

 

[Erwin Greven]

Not 100% sure at the moment.

I used to religiously watch F1 from year to year but in the last few years, I've found I tend to end up watching whilst working on the PC or doing some other work. It doesn't grip me like it used to. Sad but true.

I seem to like the diversity of Sportscar racing more now and that's where my enjoyment is. Sebring is gonna be a good one this weekend. Lots of diversity in classes and cars. Weather is looking unpredictable as well. I'll probably be enjoying a nice drink (or two) and watching that instead.

However for those that enjoy F1, fingers crossed 2019 is a good season

exactly my thoughts.

 

[Antony Snook]

I am exited to see the cars in race trim and to see how they fair.
The track i am not a fan of as i don't like street races in general. Its better than Adelaide which was to tight. There will be a pile up after the lights as there always is a car struggling to get of the grid into turn 1 at any track. And then it will be a snooze fest to the flag.
Teams put the pressure on as the season progresses. Its basically a test session for race distance. Once the fly away's are over and when get to Spain teams know more about what they are doing and have most of the performance parts that they don't want to send the other side of the world due to the amount of money it costs. Only the big 3 AMG-Mercedes, Scudaria-Ferrari, Red Bull can send a full 2019 challenger. So the championship is in there favor from the start.

Sorry to reply to my own post but i actually enjoyed it. The race was better and the commentary was way better than usual. Good on board graphics over halo. And footage that looked like it was from a drone.