Australian GP 2014 Qualifying thread

[vae32]

Hey everyone...good read comments. Well i think we are the second quickest today on quali, no idea on race pace thou... we just made some bad calls on Q3. Good call on Ricc with the inters at the end of Q3 to get p2. Be interesting to see how quick our race pace would be. Lookin forward to read everyone's comments 2morrow.

[Hornet]

I'm confident our boys will deliver a reasonable result tomorrow.

Alonso will be P3 by the end of the race, and Kimi P5

I agree that P3 is a possibility, Alonso also said himself a podium is possible.

But personally I am hoping and wishing for more this season. Hoping for a podium finish is something we've done in past seasons. So if we want a change this year, we have to start aiming at winning races. I would love to hear the team starts talking about winning.

[Laferrari]

Hey everyone...good read comments. Well i think we are the second quickest today on quali, no idea on race pace thou... we just made some bad calls on Q3. Good call on Ricc with the inters at the end of Q3 to get p2. Be interesting to see how quick our race pace would be. Lookin forward to read everyone's comments 2morrow.

Based on free practice we are the second quickest in dry(qualy mode) but in race pace we are behind mercedes, redbull, mclaren and also maybe willams .We cannot use the Ers in good way right now .things can change but it s not a good way to start a season when your engine is down on power (mercedes)and torque(renault)

[Ferrarichamp]

I haven't been following developments this winter.. I take it Merc have the best engine?

[Laferrari]

I haven't been following developments this winter.. I take it Merc have the best engine?

Yep and now renault is a better level than us with engine mapping based on wet track today...redbull in front of us....torro rosso in front of some mercedes(force india and williams) and ferrari(sauber) ....caterham(renault) in front of marussia(ferrari)

[Cozza]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k98Zg...e_gdata_player

I loved that moment. I was watching it at home and was when it happened.

Crowd reaction when Ricciardo got pole was loud too. Then Hamilton takes pole couple of second later and you can hear the crowd again just go "Ohhhhhh"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK4M4Z--LWk
*From 19:22 minute mark

[NickEice]

True Tifosi waited from 1979 to 2000 for a championship. Quit complaining about 6 years. If you are unwilling to put your faith in the team and root every Sunday then perhaps this is the wrong team for you.

[Rob]

True Tifosi waited from 1979 to 2000 for a championship. Quit complaining about 6 years. If you are unwilling to put your faith in the team and root every Sunday then perhaps this is the wrong team for you.

[gjoko-mkd]

Australian GP: Engine software issue blighted Vettel in qualifying
By Jonathan Noble and Matt Beer Saturday, March 15th 2014, 08:50 GMT

Sebastian Vettel Australian Grand Prix

Renault says an engine software issue caused Sebastian Vettel's troubled Australian Grand Prix qualifying session.

While his new team-mate Daniel Ricciardo qualified second in Melbourne, reigning Formula 1 world champion Vettel will start only 13th.

Renault confirmed a software issue meant Vettel suffered from a lack of power, and the German said the issue had been present since the morning practice session.

"This morning was still OK but definitely a step down, and then this afternoon when it started to rain I was struggling a lot with driveability and it made my life pretty difficult," said Vettel.

"I made it round, but I struggled a lot when going on the power, so driveability was down.

"We programmed it to be like yesterday, if not a little bit better.

"There was a different set-up and a software update, but with modern Formula 1 there's a lot of software programming and it's not easy for drivers to understand what's going on."

Why Red Bull is back in the game

Although Red Bull's Australian GP has been generally encouraging after its difficult winter, Vettel suspects reliability will still be a challenge on race day.

"We still haven't done a race simulation or a race distance in one go," he said.

"I think we have improved reliability compared to testing because we're able to put parts on the car with zero mileage. But there's still a long way to go.

"The biggest relief yesterday was the performance, but we know that on reliability there are still things to do.

"We're both trying to see the chequered flag and we know the car's quick, so we want to finish as high up as possible, but priority number one is to finish the race."

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/112935

[FranksterGM]

True Tifosi waited from 1979 to 2000 for a championship. Quit complaining about 6 years. If you are unwilling to put your faith in the team and root every Sunday then perhaps this is the wrong team for you.

The team did win the constructors in 82, 83 and 99.
When the constructors championship had more glamour and publicity.

[ALO]

True Tifosi waited from 1979 to 2000 for a championship. Quit complaining about 6 years. If you are unwilling to put your faith in the team and root every Sunday then perhaps this is the wrong team for you.

Let's Keep the faith we know our pace is good & now we have sorted out wind tunnel corelation solved we will be ok this season, plus nando always pulls off a great start and will pass up a few in first corner.

[NickEice]

The team did win the constructors in 82, 83 and 99.
When the constructors championship had more glamour and publicity.

Should I revise my statement to 1983 to 1999? Does 16 years make it better than 21? Same point is being made. It was a long time with cars that were nowhere near as competitive as what we have been blessed to have over the past few years.

We are not guaranteed anything. And I'm sure the boys are working as hard as possible to get back to our winning ways. There are a lot if talented individuals up and down the pit lane. We should give them the respect they deserve as well for a job well done.

Again, Alonso has put the car in the top 5 in every session. Reliability will be paramount tomorrow. A podium is possible and would be a great start to our season. We may still have a silver bullet ready come the European part of the season.

[bondilad]

One of the Mercs will retire. Don't know which one !
Ricciado is a good qualifier but not so good in races (last year record)
McLaren might be slower than us!
So...... really we just have one Merc to fight for the win. I hope.

[RedPassion]

Let's Keep the faith we know our pace is good & now we have sorted out wind tunnel correlation solved we will be ok this season, plus nando always pulls off a great start and will pass up a few in first corner.

We have James Allison directing the resources for the development,a functioning wind tunnel and a good car to work from,keep the faith not all years must be the same,it is not essential to have a very fast car at the beginning and then not be able to develope it (2010 ) and it is very important not to have a dog (2011 and 2012).i think we have neither,so lets wait and see

[shamim179]

Haven't watched qualifying yet but a somewhat ok result. Would have been better if it was dry as this would have been more representative. Unclear with regards to the pecking order based on qualifying alone as the conditions were wet.

Too early to judge or predict how we'll do in the race. We don't know how our race pace is compared to others but we know it's at least ok. Just because our starts have been good in the past doesn't ensure we'll be good at them again this year.

A win or a podium finish is definitely possible. There is room for optimism.

Just reading some of the posts here. All I can say is some of you just have too high expectations. The signs were clearly there in pre-testing that we weren't the fastest and that we still haven't fully resolved some certain issues. Perhaps if some of you chose to think that this is indeed possible you wouldn't be in for such a shock?

Like I said it's too early to make a comprehensive judgment. Let's see how our race pace fares tomorrow.

[IulianFerrari]

One of the Mercs will retire. Don't know which one !
Ricciado is a good qualifier but not so good in races (last year record)
McLaren might be slower than us!
So...... really we just have one Merc to fight for the win. I hope.

If you think about it like that, Bianchi has a great chance of a podium tomorrow.

[Hornet]

Just reading some of the posts here. All I can say is some of you just have too high expectations. The signs were clearly there in pre-testing that we weren't the fastest and that we still haven't fully resolved some certain issues. Perhaps if some of you chose to think that this is indeed possible you wouldn't be in for such a shock?

To be fair, we can't blame anyone for having high expectations because we all view Ferrari as a top team and we have to aim for the best

That aside, Luca DM have spend years complaining about the engine. This year was what we wanted, we've made that clear many times. It's finally here, we got what we wanted. So it stands to reason that we should be prepare to emerge triumph this year and I don't think we cant settle for anything less than a title win. It's normal for us to expect the team to come up at the top, as these changes were what we wanted all these years.

[Gerhard Berger]

Aldo Costa is definetely not the Chief Designer of Mercedes,he is one of the five TD,so he has a part in the project,still very happy he is been sacked in 2011,he wasnt doing well .

Toto Wolff: "We have a brilliant design team lead by Aldo Costa". Sure he's not the only designer there, but since he left us, we havn't made any improvements, whilst Mercedes have gone from strength to strength.

In fact we took Bigois from Mercedes, and he hasn't improved us, but Mercedes definitely don't seem to miss him.

[Giallo 550]

True Tifosi waited from 1979 to 2000 for a championship. Quit complaining about 6 years. If you are unwilling to put your faith in the team and root every Sunday then perhaps this is the wrong team for you.

[Gerhard Berger]

anyways, the BEST PART of this qualifying session was vettel getting SCHOOLED by his team mate....an AUSTRALIAN....how IRONIC is that???

i've always KNOWN that Pettel (the screaming school girl) was only showing a good performance when he had all those "TRICKS" such as EBD, tricky engine maps helping him with traction...etc....but when it comes to actual driving skills....as we've seen today, he's NO WHERE....got SCHOOLED by Riccardo.....that was PRICELESS, his face was PRICELESS....lololoololololololLOLOLOLOL


and i dont' think it's just me saying taht.....i think MOST here would agree with me

Vettel needs the car exactly to his liking in order to be fast. Give him a car which is difficult to handle and he will look very ordinary, as we saw today, and many times in the past. He's similar to Button in this respect.

Alonso is much more adaptable and will do a great job whatever car you give him.

[shamim179]

Toto Wolff: "We have a brilliant design team lead by Aldo Costa". Sure he's not the only designer there, but since he left us, we havn't made any improvements, whilst Mercedes have gone from strength to strength.

In fact we took Bigois from Mercedes, and he hasn't improved us, but Mercedes definitely don't seem to miss him.

I wonder if this is personal for Costa? Some people after they get fired, demoted, sidelined, etc. work much harder and better on their next assignment. Because they want to prove that they are indeed worthy and getting rid of them was a mistake. Perhaps being conservative when the windtunnel wasn't working properly was the right approach? Maybe Costa put this argument forward but nobody listened to him?

[rochas]

Following Ferrari is not about collecting championships for statistics value. I can honestly say that during our most dominant years (ie 2004) I cannot recall a single win. Sure, we won by a land slide but it was more of a relief to cross the finish line first than the jubilee of winning. I'll tell you what I do remember, epic wins against all odds like spain and Italy 1996, monaco 1997, hungary 1998, brazil 2007, korea 2010, britain 2011 and valencia 2012. Those wins stick with you forever, I'll take those wins over any WDC/WCC any day of the week.

[Alonsomaniac]

To be honest I don't know yet what to say about the car after today....what I do know is that both our drivers were not at their best.
Fernando definitely made the wrong decision with the tyres, while everyone els had it right. It has cost him places, although I don't know how much.
Kimi putting the car in the wall like that was a simple going on the throttle too soon, a drivererror that has cost him....I don;t know what it cost him, he was not very fast even before.

Not a particular good startingday, we'll see tomorrow how it unfolds. Fernando should be able to push foward and Kimi? I hope so...

[Ferrari Man]

Following Ferrari is not about collecting championships for statistics value. I can honestly say that during our most dominant years (ie 2004) I cannot recall a single win. Sure, we won by a land slide but it was more of a relief to cross the finish line first than the jubilee of winning. I'll tell you what I do remember, epic wins against all odds like spain and Italy 1996, monaco 1997, hungary 1998, brazil 2007, korea 2010, britain 2011 and valencia 2012. Those wins stick with you forever, I'll take those wins over any WDC/WCC any day of the week.

don't forget Argentina 1998

[Gerhard Berger]

I wonder if this is personal for Costa? Some people after they get fired, demoted, sidelined, etc. work much harder and better on their next assignment. Because they want to prove that they are indeed worthy and getting rid of them was a mistake. Perhaps being conservative when the windtunnel wasn't working properly was the right approach? Maybe Costa put this argument forward but nobody listened to him?

Perhaps. I remember at the time that Costa was very unhappy at being labelled "conservative". To me it seemed like he was made a scapegoat after Barcelona 2011. If the wind tunnel was wrong then surely this is not Costa's fault, but actually Domenicali's (he has to provide his staff with the correct tools to do their jobs).

I also have to question why Tombazis seemingly gets a free pass. After Costa left, his results did not improve, and his aggressive approach to 2012 cost us in the early races, when ironically a more conservative approach may have won us the championships that year.

[Jas]

Red Bull quick...shock...only going to get quicker when Renault fully expoilt their PU tomorrow...also pat saying a lot of cars quicker than us in race trim!

[bondilad]

If you think about it like that, Bianchi has a great chance of a podium tomorrow.

"hope is a good thing". That's all I can say at this point

[996 GT1 Lover]

Is this going to be up on BBC's iPlayer?

[IulianFerrari]

Red Bull quick...shock...only going to get quicker when Renault fully expoilt their PU tomorrow...also pat saying a lot of cars quicker than us in race trim!

I think are going to have a shocker tomorrow on how many cars finish the race. It's going to be exciting...

[bondilad]

Does the top ten get to choose the compound or need to start on primes ?