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!!

 

[Il_leone]

Brogan indeed but Vettel actually destroyed his tyres in doing those superquick laps in practice

I think if more cars start being in front of Red Bull where Seb can;t pass they will change set up tactic soon

 

[Galahad]

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.

For what it's worth, I think Bianchiand Bottas are the only decent ones among them. Gutierrez isn't that good; van der Garde has been plugging away forever and Chilton has only risen through the junior series because of money. Now, sometimes pay drivers turn out to be better than you'd expect, and some whose junior careers are unspectacular take a particular liking to F1. But based on their junior exploits, that's my view.

In the current climate, the ones who last will be the ones with piles of cash, though. Bianchi will possibly end up at Sauber eventually; Bottas could end up as a long-term Williams driver; not necessarily a good thing.

 

[Wombcat]

All that proves teabagyokel is that the Red Bull is pants when behind another car, same as the last few seasons. Vettel would still have been in Sutils dirty air.

But on the other hand, Vettel did pass Sutil on track after the pitstops. They went in at the same time, which initially I thought was a mistake by Red Bull, but within a lap or two, Vettel passed Sutil.

 

[Il_leone]

Wombcat
but he could not get near the Ferrari in front of him so I am expecting Seb to start to get annoyed if he is a tortoise down the straight if there are two or three cars consistently ahead of him

 

[Wombcat]

It's always hard to overtake a faster car. Which the Ferrari probably was this race.

I think the main reason that Red Bull has problems overtaking, is that they focus on the cornering speed, because that is the strength of the car. Less topspeed means harder overtaking. When they switch to another setup they can overtake, as Vettel proved last year when he was sent to the back of the grid.
In general we have seen in recent years, is that if that the Red Bull starts to the front, the have more difficulty overtaking. If they start a few rows back, they are able to overtake. Obviously if you start at the front, in general overtaking is less necessary. As Vettel has proven time and again.

 

[Wombcat]

I looked up the data of last year. In general if Vettel starts on the front row he overtakes not or maybe once during the race. On the rows thereafter it's usually 3-6 overtakes a race, 74 in total. Some exceptions (Austin and Interlagos) where he overtook 17 and 23 times. We all know what happened in those races.
The number of overtakes per race in 2012 of Alonso (50), Button (51) or Hamilton (54) is not that different. Usually between 0 and 6 overtakes each race. For each of them in two to three races it's more, ranging from 7 to 12. So none of those have exceptions like Vettel though. Button is closest with 12 in Austin. He's also the only one of those with three races with more than 6 overtakes. One of those is 7 overtakes, the others are 8 and 12. Hamiltons' best two are 10 and 11. Alonso 7 and 10.
So looking at 2012 it doesn't look like Vettel did significantly worse than the other topdrivers. In fact you could argue that he did significantly better on occasion.

If you argue that Austin and Interlagos screw the performance in Vettels' advantage, you can take away the best two results for each driver. Than it's Vettel 34, Alonso 33, Hamilton 33, Button 31. Really close. Taking away the worst two results isn't gonna change anything, because that 0 for everybody.

 

[Boyle]

I'm assuming you mean Abu Dhabi instead of Austin Wombcat

 

[Wombcat]

Uh, yeah