2011 Australian Grand Prix

[F1 fan]

Where I disagree with you though, is Fernanado Alonso.
He is EASILY the worst of them all.
He has a bad attitude, he is egotistic, and a very dirty driver. Seems like a major douchbag.

While I agree that sometimes he comes across as an idiot (his gestures to petrov in abu dhabi being very recent) he seems quite humble during interviews. Hamilton seems to be "Wow, how amazing was that. It reminds me of Ayrton" ...

Adrian Newey

I know. It's going to be a good season.

 

[The Outlaw]

Lewis Mark looks so displeased in the press conference.

Fixed

 

[Terronium-12]

Fixed

Neither one of them looked too happy. Vettel was just rambling...and Hamilton is on the side scratching himself and giving off dark, piercing eye stares. Webber just looked like he wanted to choke someone.

 

[Grayfox]

Have to love the commentators on the tyres:

"He's out on hards, they must be on a different strategy for the race! Oh wait, is that the soft option. I think it is! oh...it all worked better last year with the stripe. This year the the tyre is shiny so the body colour reflects off the tyre!".

I know these commentators must be color blind or just plain stupid as i can tell which is soft or hard

 

[Small_Fryz]

Neither one of them looked too happy. Vettel was just rambling...and Hamilton is on the side scratching himself and giving off dark, piercing eye stares. Webber just looked like he wanted to choke someone.

Thats because they got skooled

 

[zippy_the_cat]

Gotta hope the stewards don't let HRT in. Time to end the clown show. They're nothing like race-ready.

 

[Grayfox]

Thats because they got skooled

Skooled with out K.E.R.S.

 

[Terronium-12]

Thats because they got skooled

I'll reserve judgment about him schooling anyone until I've seen him successfully overtake someone, or advance from a crowd without flipping the whole thing up. Then, well, I'll still want Mark to win...but I won't look at him as I do now. Which is he's incredibly fast and has tremendous talent, but can only win races if he distances himself from the pack.

 

[Bigbazz]

I cringed when Schumacher short shifted, i knew he wouldnt make it when i saw that, quite disapointed as i really wanted him to do well.

On the bright side, i'm happy the Mclarens are mixing it up there with the Red Bulls, Vettel on pole as i expected. Jenson is 4th again, he won the race from here last year... This should be a goodun!

 

[ECGadget]

Well, he's 11th, and I believe Coulthard has won this GP from 11th before, so lets not count him out. Amazing display from Vettel though, really showed everyone just why he is the world champion. I think Ferrari are a little worried with Alonso 5th and Massa 8th.
Also, what happened to Massa? I thought he just put the power down too early, but I'm not sure now. Characteristic of the Perelli tires?
Barrichello as well, newbie error. And I don't know about others, but KERS didn't seem to make any difference whatsoever...
HRT should not be allowed to race. I agree with Martin Brundle when he said 'Waste of talent and money as far as I'm concerned'

edit: Oh yeah, apparently Schumacher lost grip in the final sector as his tires just dropped off.

 

[zippy_the_cat]

HRT should not be allowed to race. I agree with Martin Brundle when he said 'Waste of talent and money as far as I'm concerned'

That's harsh -- but accurate.

And likely an indicator that the Beeb's coverage once again had it all over Speed's pablum.

 

[ECGadget]

That's harsh -- but accurate.

And likely an indicator that the Beeb's coverage once again had it all over Speed's pablum.

Last year they were really slow. This year we've got the 107% rule back... and they were WAY outside it. Virgin and Lotus have moved forward slightly. HRT in my opinion have gone nowhere except backward.

 

[FullSpe3d98]

Damn it. Alarm didn't go off. At least Hamilton came 2nd though

 

[Muzaffar]

Kinda late to be commenting here, but I watched the entire session live in HD. Finally my cable provided HD coverage of F1!!!
Anyhow, I think Vettel's Q3 lap was really astonishing. I think him and Webber might pull away from the McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes if they get a good and clean start. But also I feel sorry for Heidfeld being eliminated in Q1 and Barrichello losing it in the sand trap during Q2. Both were really unfortunately caught out...

 

[Grayfox]

Question now is will the V8's and other races clean the track enough or will it still be littered with marbels?

 

[Clark]

I'm really gutted about Heidfeld, especially considering how well Petrov qualified. In fact this just worsens the absence of Kubica.

 

[ECGadget]

yeah... it's odd how we've got rookies in the middle of the veterans. to be honest I think these new tires played a huge part in messing up the midfield.

 

[F1 fan]

Good performance from Petrov. I think some people need to go a bit easier on him as he just made Nick Heidfeld look foolish.

 

[ECGadget]

Petrov really did do well, no doubt, but Heidfeld should have got into Q2 at least...

 

[granturismite]

Is it just me, or do the Williams cars look like lego?

I fail to understand how Vettel was 8 tenths quicker than Webber . I think that perhaps the KERS indicator shown must have malfunctioned, because no-one could be that far ahead and not use KERS.

Interesting race tommorow I bet. I think Vettel will walk it, and Webber will DNF, either by getting hit or technical malfunction. That man has no luck.

I originally thought Alonso 2nd, and either Massa or Heidfeld 3rd, but now I'm thinking Button or Alonso for 2nd, and Rosberg 3rd. My thoughts are Buttton will manage the tyres better than Hamilton, who will be mad at the team. Petrov will bin it (crash), Massa just doesn't have the speed to get on the podium, and Kobayashi will try to bite off more than he can chew, and someone he's trying to overtake won't give him room,

And for the record, HRT should not have been allowed into Melbourne because they were clearly not ready. they should skip Malaysia, and concerntrate on China, or even Turkey or Spain

 

[Grayfox]

But Vettle did enable the DRS(Drag Reduction System) much sooner, than anyone else and dont forget setup.

 

[Bram Turismo]

I'm really gutted about Heidfeld, especially considering how well Petrov qualified. In fact this just worsens the absence of Kubica.

If anything, Vitaly just showed how good a decision it was that Renault kept him. This is a fantastic start to his season.

This season looks to be kicking off where we ended the 2010 season. I really hope someone else can mix themselves in the fight throughout the season. If anything I expected Lotus a lot closer to some of the other teams this season

 

[Prince.M5]

I was mad when I saw a footage of Heidfeld being held up by traffic at right-hander turn 12 or 13... Obviously costs him a lot of time. Congratulation to the man Vettel and the rest, tomorrow is going to be interesting to see how well can the drivers manage their tyres...

 

[PeterJB]

Well that was pretty interesting to say the least! Toro Rosso seem to have made a step up from last year, and it's nice to see some of the new drivers outqualifying their team mates.

 

[Sureboss]

I was mad when I saw a footage of Heidfeld being held up by traffic at right-hander turn 12 or 13... Obviously costs him a lot of time. Congratulation to the man Vettel and the rest, tomorrow is going to be interesting to see how well can the drivers manage their tyres...

Whilst he was held up, a few tenths was more than separating him from Petrov.

Fascinating qualifying session. Vettel is on fire and clear favourite for tomorrow. McLaren, I suspect, will be the happiest team of the lot though.

Should be a cracker tomorrow. 👍

 

[ECGadget]

Lewis Hamilton has said he will give Seb the 'Race of his life' tmrw. I really wanna see Schumacher coming in somewhere... I can see Seb and Lewis and Mark and Jenson fighting at the front the whole time, Petrov will lose places somehow (hunch), Alonso and Massa will be reeled in by Rosberg and Schumacher, and I think Barrichello is going to fight hard from 17th to get to the top 10. Paul Di Reista looks sharp in his Force India, but I don't think he'll get into the top 10.

My top 10 (fantasy): Schumacher, Button, Barrichello, Webber, Vettel, Hamilton, Rosberg, Alonso, Massa, Kobayashi

My top 10 (realistic): Hamilton, Vettel, Webber, Button, Kobayashi, Schumacher, Rosberg, Alonso, Massa, Petrov

 

[Ardius]

I'm watching out for Kobayashi's start tomorrow as last year he had some pretty amazing ones. He's qualified on worn softs though so his strategy might already be compromised.
Good stuff by Petrov, lets see if he can keep his head in the race tomorrow.
Disappointed by Barrichello and Heidfeld - Rubens shouldn't be making mistakes like that and Nick seems to have been held up badly by the HRTs from the brief footage we saw.
A few people having KERS failures, might be a factor tomorrow.

The best part of this weekend is we still don't know what is going to happen, especially on the tyres front. Vettel's 8 tenths may come to nothing if Red Bull screw up strategies (again).

Shame the HRT's couldn't qualify, hopefully they sort themselves out for Malaysia.

 

[Akmuq]

Just a bit of speculation here, but I wonder if Mclaren still have the best KERS like they did two years ago? If they do and still have as big of a margin in KERS then it could be a Mclaren 1-2 by turn 1. If Renault's KERS will match them then it's all about who gets on it first.

The new teams have no chance of jumping someone at the start unless they stall.

 

[Shaggy Alonso]

Interesting theories going on about why Red Bull didn't use KERS from James Allen:

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2011/03/red-bull-using-start-only-kers/

Basically the suggestion that they have a light weight KERS unit that is only usable at the start of the race.

Hard to say if this will be kept legal

In any case, if this is true and Hamilton does manage to get past Vettel at the start, Seb will have a tough time getting back past him.

 

[sems4arsenal]

Another RedBull Cars are way to fast and lets try to find something illegal about it theory.It's a good read but Man Adrian Newey should be banned from F1 for being way too good (Kidding)