Ok testing over... Bahrain aborted... 2 MORE WEEKS TILL THE FIRST RACE!!! Chat here for all things relating to the Australian GP with buildup, P1,P2,P3,Q1,Q2,Q3 and the Race! Albert Park, Melbourne, 25-27 March Friday 25 March: Practice one - 0130-0300; Practice two - 0530-0700 Saturday 26 March: Practice three - 0300-0400; Qualifying - 0600-0700 Sunday 27 March: Race - 0700 *Times in GMT (I Think, can someone confirm the clocks dont change to BST? beforehand) Your Friendly Neighbourhood Moderator, EL_Bando
Is anyone getting/staying up for P1 and P3? I don't think I'll be able to sleep Thursday night knowing P1 is going on, not sure whether to go to bed early and get up for it, or just stay up until 3AM.
I'll be up for it all, as usual. Usually get a couple of hours sleep beforehand otherwise would sleep through all of it.
I did get up to watch p1 and p2 last year just to see the new teams but I might give P1 a miss because of work =/ but will be up for P2, p3, quali and the race as I always am! do you guys reacon we will learn much from practise? I dont think so as we never do. Qualifying will show us where the pecking order stands
Hmm, being a student, I'm stuck with the highlights at best, but I'll devour them as usual. I need to find a bar round here that shows it all.
You can usually tell who'll be where if you watch all the practise sessions. It's hard to read into testing, but trends usually emerge in Practice.
CLOCKS: Yes, they change beforehand. DST starts on Sunday, 27 March 2011, 01:00 local standard time. To clarify: this means 'Saturday night' if you have turned in to a pumpkin by not being tucked up in bed before midnight!
It really would. Our student bar shows the quali and race, but only the repeats I think. Still, a pint or several will compensate for already knowing the result. I'm hoping that in free practice the teams stop sandbagging and treat it as a normal race weekend. You don't see teams sandbagging halfway through the season, so why should they at the first grand prix? Its probably more helpful for them to work on improving their car by then anyway.
Sorry to hear you won't be watching a live broadcast. By the way, what makes you think anyone has been 'sandbagging'? The testing of new cars and new parts will never be identical amongst teams. But this is not by design, it is simply that they each work to their own schedule.
So you don't think any team would hide its performance? If a team had the data to show a particular upgrade was a massive improvement, you wouldn't test to the max because it draws too much attention. Admittedly, the teams will all watch each other like hawks, but if Red Bull stuck an improved front wing on and knocked a second off their laps, the teams would be all over it. I'm not saying they'd deliberately slow (although there were reports of Alonso doing so in Valencia) but hide performance with an excessive fuel load.
sandbagging definatly goes on. all They are doing is collecting infomation of the car. The speed laps and the Driver focusing on hot laps can be done on the simulators with that infomation collected or in private tests. This would be happening all the way down the grid even to Virgin
I'm not saying it doesn't happen occasionally. I just wondered what had made you reach that apparent conclusion. There are many factors involved, not least the 'fact' that sponsorship deals and corporate encouragement can create a situation where a team does the opposite by deliberately running light, beefing up enthusiasm and ambition. I just wondered if you had anything specific which led you to make this comment?
I'll definitely watch Quali and the race, but there's no way I'm getting up at 3 in the morning for pretty much anything, let alone a meaningless practice session!
I wouldn't expect the teams to do much running in practice due to the tyres. Still wouldn't stop me watching all the practice sessions.
Jose, the tyre restrictions aren't applied to free practice (to my knowledge). I was under the impression it was 6 sets for quali and the race, but outside of that they have more tyres allocated which is less restrictive. Personally I imagine the first practice will be like another test.
