2016 Australian Grand Prix

Ferrari will be a lot closer to Merc if the rumour mill is right.

McLaren will be back to the midfield, Haas will be slowest

The real interesting battle will be in the midfield (Williams, Red Bull, Toro Rosso, possibly Renault)
 
First race is always exciting, though i'm hoping for less of a one pony show this year.
 
A battle between Mercedes, Ferrari followed closely by Jordan... I mean Renault and Williams would be nice. I still think Mercedes has the edge though. But as long as the results become way less predictable I am fine with it.
 
Ferrari will be a lot closer to Merc if the rumour mill is right.

McLaren will be back to the midfield, Haas Sauber will be slowest

The real interesting battle will be in the midfield (Williams, Red Bull, Toro Rosso, possibly Renault)

FTFY...

oh, and Harrianto will crash :p
 
Harrianto will be called Hurryuppo soon I guess...

FP was interesting because damp then wet then damp again... Raikkonen properly quick on both sessions... I hope it's not just because of the rain...
 
Qualifying was great! You have to appreciate a good train wreck failure.
 
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Q1 and Q2 had some interest. Q3 was completely anticlamactic. This is what happens when F1 pays any attention to the eco-fascists. You want interesting qualifying, give them unlimited tyre choices, and unlimited boost on the turbos. Make it like the 80's, where the cars were bring pushed to the limits of reliability and power.
 
This is what happens when F1 pays any attention to the eco-fascists.

No, this is what happens when F1 pays attention to conflicting self-serving factions within itself that compete to write the stupidest rules possible. Because this wasn't an "eco-fascists" idea, it was from the Strategy Group aka Bernie and the teams.


EDIT: FYI, Hamilton's pole time was faster than the official track record in terms of race laps (set by Schuey in 2004) by 3 tenths of a second.
 
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No, this is what happens when F1 pays attention to conflicting self-serving factions within itself that compete to write the stupidest rules possible. Because this wasn't an "eco-fascists" idea, it was from the Strategy Group aka Bernie and the teams.


EDIT: FYI, Hamilton's pole time was faster than the official track record in terms of race laps (set by Schuey in 2004) by 3 tenths of a second.

Also Rosberg was only off by around 9 hundredths of a second. Vettel's time which was faster than Montoya's 2004 qualifying would have made him P3 in the 2004 session.
 
Q3 was soooo lame... Completely the opposite of what it normally is.... Bit q1 and 2 were much more interesting
 
Don't see this qualifying format lasting. What they replace it with is going to be interesting. Well I hope it's interesting because this one is dull and simply doesn't work.
 
News from London:

Regarding qualifying,

" .. Bernie doesn't like it! So, that's the end of it."

David Coulthard on C4.

:rolleyes:
 
Q1 and Q2 had some interest. Q3 was completely anticlamactic. This is what happens when F1 pays any attention to the eco-fascists.
No, this is what happens when F1 pays attention to conflicting self-serving factions within itself that compete to write the stupidest rules possible. Because this wasn't an "eco-fascists" idea, it was from the Strategy Group aka Bernie and the teams.

Nailed it, vikiradTG2007.

The objective of this new format was to force the cars to be on track rather than sit in the garage, but all it did was swap the "garage sitting" from the start of qualifying to the end. I fast-forwarded through the last five minutes of Q2 and four minutes of Q3 because none of the cars were going to go out because they could not improve their positions in the time allotted to them.



Don't see this qualifying format lasting. What they replace it with is going to be interesting. Well I hope it's interesting because this one is dull and simply doesn't work.

I expect they will give it one or two more rounds to see if the teams can figure out the concept of "time management", but if it is the same "stop watching at half-way because everyone has par" I would not be at all surprised if they went back to the 2015 format.

Or maybe go back to the variant before that when flying laps in Q3 and Q2 did not count if the car crossed the line after time had elapsed (Q3 times did count after the checkered flag waived to end the session).

Hell, I'd be happy with going back to a single flying lap rather than what we have at the moment.


Haas will be slowest

While they were 20th and 21st, if they had been under last year's format their elimination flying laps would have put them in the Top 10 at that moment so if they can survive the start, I believe they have a shot of at least one of them being in the points.
 
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I'm impressed they acted so quickly. I thought for sure they might try to blame the teams or something.
 
Fantastic start by Ferrari, but jesus, Alonso just had a massive crash.
 
Oops, Ferrari went from 1-2 to 3-RET Kimi looked like he was doing pretty well too.
 
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