The Official 2017 Australian Grand Prix Thread **Spoilers**

[Dr Z]

I found it intriguing that the total race time yesterday of 1hr 24min 11.672s is the fastest GP recorded for the Melbourne track, won at an average speed of ~215 km/h. The fastest ever before this was in 2004: 1hr 24min 15.757. The lap record for the 2004 race is still some way off the fastest lap yesterday, however going into my lap time archive, it looks like Schumacher 3-stopped his way to winning the race, which would explain why he could run close to the car's ultimate pace through the race (plus refuelling). There was one less race lap yesterday, and the average speed for the 2004 race winning time was ~219 km/h. It's unbelievable that these new cars are so close to the 2004 car while not doing refuelling and on a 1-stop. Staggering.

[Vaud]

Just watched the race with Sky coverage, Pat S is a great addition to the team. Almost enough to motivate me to subscribe.

[VladD]

antspants said:

Has anybody heard or read anything about Hamilton's question to his his engineer about damage to the floor of his car? I can't see any mention of it and Hamilton doesn't appear to have mentioned it any post-race interviews.

From what I remember he said he was getting lots of understeer. I think he may have thought that the front of the floor was dragging on the ground, thus causing the understeer and damaging the floor. I didn't ever hear an engineer reply though.

[entropy]

London424 said:

Let's be honest Oz is never great for overtaking but I think that was worse than many feared.

As I said earlier, the combination of better tyres and the new aero and looking at the race calendar I think you're probably down to <5 or so races where you have the chance of a decent race (excluding weather).

China
Canada
USA

If you get some weather thrown in then the following should be decent
UK
Spa
Brazil

Might be missing some so anyone feel free to input thoughts.

Edited by London424 on Monday 27th March 09:30

Not sure what to make of the new rules/cars at this point in time.

Yeah, its Albert Park but at least in the past there were interesting scraps in midfield and especially overtaking at Turn 3

Hate to say this but I couldn't help but think that with last year's tyres Lewis might have had a better chance at overtaking Max.

There's the constant reference to Lewis say the cars are harder to follow in dirty air.

Low deg tyres isn't the be all and end all. The inaugural Russian GP was great but last year's race was dire - the track allowed low tyre deg even with Pirelli's crap tyres.

[K50 DEL]

Vaud said:

Just watched the race with Sky coverage, Pat S is a great addition to the team. Almost enough to motivate me to subscribe.

Yep.. sky have a really strong team now, even the lesser-watched midweek shows have decent presenters and Brundle and Ted make the race coverage IMHO

[Silverbullet767]

Vaud said:

Just watched the race with Sky coverage, Pat S is a great addition to the team. Almost enough to motivate me to subscribe.

Good addition on a technical sense yes, but he has a boring voice and the personality of a shoe. It wouldn't hurt if he cracked a smile now and again.

[anonymous-user]

I know this is not the place and it is a totally different sport to F1 but Moto GP "once it finally got going" was amazing.

[Evilex]

funkyrobot said:

Evilex said:

dr_gn said:

Evilex said:

Just trying to watch it on catch-up. I get 4 secs of the c4 logo, 8 seconds of the titles, a quick flash of the beginning of the kayak advertising, and it resets to the menu.
Rinse, repeat on each successive attempt. Laughably poor.

It's fine - youre watching the highlights show there - in full. Basically it was so bad there was nothing to show.

I tried again. All I get is ads, a 2 second snatch of the credits, then ads, then back to the menu screen. Qualifying does the same.
It's probably because I'm using an unusual platform no-one's ever heard of with a tiny user base. Playstation. [/]sarcasm

I have to watch it on an old iPad because it doesn't work on my Roku 3. I started watching it on there last year. However, as the season progressed, it got worse.

The first few episodes went fine. It then started messing around if the episode was around 2 hours long. It would stop randomly, say the video was unavailable, and when I loaded it back up, it would continue.

It then developed an issue where it would stop, I would load it back up, it would play until the ads, then when it came back from the ads it would be where it stopped previously.

The final nail in the coffin was when it stopped after ten or so minutes, I would load it back up, find where I was previously, it would run for a minute then stop again.

I gave up, went to the iPad version and it runs fine on there.

Interestingly, I thought I would load up the Australia quali prog on the Roku and see if they had fixed it this year. It got as far as Claire Williams at the start, stopped, then played again as far as Claire Williams, stopped then went back again.

It's odd really as I've watched other things on All4 just fine. The F1 is seriously buggered on there if you aren't using a mainstream device. Looks like it won't be fixed either.

Yep. Other programmes work fine. It's just F1! My (non-mainstream!) PS3 can get further than Claire Williams by about a second. I can get to Niki Lauda, so there!

There's not even a way of contacting c4 via the app/device, so it's not like they care about feedback. It's interesting to note that all the other "smart" devices we own will cater for Itv hub, iplayer and demand 5, but not all4..

[robinessex]

Now slower down the straights, faster through the corners, thus braking distance almost gone, hence no overtaking. Ever. Can't follow another car (nothing changed there then). So a boring procession. Solution. Dump all the fancy aero. Simple front with for minor aero trim, ditto rear wing.

[anonymous-user]

K50 DEL said:

Yep.. sky have a really strong team now, even the lesser-watched midweek shows have decent presenters and Brundle and Ted make the race coverage IMHO

Personally think Sky's F1 team are pants.

Brundle is very good but I feel too much time with David Croft is starting to take it's toll.

The VERY annoying presenter Simon Lazenby is as annoying at that X Factor numpty Dermot O'Leary.

Natalie Pinkham and Rachael Brookes I must say are good. As Lewis says the more woman in F1 the better.

The ex F1 drivers Anthony Davidson, Damon Hill and Johnny Herbert are all pretty poor. Even David Coulthard on Channel 4 is better than these guys.

To be fair I would rather pay to watch Sky if the presenters and experts were the C4 team as they are much easier to watch and listen too.

Eddie Jordan is not everyone's cup of tea but I like his mad comments and shirts.

I will get my coat

[BigBen]

Silverbullet767 said:

Vaud said:

Just watched the race with Sky coverage, Pat S is a great addition to the team. Almost enough to motivate me to subscribe.

Good addition on a technical sense yes, but he has a boring voice and the personality of a shoe. It wouldn't hurt if he cracked a smile now and again.

Agree, everything he said was interesting, or rather exactly the kind of thing I am usually interested in. That said it was his first go so will give him some time to get used to his new role.

[red_duke]

Vaud said:

Just watched the race with Sky coverage, Pat S is a great addition to the team. Almost enough to motivate me to subscribe.

Completely agree. Hopefully they've canned Johny "sort of" Herbert permanently in favour of Pat.

[l354uge]

Crofty irritates me with his constant mistakes (I know murray did that, but he was at least charming and corrected himself) and HOW EVERYTHING HAS TO BE A METAPHOR FOR ANOTHER SPORT. I get hes trying to include new fans but 1. They probably wont be bothering with SkySportsF1 at 6am 2. Comparing an overtake to the ashes or football ADDS NOTHING. We get it, you like other sports! But we don't care!

[HustleRussell]

Admittedly I was spectacularly hungover on Sunday morning and I watched the race in the kitchen while frantically trying to make a passable mother's day lunch for my family, but...

I'm glad F1 is back. I'm optimistic about it's future and I also enjoyed the race.

People have such short memories and so little patience. Baying for blood already and even demanding 'immediate' technical changes to inject excitement.

It's exactly this kind of knee-jerk st that gave us 'elimination' qualifying this time last year (remember how great that was?) Not to mention a whole host of other innovations which came to be maligned in time as 'artificial' (DRS, strategic KERS deployment, tyres made of cheese...)

The lap times are close among the front runners and while there's a gap behind the front pack the rest of the grid has battles throughout.

The artificial tyre degradation is significantly reduced.

The effect of artificial overtaking aid DRS seems to have been lessened.

Drivers can push.

Everybody is moaning about how bad dirty air syndrome is this season but if anything I think it is less of a problem than last season (probably due to tyres)

People. The Australian Grand Prix is always hit and miss. If it's wet, it's exciting. If it's dry, it's processional.

The technical changes were never going to increase overtaking. We have been seeing record levels of overtaking in F1 in recent years. Still people complain about the 'spectacle'. As it turns out, watching a Mercedes powered car breeze past a non-Mercedes powered car with a 20kmph speed advantage and being several car lengths ahead by the next braking zone isn't a very exciting overtake.

Complainers- go and find an interview with Ross Brawn to listen to. Never in my memory has such a concise, logial, common-sense approach been brought into the upper sanctum of FOM.

Think also on the relaxation of social media rules. All the little clips and interviews that surfaced during testing.

If that doesn't make you optimistic about F1, just give up on it now.

[HustleRussell]

Flatdash said:

I`m at a loss why on earth has Pat Symonds popped up on the Sky team ? No doubt a nice chap but for the duration of Australia he looked at a loss.. as though he'd just surfaced from a period of cryogenic suspension and was baffled by the bright lights.

So true! I'm always glad of extra technical insight but hopefully Pat will relax a little and become a bit easier around the camera...

[Quickmoose]

I think with some nods to H&S
we should be returning to someth9ig along these lines.
Make it all 21st century styling and work your aero magic with the constraints... but get rid of barge boards and front and rear wings...
Use some underfloor wizardry...or something

[VladD]

Quickmoose said:

I think with some nods to H&S
we should be returning to someth9ig along these lines.
Make it all 21st century styling and work your aero magic with the constraints... but get rid of barge boards and front and rear wings...
Use some underfloor wizardry...or something

I agree. No wings or fiddly bits, a flat floor (with a plank) and get the performance to come from the engine and mechanical grip.

[HustleRussell]

That exists- it's called 'historic racing'.

[suffolk009]

jsf said:

They tried that in Indycar, it was utterly tedious cars passing then re-passing lap after lap after lap after lap after lap............ an overtake meant absolutely nothing. They scrapped that idea when they realised how crap it was.

I quite agree, have you ever watched Caterham racing?

[Quickmoose]

Historic racing is to allow historic cars to 'race' and people can reminisce.
The philosophy/look of those cars just needs to be brought up to date with the advances in all areas (aside from body mounted aero)