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!!
 
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Don't get too excited about Bianchi, all he's done is beat Chilton, van Der Garde and Pic, and only in one race. Ok he's a rookie so it is a great start, but I don't think he's doing anything more than the likes of Kovalainen and Glock have done considering the Marussia seems to be the most competitive back of the grid car we've seen for a while.
 
Fastest laps are purely based on tyres though and Bianchi was the last person to stop (on lap 50). He set the 11th fastest lap overall, Kovalainen set the 10th fastest lap in Brazil last year. Fastest laps don't mean anything in modern F1.

All he can do is beat the other Marussia and the Caterhams, and if he does that convincingly it probably will be good enough for him to get a drive with a midfield team considering the Ferrari backing as well. Unless he starts beating Toro Rossos or something where the other three can't, though, then nothing he does will give any indication about how he compares to the good drivers on the grid.

EDIT: Kovalainen's fastest lap was two and a half tenths slower than Vettel's and three and a half tenths slower than Webber's fastest laps in that race
 
Well, a tactically very interesting race. For these conditions it seemed that Ferrari had the quickest package just ahead of Lotus with Lotus going for an optimal strategy. Red Bull seem quick too, with Mercedes on their own in 4th. McLaren have serious work to do, Force India will be competitive with them, and I imagine Hulkenburg will have a shout in there too.

Maldonado was the first person to throw his car off the road, which is highly unsurprising, although Grosjean's reputation would probably have suffered less damage if he'd thrown his car into a nearby opponent in Turn One. Talk of seeing whether Perez could cut it at the front seems terribly premature though.

Worrying signs for fans of both Mexican drivers actually, Gutierrez seemed to disappear without trace. I think the Williams is too crap to give a proper assessment of Bottas; he was faster than his team-mate, kept it on the road and didn't hit anyone else, so two of those things an improvement on Senna.

Sutil looked exactly as he did in 2011, but Massa most certainly did not. It's a pity he pitted on lap FIFTY but he was excellent up to that point; his difficulties getting past Vettel saying rather more about the best defender on the track than him. Vettel just didn't have the car we suspected - but he's off to hot Asia where he and Red Bull feel at home. And it wouldn't be F1 without Webber contriving to turn an excellent grid position and opportunity to at least hold up the Ferraris into a scrap with lesser machinery.

But, all in all, Lotus seem to have some decent tyre wear - if they can continue to do one stop less, they'll be in a great position. Especially since they're all now off to Malaysia where physically running out of tyres has looked a real possibility some years!
 
sushifiesta said:
Fastest laps are purely based on tyres though and Bianchi was the last person to stop (on lap 50). He set the 11th fastest lap overall, Kovalainen set the 10th fastest lap in Brazil last year. Fastest laps don't mean anything in modern F1.

All he can do is beat the other Marussia and the Caterhams, and if he does that convincingly it probably will be good enough for him to get a drive with a midfield team considering the Ferrari backing as well. Unless he starts beating Toro Rossos or something where the other three can't, though, then nothing he does will give any indication about how he compares to the good drivers on the grid.

EDIT: Kovalainen's fastest lap was two and a half tenths slower than Vettel's and three and a half tenths slower than Webber's fastest laps in that race
Click to expand

I do see what your saying but I still think it was impressive for a driver on his debut to get such a good lap time out of a Marussia and be so far ahead of the others he was racing. Especially after such a short time with the team. I guess we'll see how the rest of the season goes.
 
You would've thought going on the faster tyre with low fuel, Sutil was going to have a strong finish to the race. The tyres ruined his race and in hindsight maybe they should've run a short middle stint on it. On another note, I though Vettel drove a really crazy installation lap, obviously under instruction from the pitwall due to low temps.
 
Ah woke up in time, made a cheese and onion toastie sitting with a blanket, to watch a satisfying race.

Great start by Felipe, who must feel very shitty, while Webber must be feeling the same after his shittest start of the century. Raikkonen became Mr.Stealth, the Stabber (Sutil) seemed to have his most ntoable race of his life. Vettel for once fizzled away from the lead, Alonso consistent as always, Button down in the doldrums, and finally, Perez exposed?

The race was entertaining, it was all about the front and strategy, but for me, it clearly lacked some midfield battles, where were they?!

So who thought the Iceman would win the grand prix starting 7th? I surely didn't, and up until the last 10 laps, I still thought he wouldn't have won as Alonso was taking chunks out of his time. Had a great start, and a nice overtake on Hamilton, kept up with the big boys, then unleashed. The only front runner to make a two stopper work. The question is, where was Grosjean?! He's usually close to Kimi pace wise, but seem to have got obliterated by his team-mate.

Mr. Consistent was doing the same as Kimi, being stealthy then unleashed, albeit with an extra stop. Had a great launch off the line, but got nulified by Hamilton blocking him and Alonso choosing the wrong way. One wonders, why he was called in first for the second stop when Massa was ahead. But that's another story, looked the favourite after the second round of stops, but it wasn't to be. I felt Ferrari maybe could have pushed for a two stop with Alonso, but they chose the conservative root.

The triple World Champion looked as if he had an average race and was fighting the car all around, yet makes it on the podium. But where was the domination we were expecting after the front row lockout?! Well the majority of us F1 fans are happy that there was no domination, Red Bull won' be, starting 1st and 2nd and only achieving 3rd and 6th without any external factors involved (you could include in Webber's start). May have been hampered by Sutil holding them up.

Felipe baby did everything right, out-qualified his team-mate, had a rocket of a start from the dirty side of the grid. Stayed ahead of him until the second round of stops, you thought after the first round of stops that he was getting an equal chance, fast forwad to the second stop, you think the opposite. Some may argue they brought in Alonso early for whatever reason, but why leave Massa out when two of the drivers he's racing have undercutted him for several laps? Must be disappointed to only finish 4th after that performance.

The best Hamilton was going to get was 5th without those around him messing up. The pace just wasn't there, and could be clearly seen at the start. Credit to Mercedes for trying something different with strategy but it didn't work.

Webber just failed to flatter.

Sutil had the greatest race of his life, and got ruined by the soft tyre stint, but you can argue that everyone else had to suffer that phase at the start.

The rest, like I said above where anonymous really.

Where was the Williams pace? Where was the Sauber pace? The Williams car didn't look so great, and the Sauber, well, we need to wait and see what Hulkenberg can do.

A strange opener, no safety car, no incidents :shocked:
 
Based on this sample of one race, it seems that the Red Bull may be the quickest on a single lap, followed by Ferrari and Lotus, while in terms of tyre usage the order is reversed. For my money, that suggests Ferrari are well placed, but we'll see. It is also hard to see where Mercedes fit in - the car didn't look good on the supersoft tyres early on, but on the mediums seemed to have decent pace. They might have gone for a different setup to the others and no doubt they will be in the mix.

Force India weren't expected to do as well as that, were they? Excellent work from both drivers - di Resta didn't end up far behind once the strategies had shaken out.

Bianchi did well, but Glock never got to drive a Marussia as good as this one. So I'll reserve judgement for now, but none of the rookies committed any terrible errors.
 
Galahad

Just wondering, but what do you think of the new rookies and who do you expect to last (if any)? I'm always interested in your opinion as you're very knowledgeable.
 
Good race to start of the season with... and with no safety car deployments it gave us a pretty good indication of who has got it right thus far with their package...

Sutil leads more laps than anyone but Kimi ... wouldn't have pegged that...
 
based on 1 race


Red Bull - 1lap speed but same problems as previous years high downforce reliance poor in a straightline and heavily more affected tyre wear

Ferrari - looked to have the better race pace car and tyre wear
Lotus - seems to have worked out to be better on tyre wear and able to run it strategically

Mercedes - good for 1 lap speed but the same old issues about tyre wear again
Force India - despite the preseason indecision look to not have a bad car

Mclaren - about the same pace as Ferrari off the front near 1.5 to 2 seconds a lap. Serious inquest how they;ve gone from being the fastest at the end of last season to where they are

Sauber
Toro Rosso
Williams -

Marussia
Caterham
 
man of the race was Sutil who could have benefitted even more if his soft tyres were not shot

Interestingly Di Resta was told not to pass Sutil on the last lap ... could spark a bit more fireworks in the team

this highlights once again the issues with the tyres

- DI Resta did an excellent job in getting into Q3 and starting 9th had to run the soft tyre he qualified on
- Sutil was just outside the top 10 but had the luxury of choosing his tyres and chose the medium and became an effective roadblock for the the front runners and managing to keep them at bay

So DI Resta was poorly awarded for his efforts... remember the teams did not change this problem where quicker cars starting lower down potentially benefit from more new tyres than those in Q3 and teams like Force India did not even bother running a lap in Q3 once they made it through

Be interesting to see if there is uproar if we see more cars from 11th and 12th on the grid make the podium
 
I should if Lotus are to be in the drivers title hunt they need a Brawn like start because they have less resources than the big 4 to use

Kimi looks like he's lost a few pounds and really ready for this season...he seems to have sacrificed his natural speed for more Prost like approaches to races in terms of tyre management and then suddenly
showing his hand
 
was that why he was so poor off the line? possibly on the second phase, but I think the initial poor getaway is not related.
 

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