Australian GP 2014 Team news&Quotes

[Rob]

Oh dear, 'our' TSN Suzie will not be amused, I fear. Fancy Vettel naming his RB after a veritable tifosa, hope she comes back to haunt him.

[Rob]

Apparently the weight of the bull was just too much to handle for those little wings to keep the fat bull flying any longer.

fingers crossed, their wings have benn clipped

[Nero Horse]

Maybe the RBR trophy cabinet is too heavy for the time being:

I wonder how many such trophy cabinets would Ferrari need to accommodate all of their 678 trophies?

[Suzie]

Oh dear, 'our' TSN Suzie will not be amused, I fear. Fancy Vettel naming his RB after a veritable tifosa, hope she comes back to haunt him.

Not impressed one bit.

Although the car's bound to be cursed if it's called that, so good luck there Seb

[Giallo 550]

Can't wait! FORZA FERRARI!

[abbottcostello]

It appears McLaren have been very busy working on a "one-off livery" for Melbourne....
"Hey, I was putting decals on, I thought you were bringing the aero updates"

Well, one can hope!


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BikAfwPCQAA7ngU.jpg:large

[abbottcostello]

Nice tech photos of some of our competitors at SuttonF1
No RBR, Ferrari, Merc though.

[EL_NANDO]

Am heading down to Albert Park in around an hour to watch the final 2 hours of the free community day. Can't wait for the race this weekend (am planning to just go to the race on Sunday). Hope to get some views of the new cars today, we'll see.

No idea where we are likely to finish this weekend, I can't see us beating Mercedes on pure pace but apart from that I really have no idea. If we really are behind the Mercedes engine in some capacity all the other Mercedes teams could be a problem McLaren, Williams and Force India, but I'm hoping we are strong!

Also it's brilliant value, it's only $99 for a general admission to entire day Sunday, with lots of good viewing areas. At Silverstone (I am from the UK originally) it's around $220 for race day. Compare muddy fields, whinging Brits and warm beers with efficient free shuttle trams from city to the track, hot girls, cold beer and nice weather.

[abbottcostello]

Am heading down to Albert Park in around an hour to watch the final 2 hours of the free community day. Can't wait for the race this weekend (am planning to just go to the race on Sunday). Hope to get some views of the new cars today, we'll see.

No idea where we are likely to finish this weekend, I can't see us beating Mercedes on pure pace but apart from that I really have no idea. If we really are behind the Mercedes engine in some capacity all the other Mercedes teams could be a problem McLaren, Williams and Force India, but I'm hoping we are strong!

Also it's brilliant value, it's only $99 for a general admission to entire day Sunday, with lots of good viewing areas. At Silverstone (I am from the UK originally) it's around $220 for race day. Compare muddy fields, whinging Brits and warm beers with efficient free shuttle trams from city to the track, hot girls, cold beer and nice weather.

Boy I gotta check flights for next year, $99 seems an outright steal! Would love to go visit Australia

Here's a little track info graphic from UBS
ubs-formula-1-race-strategy-briefing-australia-melbourne.png

[tifosi1993]

via Sutton

[tifosi1993]

[abbottcostello]

A little excerpt of Horner defending Newey (the complete article is at pitpass.com):

"We aggressively pushed the boundaries on the packaging of the car, as Adrian always does, to try and get every bit of aerodynamic advantage," he is quoted as saying by the Guardian. "Pushing the boundaries in all areas is what Formula One is all about. It's about getting the most out of every single element.
"We took a step over the line at the first test," he continued. "We then engineered our way out of that for Bahrain, and cooling now isn't an issue with the car at all.
"Adrian's probably the most competitive person I've ever met," he insisted. "For sure, he's working tremendously hard at the moment. But we can't control all aspects of the vehicle. Collectively with Renault, I'm confident we'll get on top of it. Sometimes to find the limit you've got to go over where the limit is, otherwise you don't know where it is. We'd rather make a quick car reliable than a reliable car quick. It's far harder that way round, and I think fundamentally the car we've got is good.

Damn, I just hate that seemingly everything that guy says seems to make such perfect sense... grrrrr, this is exactly what I thought created their issues & by no means am I claiming to be some genius or have any great powers of perception, it just always seemed so bleeping obvious to me.

I only hope their road to reliability is an old cobblestone road with a lot of missing cobbles

Those are some great pics of the team signing autographs!

[Hornet]

Am heading down to Albert Park in around an hour to watch the final 2 hours of the free community day. Can't wait for the race this weekend (am planning to just go to the race on Sunday). Hope to get some views of the new cars today, we'll see.

No idea where we are likely to finish this weekend, I can't see us beating Mercedes on pure pace but apart from that I really have no idea. If we really are behind the Mercedes engine in some capacity all the other Mercedes teams could be a problem McLaren, Williams and Force India, but I'm hoping we are strong!

Also it's brilliant value, it's only $99 for a general admission to entire day Sunday, with lots of good viewing areas. At Silverstone (I am from the UK originally) it's around $220 for race day. Compare muddy fields, whinging Brits and warm beers with efficient free shuttle trams from city to the track, hot girls, cold beer and nice weather.

Have fun there

I agree that if Merc has a clear advantage, then McLaren, Williams and Force India could follow suit and they could dominate the front rows. Hopefully Ferrari will have something extra and prove to be on equal footing with Merc, if not better

[anialonso]

By contrast, Ferrari will, according to Alonso, run "exactly the same car" this weekend that they did in the winter-closing Bahrain test of two weeks ago

Source: http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/12...on-fifth-title

So no upgrades..That looks bad.>!!

[Rishu]

So no upgrades..That looks bad.>!!

Looks good, it means they will be running new FW & RW they tested in final test. This also means wind tunnel data was positive.

[fronaldo]

Lots of concern about reliability and maybe little running in FP3 to save for qualifying

[Hornet]

So no upgrades..That looks bad.>!!

Not necessary a bad thing, IMO. IIRC, Ferrari have said the power unit need more fine tuning or something, software side. Perhaps there's more to be found from the power unit, we just need more track time

[Kristof_F40]

Btw, just want to say, the F1 Timing App is now available on Android and Apple. Since thus year there are a some new function + the app is free, with an in-app upgrade to buy. I just bought it for 9,99 € which is a lot less than last year. I think it's a really good buy

[Hornet]

Saw this on Sky, Charlie Whiting discussing the many possible scenarios and what ifs that may arise from new power units and reliability issues.

The likelihood of Safety Car appearances; the potential for aborted starts and the possibility that teams might skip practice sessions: all scenarios for the Australian GP discussed by Charlie Whiting on Thursday.

But first things first at the start of a season in which reliability is the watchword: what happens if no cars actually manage to complete Sunday's 58-lap race? According to the FIA's Race Director, "I think a lot of these Doomsday scenarios are quite unlikely, knowing Formula 1 teams and how efficient they actually are. But if it came to the situation where no cars were actually running, we'd simply stop the race - because there wouldn't be much of one, would there?

"If the race couldn't be restarted as the rules say, then the results would be declared on the lap prior to the one during which the race was stopped and whoever was running at that time would be the winner."

If cars do indeed start breaking down left, right and centre, it sounds as though Safety Car driver Bernd Maylander will have a busy afternoon in store. "I don't think it's going to affect the use of the Safety car at all," said Whiting. "If a car stops and it's in a dangerous position then we'll use the Safety Car. We can't do anything else really."

He also admitted that the lack of practice starts performed by the likes of, for example, Lotus during pre-season testing is a concern. "I've been told that some cars haven't actually done a practice start yet. I'm sure they'll be doing lots here at the pit exit, assuming they go out of course," he said.

"I think there are some added concerns. We haven't seen many cars stall on the grid over the last few years, it's become a rarity.

"But obviously if a car stalls before the start is given, we can abort the start and perform an extra formation lap. The most dangerous situations obviously occur when a driver stalls at the start of a race and that's something I'll be emphasising to the start marshals when I have a briefing with them."

If teams struggle to stay within the 107 per cent rule during qualifying, however, Whiting said that race stewards would look favourably upon them.

Article 36.1 of the Sporting Regulations states: 'During Q1, any driver whose best qualifying lap exceeds 107% of the fastest time set during that session, or who fails to set a time, will not be allowed to take part in the race.'

Yet according to Whiting, "I think the 107 per cent rule was introduced to make sure that teams that weren't capable of producing a good car that was of the required performance wouldn't actually get into the races.

"What we have out here at the moment are 11 teams that we know are capable. They may be suffering a temporary performance loss but I'm sure the stewards will look very sympathetically on any team that doesn't make the 107 per cent.

"There is a mechanism in the rules to allow that to be done in exceptional circumstances."

Apparent during pre-season testing were the protracted times teams were taking to change the new power units and drive trains introduced this season.

A particular concern is the two-hour gap that separates P3 from qualifying, with Whiting speculating that teams might opt to skip the former in order to make the latter.

"Teams are worried that it's going to be more common and I've heard even teams say that they'd skip P3 to make sure they have a car for qualifying," he said.

"Everyone's got their own way of going about things. Some teams tell me it'll take them seven hours to change an engine, some say it'll take three, some an hour and a half."

Renault might currently lag behind Ferrari and particularly Mercedes in the reliability stakes but Whiting confirmed that all three engine manufacturers have already requested changes.

Although performance has been frozen since the February 28 homologation deadline, changes can be made to power units for reliability, safety or cost reasons.

"They've all done already. We've had requests from everybody to change bits of the car on the engine for reliability reasons," Whiting added.

"Ultimately, it's for us to decide. But we do it in consultation with the other engine manufacturers - and everyone has so far actually done that in the two weeks that the engines have actually been homologated."

http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/12...-australian-gp

[Senna4Ever]

Maybe you can help me out: should the society be worried about a 35 old man who
- asks his girlfriend in the morning: 'Do you know what tomorrow will gonna happen'?
- grabs his imaginary ScuderiaFerrari-F1 steering wheel
- and makes a 'flying lap' in his living room

?



time to start the engines ... bring it on boys ...

[Ed Harley]

Maybe you can help me out: should the society be worried about a 35 old man who
- asks his girlfriend in the morning: 'Do you know what tomorrow will gonna happen'?
- grabs his imaginary ScuderiaFerrari-F1 steering wheel
- and makes a 'flying lap' in his living room

?



time to start the engines ... bring it on boys ...

Of course not...it's borderline normal.

[RedPassion]

Of course not...it's borderline normal.

Mine has already given up on me by now, at this stage she is unto aerodynamics 101 ,trying to explain her sealing the diffuser

[Kristof_F40]

According to AMuS Merc new front wing has failed crash test

[tifosi1993]

According to AMuS Merc new front wing has failed crash test

W05's new nose didn't pass the crash test.

[PURE PASSION]

W05's new nose didn't pass the crash test.

New nose???

[slak]

40% chance of a drizzle Saturday in Melbourne

[tifosi1993]

New nose???

http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/f...t-8192723.html

[zike]

http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/f...t-8192723.html

The artical is saying that we are putting a turbo shield?????

[F2002]

New nose???

It's a "radical new nose cone" apparently:
http://www.mercmotorsports.com/mf1/t...one-postponed/

[wacc]

In that AMuS article they say that the new nose is so short that it doen't overlap the FW. This is what Owen.C93 posted at F1technical forum a few days ago. It may be the new nose that failed the crash test.

new:

old: