Little worried about Lewis' lack of reliability compared to Nico's smooth sailing so far. The season is long and I hope Mercedes get on top of it and give Lewis a car that will consistently be reliable on a race weekend. Good job by Nico. He is showing exactly what the Merc is capable of on Sundays. Awesome job by Magnussen and Riciardo. Its about time we saw some fresh faces fighting at the front. I do need to rewatch the race though. I pretty much checked out as soon as I saw Lewis retire. I was hoping to see his potential in the race and was deprived of it. What were the highlights I should look out for when I rewatch it later on?
Ricciardo has been officially disqualified according to autosport. Magnussen 2nd Button 3rd. Perez inherits a point.
Sky Sports newsticker of doom as confirmed it as well. Part of the FIA statement was that RBR were warned during the race they were exceeding the fuel flow limits but chose to ignore this, believing their own readings were correct and that FIA's were wrong. Only got themselves to blame.
Karma Vettel booers, karma. Damn that felt good... *Next day in group therapy* Hello my name is Silverarrow and I have a fanboy problem... Group speaking: "Hello silverarrow" It's been 4 months since my last relapse of fanboyism, but sadly F1 came back and I couldn't control myself. I feel so ashamed Counsellor: "How did the experience make you feel?" Powerful, energetic, happy *sighs* was a great feeling but I know this is wrong as I don't want to go back to the man I was... FACT! *Slap myself on the face* Counsellor: "It seems you still struggle with the urges to rub this into peoples faces and suffer with delusions of grandeur, we can supply medication to help suppress that." Thank you, how many will I have to take a day? Counsellor: "1" 1? 1 like Number 1 on Sebs car? and only number 1 because he's so ****ing awesome and better than all the other nobodies on track!?!?!?! Counsellor: Better make that 10...
Why would you even do that? Presumably we're talking marginal differences, probably less than 5%, so why risk disqualification by not heeding the FIA's warning? Magnussen may have caught Ricciardo, but he's still got to get ahead on a track where DRS wasn't proving very effective, and you'd expect a rookie in their debut race to be pretty careful about throwing a podium away! Button was highly unlikely to catch Ricciardo, so they've thrown a podium away through sheer arrogance.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/112967 Australian GP: FIA says Red Bull ignored fuel flow requests The FIA says Red Bull ignored requests to reduce the fuel flow rate of Daniel Ricciardo's car during the Australian Grand Prix. Ricciardo finished runner-up to Nico Rosberg's Mercedes on the road in Melbourne, but the Australian was excluded after officials deemed his Red Bull had "consistently" exceeded the fuel flow limit of 100kg/h mandated by this year's Formula 1 regulations. Ricciardo's fuel flow meter was changed for final free practice on Saturday following inconsistent readings during Friday's sessions. But the FIA instructed Red Bull to re-fit the original sensor in parc ferme after qualifying, due to what the governing body described as "unsatisfactory" readings from the replacement sensor. The FIA said it instructed the team to "apply an offset to their fuel flow" for the race to ensure its legality, but accepted there was a "variation" between the two sensors tried on the car. The stewards' decision in full Red Bull deemed the sensor unreliable, so decided to use its own fuel flow measurement for the race (with the FIA's required offset factored in) but still used fuel at too fast a rate according to the governing body. The FIA's statement said: "The FIA technical representative observed through telemetry during the race that fuel flow was too high and contacted the team, giving them the opportunity to follow his previous instruction and reduce the fuel flow such that it was within the limit, as measured by the homologated sensor - and thus give the team the opportunity to be within compliance. "The team chose not to make this correction." The FIA said Red Bull also violated a technical directive by choosing to run its own fuel flow model "without direction from the FIA". Daniel Ricciardo on the Australian GP 2014 podium The statement added: "Although the [original] sensor showed a difference in readings between runs in FP1, it remains the homologated and required sensor against which the team is obliged to measure their fuel flow, unless given permission by the FIA to do otherwise." Red Bull has notified the FIA of its intention to appeal the decision, saying: "Inconsistencies with the FIA fuel flow meter have been prevalent all weekend up and down the pitlane. "The team and Renault are confident the fuel supplied to the engine is in full compliance with the regulations."
If they prove the FIA sensor to be accurate then there simply isn't a case to answer to- the right decision has been made. Obviously feel for Ricciardo but the rules are clear. More to the point, are we going to see some challengers to Merc?! Sounds like McClaren have some developments coming at the next race, whilst paddock rumour is that Ferrari is well overweight. Surely if they can address that balance they won't be far away. Williams was super quick in race mode. Malaysia is a different type of circuit up next- apparantly Albert Park is a 'power' circuit, so the subtlety of the Merc will be tested a little more at the next race weekend, although I expect them to come through. Hopefully the challengers can reduce the gap. Great first race, much to ponder!
Is it hard to believe that this was some kind of trick method by RBR to gain extra speed? So was Ricciardo driving the car at where RB would like to have it but Vettel is the actual reference point to where they really are without this trick and so split the map to see if they could get away with it? So was the performance Daniel showed real? or was it because of this **** storm and Vettel's trouble was the actual performance?
Silver, clearly from your point of view you would hope for the latter. I think its difficult to assess. I have no doubt that the RB10 is a very quick chassis in terms of raw speed. However I think Vettels problems are more representative of the issues with drive that they have as a result of Renault and their engine technologies. It was odd that Ricciardo had been running so smooth all weekend but only those inside the camp will know. It's a quick car, aerodynamically, but it has issues that Vettel has highlighted.
I don't think Ricciardo was that far over the fuel limit. Running legally he might have lost out to the McLarens, but surely no further than that. I do think it was cynical on RB's part though, they believed they could use the sensor excuse to get away with snatching an advantage. The "easier to beg for forgiveness than ask permission" philosophy.
Is it though? If a car has a set fuel limit, they should be able to use that fuel as they see fit imo It's just another example of F1 deciding the result after the event because of a technicality. I'm weary of getting up in the night to watch a race and walking up to changed results.
