2009 Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix

mclarensmps said:
A good performance means that cars were overtaken, the car wasn't planted into a wall, and he didn't come together with another driver while performing overtaking moves.

Which is a lot more than you can say for Kimi, Vettel or Kubica. These guys didn't DNF by some random act of God, it was their own fault.

Hamilton did what he had to do, and he benefited from other people's mistakes.

Massa is the only driver I can give you credit whose result was out of his hand.

To finish first, you must first finish.
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How soon after Massa and Kimi had pitted did the safety car come out?
 
Pointless question, since I already admitted Massa's result was outside of his control.

Kimi, on the other hand... what's a safety car got to do with him planting it into a wall?

Anyways, Lewis and the Ferraris were nearabouts mirroring each other in pitstops, so your point is nigh on useless anyway.
 
I don't know if this has been discussed already:

Straight after the race someone posted a link about Vettel's penalty, where it was explained that it was for driving around on 3 wheels. Now I'm looking at the official Formula1 statement and it says it's for 'causing' the crash with Kubica. That's utter rubbish to anyone who watched it. It was a 50/50 accident at worst. As Vettel said himself, "I tried to defend and, up to the mid-corner, I had reason, but then I had no grip to avoid a collision" and "At the time we collided he was in front, but I had no where to go, I couldn't stop the car, or turn to the right and my tyres were gone."

yay F1 stewards again!
 
mclarensmps said:
Contradictory statements, if I've ever seen em! :p
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Yeah. Even with the weight penalty, even if it doesn't gain them time around the track, it can gain an extraordinary amount of time from corner to corner. Choosing exactly when and where to deploy your power means that you can turn a 0.5 mile an hour difference at the apex into a 10 or 12 mile per hour difference at the end of the pit straight. Even without the graphic it was pretty easy to see when the drivers used KERS, and it made a huge difference when they got a good launch.

Two cars battling around a track is just a bunch of drag races butt ended by curves. Win one drag race and win the race.


Suspense said:
I don't know if this has been discussed already:

Straight after the race someone posted a link about Vettel's penalty, where it was explained that it was for driving around on 3 wheels. Now I'm looking at the official Formula1 statement and it says it's for 'causing' the crash with Kubica. That's utter rubbish to anyone who watched it. It was a 50/50 accident at worst. As Vettel said himself, "I tried to defend and, up to the mid-corner, I had reason, but then I had no grip to avoid a collision" and "At the time we collided he was in front, but I had no where to go, I couldn't stop the car, or turn to the right and my tyres were gone."

yay F1 stewards again!
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Chalk this up under racing incident. I knew he'd get "avoidable contact" or something like that, but it's still dumb to give it out. Kubica was fine where he was, at least on the exit, Vettel just misjudged his corner speed. Not much he can do after that.
 
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Yeah, I honestly thought KERS was fantastic, though, I am completely biased... it does make for great racing!

Toyota and Williams will have theirs soon enough, so we'll be seeing more of it in action soon.

Seeing that drivers use KERS in different places, it's not like it's going to balance itself out, either. It WILL bring the cars closer to each other, and it WILL make the drivers do more work at different parts of the track, be it attacking or defending.
 
KERS was very efficient in some situations, which was quite obvious once when you saw some onboard footage from Hamiltons car. He used KERS and as soon as he was in the slipstream of the ar in front, he came close very quickly.

Besides that, i think it was Glock that complained to his Engineers that every time he tried to overtake Alonso, he would activate his KERS and be gone again.

There's only one problem with KERS, and that is the way they have limited it. I think the Champ car solution with a fixed amount of time over the total race distance, and not per lap, is more interesting. Then you have to be a lot more strategic in your use of it, because you might need it later in the race.
Besides that, i think KERS is great. Adds a little extra something :)
 
Suspense said:
I don't know if this has been discussed already:

Straight after the race someone posted a link about Vettel's penalty, where it was explained that it was for driving around on 3 wheels. Now I'm looking at the official Formula1 statement and it says it's for 'causing' the crash with Kubica. That's utter rubbish to anyone who watched it. It was a 50/50 accident at worst. As Vettel said himself, "I tried to defend and, up to the mid-corner, I had reason, but then I had no grip to avoid a collision" and "At the time we collided he was in front, but I had no where to go, I couldn't stop the car, or turn to the right and my tyres were gone."

yay F1 stewards again!
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the penalty was for the racing incident.. stupidly..

the 50k fine! which doesnt seem big to teams but is Huge money! a whole persons salary. is for instructin vettel to stay out on track with a broken front suspension when he should have parked it.
 
mclarensmps said:
so your point is nigh on useless anyway.
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yah you're right luck has nothing to do with it... :rolleyes: Hamilton's third place finish was all do to his brilliant driving... :puke:
 
KERS did look great but as some other drivers have said, I think it should be added to the minimum weight requirements. Maybe that's just some of the drivers bitching and moaning but I think that requirement is fair because of the potential we have seen. It's unfair that some teams can't capitalize on KERS because they have a "larger" driver so they already need to accommodate him plus the 40 kg. I still prefer to have the cars to have differences though. Having duplicate chassis which has been rumored for future years would kill the sport IMHO.
 
lv2xlr8 said:
It's unfair that some teams can't capitalize on KERS because they have a "larger" driver so they already need to accommodate him plus the 40 kg.
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I think it's unfair too. I mean, if I'm of a larger build there's nuts I can do about it. Sure I can lose weight (like some drivers have done), but there's only so much you can lose!
 
ladora said:
I think it's unfair too. I mean, if I'm of a larger build there's nuts I can do about it. Sure I can lose weight (like some drivers have done), but there's only so much you can lose!
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Again the FIA at it's finest...
 
Aye. Eventually, the teams might not see KERS as a good enough thing to be used given it's drawbacks if it doesn't give substantial improvements. Plus, it changes the weight distribution by a lot, and reduces the fuel tank size.

FIA might just probably increase the minimum weight next year to balance it out
 
What a damn good race! Who would've guessed a month ago that a team this young would win Pole and second in both qualifying and the race...just amazing!
 
Just watched the replay of the race on One HD. Great race to open the season with, double kick in the guts for Toyota though. Webber too.
 
Cellos88GT said:
yah you're right luck has nothing to do with it... :rolleyes: Hamilton's third place finish was all do to his brilliant driving... :puke:
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Where did I say that? :lol:

You're putting words in my mouth.

He drove well and he was lucky. That's not hard to understand.

Are you saying Kubica and Vettel drove well and were unlucky? That's BS because they caused their own fate.

Kimi did the same with himself.

Spin it however you want, you know you're wrong :p.
 
Maximised his luck and kept it on the track - what else can you ask for when in a totally uncompetitive car - nothing. Fact remains he has points and some other drivers, who should have points, do not.
 
GpUpdate

"Our strategy was perfect and the team did a fantastic job; considering the package we've got, I wrung every last ounce of pace out of the car, drove one of my best ever races and absolutely raced my heart out. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to drive in my life, but reliability was good."
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-Hamilton

Thats a big change from his prerace statements, that the car felt great to drive and was well balanced; the only issue being the lack of speed.
 
justvisiting said:
GpUpdate

-Hamilton

Thats a big change from his prerace statements, that the car felt great to drive and was well balanced; the only issue being the lack of speed.
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Cars can be very well balanced and easy to drive until you start having to really push it like Hamilton was obviously having to do. Then the characteristics can change completely when you are right on the ragged edge.
 
Peter3hg said:
Cars can be very well balanced and easy to drive until you start having to really push it like Hamilton was obviously having to do. Then the characteristics can change completely when you are right on the ragged edge.
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I'm not going to say I don't believe, because I have no position to know otherwise, but I can't imagine how a cars setup can change.
They set up the car to give them as much feel as they can with specific settings for the track, and that setup is done very near the limit and over short and long runs during testing and practice. During the race, those situations would be similar, except for the track temp and situations with cold tires after the SC of course. How can it be that during the race, the characteristics can go from -communicative to noncommunicative, predictable to unpredictable- in a situation which is nearly the same except that he pushes (knowingly feeling) past the limit.

The only explanation is that while pushing past the limit he damaged his car beyond the norm - flatspotting, damage, atypical graining pattern, which he chose to give up more than normal (part of his job is to manage those) to gain position. Haha, I just walked myself through it, so basically his pushing changed the cars characteristics, not setup, to th epoint where he felt it was the "hardest thing [he] ever had to drive."

alright alright I get it..
 
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