Grand Prix 2013 Australian Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Finally F1 is back! After three months without racing, waiting for car launches and testing, the first race of the 2013 Formula One season at Melbourne is just around the corner.

A quick look on what has changed compared to last year:

Teams:
HRT are not on the grid anymore.

Drivers:
- Lewis Hamilton replaces Michael Schumacher at Mercedes.
- Sergio Perez replaces Lewis Hamilton at McLaren.
- Sauber start this season with a completely new line-up as Nico Hülkenberg and Esteban Gutierrez replace Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi.
- Adrian Sutil replaces Nico Hülkenberg at Force India.
- Valtteri Bottas is Williams’ new driver, replacing Bruno Senna.
- At Caterham Vitaly Petrov and Heikki Kovalainen are being replaced by Charles Pic and Giedo van der Garde.
- Marussia bring on Jules Bianchi and Max Chilton in favor of Timo Glock and Charles Pic.

For the complete line-ups please check this brilliant overview from teabagyokel http://cliptheapex.com/threads/2013-driver-by-driver-preview.6011/

Circuits:
- The German Grand Prix is being held at the Nürburgring instead of Hockenheim.
- There won't be a race in Valencia this year, as the Spanish Grand Prix will alternate between Barcelona and Valencia from now on, starting with Barcelona.

Pre-season testing suggests that (as almost always) it is almost impossible to predict which teams will be at the very front of the grid. Red Bull look as strong as ever. Ferrari look significantly better than at this stage last year. McLaren seem to be struggling a bit. Mercedes appear to have made some progress over the last weeks and might be able to surprise us all. Lotus look like they could be fighting at the top this year as well.

In the midfield battle it seems that Williams and Sauber could have the upper hand over Toro Rosso and Force India, who have waited a very very long time to announce their second driver, Adrian Sutil.

Caterham and Marussia will probably be at the back end of the grid again. It seems very unlikely that any of them is going to be able to fight for points consistently. What is interesting though is, since HRT aren’t on the grid anymore, there will now be six drivers eliminated in Q1, which means, that apart from the Caterham and Marussia guys, there will now be two drivers of other teams out of qualifying after the first part of it.

How will Lewis Hamilton do for Mercedes? Is Mercedes’ completely new structured team going to improve? Is Sebastian Vettel going to pave his way for a fourth consecutive championship? How will Sergio Perez settle in at McLaren? Is Jenson Button going to win for the fourth time in Melbourne? Will Ferrari be able to win races from the outset?

Many questions! At least some of them will be answered in two weeks’ time at the 2013 Australian Grand Prix at Melbourne!
Let’s get it on!!

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Nobody is saying the McLaren will be crap in a few races time but people at McLaren are saying it's crap now. Every race counts. What is the point in building a pig of a car and winning races at the end? There isn't a development championship. Sure, they can win races in pretty much every season and have even stated that that's all they are there for but I don't believe for a minute that they are not interested in winning championships. It's this that their record shows they are pretty crap at. When observing such a situation, whether you think you could do a better job or not, you would certainly expect them to be able to and this leads you to ask the question of "Why can't they?". When you ask this question then you are likely to speculate at answers. Speculation may well be futile, unless you have a vested interest, but that doesn't mean that all speculation and fan observation is tosh.

 

[Bill Boddy]

McLaren did an awful lot of evolution on their car last year, so much so that they believed that there was not much more to come. So they did a redesign which will over the course of the season give them a quicker car than they would have had.

They may be wrong but those of us who do not have experience of design and development of F1 cars simply do not know. I assume here that there is at least one person on here besides myself who does not have the afore-mentioned experience.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Yes. That is their line and they justify it well, but not beyond question. The principle of evolution can be applied to many things outside of F1 and is not unique to the development of a racing car. I make my comments on their approach not just based on McLaren but on experience in other fields where I am sure that valid parallels can be drawn.

 

[Bill Boddy]

Many years ago I used to work for a leading edge electronics company. They used to evolve their designs, when they got to the point point where the evolution was hitting the bumpers they would bring out a totally new replacement. It worked for them.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Did they build systems with a shelf-life of a year or did they start with a scalable platform?

[Edit] I didn't throw in any examples but may I point to the development of the extremely successful iPhone?

(Off out now. Sorry if I don't respond for a bit.)

 

[Kewee]

I'm a little worried that there seems a good possibility of Hamilton and Massa, qualifying therefore racing therefore crashing together.

I'm a little concerned that Grosjean will qualify and crash into half the field at the first corner then crash into the rest of them next time round.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Everyone knows that a car is developed throughout the year and at some stage no matter what a team does there is very little more they can get out of a particular line of development and so it is back to the drawing board it is very possible that teams that have kept last years cars are going to reach the end of development room for that car sooner rather than later, McLaren have taken a gamble and if works out then good on them and if it doesn't then good on them for trying, the way I see it is that a big part of F1 is about innovation and you ain't gonna get that by following the same path until you reach a dead end....

 

[Kewee]

Weather update. Fine for 3rd practice, rain by qualifying. Mind you on this side of the world weather forecasting is far from being a perfect art.

 

[Speshal]

Uh oh......

 

[Speshal]

FP3 weather from FungusDBogeyman

 

[Andrea_Moda_Rules]

So Vettel stop in pratice. Could be gearbox, although GA on 5live said it could be hydraulics too.

This could really put the Cat amongst the pigoens, Apart from that it was a pretty dull session.

 

[Kewee]

Comparing times between 2nd and 3rd practice makes interesting reading. Vettel's time during 2nd practice was 1.25.908 on the supersofts, Alonso's time during 3rd practice was 1.27.00 on the mediums. The time difference between the two tyres is estimated to be between 1 and 1.2 seconds which cancels out Vettel's 1.09 second advantage. The other very telling factor was the track temperature. Approximately 5 or 6 degrees warmer during Vettel's run than Alonso's. To me that indicates the Ferrari may be significantly quicker than the Red Bull. Grosjean was actually quicker than Alonso in 3rd practice but his time was set quite a bit later in the session when another degree or two had come into the track and more rubber had been laid. I doubt whether these times will have been overlooked by Red Bull. Ferrari will be well aware of their cars pace after analyzing both sessions and must be feeling pretty happy. Of course a wet qualifying will cancel all those calculations out but they'll mean something during the next GP's if they're dry.

 

[KekeTheKing]

This is ridiculous. If it's raining, and its going to stay raining, then the track will not improve in 10 minutes. The only thing that improves the track is getting the bloody cars on it. Pretty absurd that the pinnacle of motorsport is reliant on bristle brooms to prepare the circuit as well. A single car doing a single lap would displace more H2O than these blokes did in a half hour.

 

[Andrea_Moda_Rules]

F1 & common Sense, pull the other one.

 

[Kewee]

If it was IRL the session would already be cancelled. I'd sooner see caution than half the field splattered all over the safely fence. Patience, they'll run soon.

 

[Fenderman]

Bring back monsoon tyres, spare cars and some good old bravado.

 

[KekeTheKing]

The end of true "wet" running has been coming for a long time. These delays set an ominous precedent for the coming season.

 

[sushifiesta]

Well that was fun...

 

[EvilWhippet]

Remember Fuji 2007? That was some of the worst rain in years. They raced anyway. A rookie won it without much drama. Raikkonen overtook most of the field without colliding with anyone. Button was driving with no front wing at one point. Why has the testicular stature of the grid reduced so much in the past six years?

 

[KekeTheKing]

They delayed for a half hour and guys were going to Inters within 15 minutes. You'd think they'd have to run full wets for at least a session if it was so treacherous. And then once they got rid of most of the inexperienced drivers they figured they'd had enough for the day. I feel bad for the people at the circuit.

Why has the testicular stature of the grid reduced so much in the past six years?

It's Charlie and his band of merry men making the call from the "control room" that have shrunken sacks