[Scorpion 10]

Still I am not sure which car is the fastest. If Lewis was not stuck behind Max, we could have got a better picture of who is who when it comes to race pace. Yes, Vettel's pace was encouraging towards the end which is a good sign for the sport, a big relief for the team, that will take a lot of pressure off. Even I am in love with Vettel's Gina!

Honda give Alonso the car he wants. We don't want him to quit the sport out of frustration.

Dark horse, I go with Toro Rosso.

For a change, lot of videos of the race available online. Thank You Libery Media.

[swissknife]

Originally Posted by Scorpion 10

Still I am not sure which car is the fastest. If Lewis was not stuck behind Max, we could have got a better picture of who is who when it comes to race pace. Yes, Vettel's pace was encouraging towards the end which is a good sign for the sport, a big relief for the team, that will take a lot of pressure off. Even I am in love with Vettel's Gina!

I hope Vettel thanked Max for holding up Lewis right after the Vettel's pit stop. It was the young blood of Max that made him hold Lewis, come what may. If Max were on still at Toro Rosso, he may have finished much higher!

[mayankk]

Oh, didnt even realize the thread had come up. Who's doing duty this year??
Lewis losing apart, this was so boring. No overtakes, No close racing. Mercedes blinked, Ferrari came away on top. It could have been the other way. I think the race was won by the strategists. But anyhoo, good for the war, boring battle.

The elephant in the room, though, is getting bigger year on year! McLaren
Whats the excuse this year, the movie?
C'mon guys!! Respect your history, get up there, fix it. Now they want to go back to Mercedes. AT this rate, we are bound to lose them by 2020.

[jfxavier]

AUS race received more visitors than last year. About 25% increase. I am sure some hyping up of the new cars translated into a higher number of visitors.

About the cars: Top speeds were marginally less. Lance Stroll missed Williams’ last year’s top speed of 330.3 km/h by 1.7 km/h. Probably the extra power available this year could not overcome the approx.10% more drag cars create in 2017.

The difference was mostly in the cornering. Due to better aerodynamic grip, drivers can go all out earlier, and brake later. In AUS cars took the chicane at the end of the straight more than 20 km/h faster than last year.
The full-throttle stretch went up by 10% more by distance.
Kimi Räikkönen pushed out a 1:26.538 on lap 56, and comparing that to last year’s Daniel Ricciardo’s 1:28.997 (on lap 49), there is a 2.4 second difference, however not close to Michael Schumacher’s 1:24.125 in 2004. Hopefully the cars will evolve more through this season.

Looks like drivers found it harder to follow each other closely in Melbourne. As Australia is unique in it’s own right it’s better to withhold judgement until the next race in China on April 9 - an event which produced a record 128 passing moves last year.
What we know for sure by looking at Ocon's lap times, it was obvious that as soon as Alonso went away Ocon was 1.3s a lap faster than what Alonso was doing. Hulkenberg also did the same. Both of them had mid to high 1:28s pace at that point in the race. Alonso was in the 1:30s.

Interesting to follow the rookies this year: Vandoorne beaten clearly by Alonso, albeit with an upgraded Chasis. Massa much faster than Stroll too. Giovinazzi handled himself well. Hope they will mature rapidly, and will put some more pressure on their teammates.

Looks like the power difference due to qualy map for Mercedes engines this year is less noticeable.

Trick suspensions are also not present in this year’s cars. Now the Ferrari query to FIA starts to make more sense.

But the additives in Lub. Oil might be a major differentiator now. According to witnesses Mercedes’ exhaust smells sweet, Ferrari’s smells like paraffin and Renault smells of burnt Lub oil. Only Honda is devoid of any peculiar smell. Maybe they are yet to play the trick with oil? Many journos have suggested that they are suffering from Low-Speed Pre-ignition. Looks like that’s something that has scope for improvement.

Honda’s struggles are saving Renault from a lot of flack. Renault powered teams will have to use their 2016 MGU-K for the first five or six races to allow them to fix issues with their new one.

Looking at the various on-boards, it seems that McLaren drivers are having to shift early and with considerable drop in torque, possibly to avoid revs that generate harmonic vibrations that were supposed to be causing damages during testing. The irony is that Honda in fact pioneered seamless shift which became standard for F1. Even though the gearbox is made by McLaren, it will be fair to assume that the above-mentioned issues are forcing them to manage the shifts this way till the PU updates arrive.
Hondas sounded much smoother in AUS than at the tests and many are speculating that they either reverted back to the older type of Cyl. Head or ran the engine richer with conventional ignition timing (probably causing more fuel saving through the race).
Once they are back with engine updates, not having to de-tune the engine and gear shifts being smooth again should gain some time for them.

However, Honda believes that the aggressive weight saving on the chassis done by McLaren could be behind the damages happening to the chassis. Lots of scope for improvement all around for McLaren Honda.

[asr245]

https://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2017/...or-the-racing/

Well, here it is. Wider cars, more downforce, stronger tires = boring races. Drivers are saying that they need to be about 2 seconds faster to pull a move. Ocon was stuck behind Alonso even though he was a 27kmph top speed advantage on the straights!!

I guess China will be better due to the long straight but this season races are more likely to be decided on Sat & pits than on race track on Sunday.

Originally Posted by jfxavier

AUS race received more visitors than last year. About 25% increase. I am sure some hyping up of the new cars translated into a higher number of visitors.

There was an Aussie driver in the mix in a top team. They were hoping that RBR & Dani would be challenging for a win.

[jfxavier]

Originally Posted by asr245

Ocon was stuck behind Alonso even though he was a 27kmph top speed advantage on the straights!!

The top speed figures are a bit misleading. Depends on usage of DRS and tow form following another car etc.
Vandoorne is shown in the speed trap to be having much higher speeds than Alonso. Where as Alonso had the latest spec. chassis.