Are Red Bull genuinely off the pace or was it track/tyre-specific issues? In the final stint both Alonso and Vettel were in clear air and it doesn't look good for Red Bull. Vettel's average laptime was +0.238 slower than Alonso, despite Alonso being very slow in the final four laps. I might be wrong on this but I think Button was also in clear air in the final stint. His average laptime in the final stint was 0.875 slower than Alonso, which isn't great but at least it's not the 2 seconds that was feared after qualifying. Perez's average time in the final stint was only 0.310 behind Alonso, although his final stop did come later than Button and Alonso. Another positive sign for McLaren is that Perez's laptimes in that final stint were very consistent (until he got stuck behind Grosjean). I've put the final part of my post in NSFW tags so people don't have to read any further pro-Bianchi comments: [NSFW]I was wondering Bianchi made a late third pitstop and made the final result look a lot less impressive. Marussia say it was because the tyres were heavily worn and that "under normal circumstances perhaps we would have carried on but with a pitstop time loss easily in hand to the cars behind, we decided it was safer to stop." Bianchi pitted on lap 50. On lap 49, he was 20.774 behind Bottas, 56.988 ahead of Pic, 69.356 ahead of Chilton and 77.880 ahead of Van Der Garde. On average, that means he was 0.424 per lap slower than Bottas, 1.163 faster than Pic, 1.415 faster than Chilton and 1.589 faster than Van Der Garde. I'm not sure what the gaps are between Williams, Marrusia and Caterham but I'm pretty sure Williams are more than 0.4 ahead of Marussia, and I'm sure that while Caterham are the slowest, they're not over a second behind Marussia.[/NSFW]
Cheers.. Note to self, don't leave this forum for more than a day in the future, especially over a race weekend!
I didn't think the times from qualifying were really representative. The track was constantly evolving, there was a very specific set of conditions during Q3 that are unlikely to be replicated, in those situations you're likely to get the times spread more as the cars find a sweet spot with tyre temperatures or just general balance and the drivers can make a big difference if they get into their rhythm or find some confidence in the car. The times are usually strung out in wet sessions, no way will McLaren be three seconds off the pace if it's dry in Malaysia, and Ferrari will be a lot closer than a second. On the other hand, the Mercedes seemed to thrive in those conditions and might have been behind Ferrari and Lotus if it was a fully dry session. On top of all this Australia is a pretty unique track, it has nothing in common with Malaysia, China and Bahrain. If Malaysia's dry all weekend it will give the first real indication of where the cars are, the track layout in particular is more typical of most race tracks, although the surface is really abrasive I believe.
We never received a note boy, this is going down as an unauthorised absence, and your future attendance will be closely monitored. Skiving is not tolerated around here!
Funny, I've just been thinking about that too! Not that I'm presumptuous or anything. Even if he's not though, it's exciting to have another top-class contender in the mix.
Raikkonen winning the championship would be awesome! Its only race 1 though and a lot happens in a season. Usually Adrian Newey creates an unbeatable machine in the last quater of a season too.
Im quite happy with myself. after preseason testing I had the opinion that: - Red bull were quick on 1 lap runs and likely to get pole but not so quick with long distance - Lotus and Ferrari are good at long distances - Mclaren were off pace
Yeah quite right, all RB need to do is make sure they can put in faster lap times later on into the race, which is where Raikkonen charged up.
I think RB have a problem. they are not good on fresh tyres on long distances either. so getting pole is their best chance of good points.....For the moment
