News 2016 FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX Melbourne

[Notebook]

Its that time of year again...

http://www.formula1.com/content/fom-website/en/championship/races/2016/Australia.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/35850356

Lewis Hamilton took pole position for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix as the new elimination qualifying format came in for heavy criticism.

The Briton produced a stunning lap to be 0.360 seconds quicker than Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg - and seemed as if he may have been able to go faster.

But the track was empty for the final five minutes and senior figures said the format should be rethought.

N.

 

[Lucy]

Yeah this new qualifying idea that drew fire from all the smart people in the paddock but was implemented anyway needs to be rethought. Q1 was okay, 2 and 3 were a fiasco -nobody was on track with 2 minutes left in session! Not the intention, but the reality.

Hopefully the race itself will deliver some entertainment.

 

[Notebook]

Haven't got into it yet, waiting till the racing starts!

Bit late to be changing rules now, surely?

 

[indy91]

Haven't got into it yet, waiting till the racing starts!

Bit late to be changing rules now, surely?

Everyone (teams, drivers, Bernie) is saying there will be changes for the next race.

Honestly, I think the only reason the new qualifying format was ok for Q1 was that the teams didn't all know how to deal with it. There were a bunch of cars on fast laps that didn't have a chance to avoid elimination anymore. The teams will learn from this experience and you would see less action in Q1 next race weekend.

The old qualifying was fine, it kind of did focus the exciting moments in the last minutes of Q3, but they replaced it with a system that has no climax whatsoever.

 

[GLS]

Everyone (teams, drivers, Bernie) is saying there will be changes for the next race.

It's always fun to see that the very same people how out-of-the-blue changed something that was fine, are now coming out saying that they don't like the changes :facepalm:. It just goes to show were F1 is ATM... I'll stop here as this is a family forum....
On the bright side, the WEC season is not that far away :thumbup:.

 

[Notebook]

WEC..?

N.

 

[indy91]

WEC..?

N.

World Endurance Championship. They had some very good races last year. The "6 Hours of Silverstone" was just amazing, so I too am excited for the new season.

 

[Notebook]

Thanks, didn't know about that.

N.

 

[Lucy]

Haven't got into it yet, waiting till the racing starts!

Bit late to be changing rules now, surely?

These format changes were hashed in three weeks ago, and ill-thought out - as Martin Brundle commented, all the engineers saw the issue with it within about ten - fifteen minutes, and voiced their concerns, but nobody wanted to hear it then. I think the qualifying session itself proved it; nothing really different in the end, but a lot of people frustrated by the whole thing. The critical mass of farce for me was that Q3 ended with 4 minutes still on the clock - that was that, there was no big showdown as promised.

I do wonder what actual race-goers made of it, without the benefit of the visuals and explanation the TV crews provided (as I watched it, they did a bang-up job).

 

[ADSWNJ]

Still trying to work out what exactly failed, apart from the obvious no cars on track. Was it a lack of tire sets? I know F1 wants to save $$$ for the poorer teams, but I want teams to be able to race full throttle in quali with minimal concern about tires.

 

[Michkov]

Still trying to work out what exactly failed, apart from the obvious no cars on track. Was it a lack of tire sets? I know F1 wants to save $$$ for the poorer teams, but I want teams to be able to race full throttle in quali with minimal concern about tires.

You only get 13 sets for the weekend and some of them you have to give back after a certain session. Plus you have to use a certain set of tyres if you make it into Q3.

The problem is that F1 changes specific regulations without looking at the big picture leading to unindented consequences. Just look at the noses from a couple of years back, or the whole sound issue last year.

 

[tl8]

And they are reverting to the old format from the next race.

 

[BenSisko]

With all the rule changes we still got a 1, 2 Silver Arrow finish...

 

[Lucy]

With all the rule changes we still got a 1, 2 Silver Arrow finish...

Honestly, only because Ferrari threw it away. The new start regs caught the Mercs out, and the Ferraris had the pace to capitalise early on. Had the red flag not happened, or had the Ferraris used the mediums after the restart, things might've ended differently...

 

[indy91]

With all the rule changes we still got a 1, 2 Silver Arrow finish...

But what an exciting race to reach that finish. Could have easily gone worse for the Mercedes, they did the right strategy after the red flag.

If the new qualifying system was the worst change for this season, then having three tyre options during the race weekend was one of the better ones. Race strategy is mostly tyre strategy these days and todays race really benefited from it.

 

[Lucy]

But what an exciting race to reach that finish. Could have easily gone worse for the Mercedes, they did the right strategy after the red flag.

If the new qualifying system was the worst change for this season, then having three tyre options during the race weekend was one of the better ones. Race strategy is mostly tyre strategy these days and todays race really benefited from it.

Completely agree. The medium as a joker worked spectacularly well, and I can't wait to see how teams utilise it in races which don't feature a red flag.

Bit perturbed about the rules which now let them make free setup changes under red flag conditions, that wasn't always the case - in years gone by you could only change that which was unsafe, punctured tyres, broken bodywork etc. Not sure why they changed that.

 

[Notebook]

1 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 2 1:30.557 1:48:15.565 25
2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1 1:30.646 +0:08.060 18
3 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 3 1:29.951 +0:09.643 15
4 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 8  1:28.997 +0:24.330 12
5 Felipe Massa Williams 6 1:32.288 +0:58.979 10
6 Romain Grosjean Haas F1 19 1:32.862 +1:12.081 8
7 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 10 1:32.833 +1:14.199 6
8 Valtteri Bottas Williams 16 1:32.725 +1:15.153 4
9 Carlos Sainz Jnr Toro Rosso 7 1:31.671 +1:15.680 2
10 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso 5 1:31.516 +1:16.833 1
11 Jolyon Palmer Renault 13 1:32.955 +1:23.399 0
12 Kevin Magnussen Renault 14 1:32.452 +1:25.606 0
13 Sergio Perez Force India 9 1:32.780 +1:31.699 0
14 Jenson Button McLaren 12 1:31.684 Lapped 0
15 Felipe Nasr Sauber 17 1:32.711 Lapped 0
16 Pascal Wehrlein Manor 21 1:32.673 Lapped 0
R Marcus Ericsson Sauber 15 1:33.892 Retired (42) 0
R Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 4 1:30.701 Retired (23) 0
R Rio Haryanto Manor 22 1:33.847 Retired (19) 0
R Esteban Gutierrez Haas F1 20 1:32.998 Crashed (17) 0
R Fernando Alonso McLaren 11 1:32.553 Crashed (17) 0
R Daniil Kvyat Red Bull 18 Retired (0) 0

Last updated 20 March 2016 at 08:08

 

[Lucy]

Well, hardly surprisingly... http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-teams-agree-to-ditch-elimination-qualifying-680926/

So, as Martin said, "Remember back in 2016 when we had that crazy qualifying idea that only lasted a single race?"

 

[ADSWNJ]

I wonder how it may have worked if they pitted Lewis as soon as he got bogged down (say lap 10 ish) onto super sorts, rather than asking him to run long. It seemed that he lost at least 10-15 sec on that strategy. I know that's under the pit delta, but it seemed strange to not pit him when he asked for help to pass.

 

[Lucy]

I wonder how it may have worked if they pitted Lewis as soon as he got bogged down (say lap 10 ish) onto super sorts, rather than asking him to run long. It seemed that he lost at least 10-15 sec on that strategy. I know that's under the pit delta, but it seemed strange to not pit him when he asked for help to pass.

I thought that, but it's likely they were looking at where he would rejoin if pitted at that time and wanted to keep him clear of traffic.