First photos. Place looks really different with Rolex as the sponsor. Podium looks awesome (except there'll be no flags waving in the wind ) OMFG so giddy for this to start http://www.formula1.com/gallery/race/2013/893/general/wednesday.html Kyle? will be happy; look who's here in photo 5
please log in to view this image Love the way Michael is facing Vettel at the back. And how Senna is right at the top. Brilliant move by the FIA.
Yeah I've already thought the McLaren might look better in Melbourne than it actually is. As we all know, Jenson Button is a triple winner of this race and Sergio Perez has completed both his grand prix here with only 1 pitstop, the only guy to do so in 2011 and I believe the only 1 to do so in 2012 as well. Both McLaren drivers appear to have something extra around this track which may flatter the car a little.
McLaren and Vodafone to split McLaren and Vodafone have confirmed they will part ways at the end of this season amidst rumours that Telmex could become the team's title sponsor. http://www.planetf1.com/driver/18227/8563689/McLaren-and-Vodafone-to-split
DRIVERS – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes), Mark WEBBER (Red Bull Racing), Daniel RICCIARDO (Toro Rosso), Fernando ALONSO (Ferrari), Kimi RAIKKONEN (Lotus), Sebastian VETTEL (Red Bull Racing) PRESS CONFERENCE Gentlemen, welcome. Let’s start with you Mark. There have been a couple of retirements from the sport, so you’re the oldest man on the grid this year – don’t worry, you don’t look it just yet. Home race to start the season. Pretty much everyone here apart from Kimi has a home race. Is it good to get one out of the way first of all, all the pressure and extra attention that goes with it? Mark WEBBER: I think it’s just great to come to Australia at any stage let alone for a race, so we’re all looking forward to finally getting racing. There’s a lot of testing that goes on in Spain and we can all get down to what we all enjoy doing and that’s racing the cars. So, yeah, all the teams, drivers come here with a little bit more anxiety let’s say just because it’s the first grand prix of the year, whether it’s pit stops or whatever department you’re in, it’s a fresh challenge for the new year. For sure around round six, round seven everyone is more comfortable with their jobs but it’s the same for everyone. It’s a great event and looking forward to getting into the car. Daniel, I’m sure you’re looking forward to getting into the car as well for what is your home grand prix. It’s your second full season at Toro Rosso – extra pressure that goes with that? You against Jean-Eric Vergne. Is it a shootout between the pair of you? How do you see your season coming? Daniel RICCIARDO: Just hanging out for it to start, actually. Obviously I’ll try and take the experience I learned from last year and bring it into this season; a bit of extra confidence and whatnot and then just try to get some better results and start to creep up the order a bit. That’s really the plan. You always want to try to beat the team-mate. That’s always there, but I’m definitely focused on myself and just do than usual, not doing any dramatic changes. I’m not sure there’s anything that’s pretty much usual for you Lewis. New team. Melbourne might be familiar but Mercedes still not quite the familiar team that McLaren would be. How much different is your life at the moment with your new outfit? Lewis HAMILTON: It’s not that much different. It’s put me in a better place. Just settling into the team pretty well. It’s still a Formula One team and they still exist to win. The guys are doing a fantastic job and I’m really excited about the season and excited to get back in the car. More excited after Barcelona? It went well that final weekend for you and for Nico. LH: Not particularly any more excited I think. You can’t really take too much from the tests. With that in mind Kimi, let’s reflect on yours and Lotus’ chances for this season. A slight touch of unreliability in the tests but a lot of people are saying you, the team are genuine contenders for the title this year. Is that accurate? Kimi RAIKKONEN: It’s difficult to say but we will see after maybe two or three races where we are. We had a few small issues and unfortunately the issues just took a long time to fix. That happens. I think we should be OK. There are always things that can go wrong but I think we are more or less, speedwise, similar to where we were last year when we started and like I said it’s difficult to say exactly where we will be. We’ll see a bit tomorrow. Do you believe, going into you second full season since your comeback, that you’re a better driver this year – that the rustiness you had maybe at the start of last year is gone? KR: I don’t think it’s going to really change. I know the team so it should be a bit easier to start the year but there is no promise that this will give you better results. It’s another year and we’ll try to do as well as we can. For you Fernando, another year but a much better car than this time last year – 200 times better I think you said, the Ferrari in 2013. Is this your best chance to become a world champion at Ferrari? Fernando ALONSO: We’ll see. I think it was not difficult to start better than last year because it was difficult to start any worse. We were a little bit too far behind and the winter has been much better than the last year, understanding the car and working with the car and getting the results we more or less expect. That will give us much more confidence and optimism to start the season, but who knows. I think it will be a very interesting championship, very challenging first part of the championship with Australia, Malaysia. Difficult circuits, difficult weather as well – changeable. So we need to start on the right foot and hopefully scoring some good points for the championship. And Sebastian, three consecutive titles. How much difficult is a fourth title in a row now that you’ve got those three in the bag or does it make no difference whatsoever? Sebastian VETTEL: I don’t think it makes a difference. I think every year we start again from zero. I think everyone has the same chance. As we said, testing obviously this year was probably not as conclusive as previous years, so we arrive here not knowing what is going to happen. But I think it is very exciting so as every year, excited to start. Not knowing what’s going to happen, does that make it even better for you – that the challenge could be tougher ahead? SV: I think it’s going to be a long year. Obviously we’re looking forward to this weekend and this is the first of many. But I think we’ve seen in the last couple of years, last year in particular, that it’s a long season and every race is very important. So this is the place we start but then there are many other places coming. Nineteen races ahead and lots of questions to answer. Bob, I’m sure we’ve got a few hands raised among our media delegates here with some questions for the drivers.
http://www1.skysports.com/formula-1/news/22058/8561993/Questions-for-Australia Are the Red Bulls in a bit of trouble? It's just a whisper, and only ever stated with a question mark firmly attached as its suffix, but even the merest suspicion World Champions Red Bull are in a spot of bother with the RB9 ahead of the new season is a source of fascination. Although the RB9 looked formidably fast from trackside throughout winter testing, reports in the German media have subsequently suggested the new parts debuted on the final weekend at Barcelona were more problematic than pacey. Could it be possibly true? It feels unlikely, but claims that all is not entirely well with the team's new offspring would tally with Red Bull's unwillingness to run any race simulations on either Saturday and Sunday and chime with the post-session frustration of Sebastian Vettel. And last, but perhaps least given Red Bull's longstanding habit of running heavy throughout testing, it should be mentioned that February's positive impressions from trackside rarely tallied with results on the timesheets - in all, Red Bull finished fastest on just one of the twelve days of winter action. Now are you intrigued? PG Could Lewis better the McLarens? Received wisdom has it that Lewis Hamilton will go backwards in 2013 after abandoning proven race-winners McLaren for the long-term challenge of turning Mercedes into a serious force. The engine rules revamp for 2014 should leave Lewis and Mercedes sitting pretty, but 2013? A learning curve bordering on a write-off. Forget about it. Or so we thought until the W04 suddenly produced a stunning turn of speed at Barcelona two weeks ago to suggest Mercedes might be the real deal a year ahead of forecast schedule. Winter testing, as the world and his F1 dog surely know by now, is a notoriously unreliable indicator of the true pecking order. Nonetheless, the W04's table-topping surge on the final weekend, coupled with McLaren's evident and understandable struggle to find a consistent set-up for their revolutionary charger, throws up the tantalising prospect of Hamilton trumping his former employers at Australia - and perhaps, dare we say it, doing so to victorious effect. We're not counting on it, but neither are writing it off. Mercedes are already a long, long way ahead of where we - and probably Hamilton himself - thought they would be. Game on. PG Will Ferrari's improvement amount to an improved position? There are a couple of things to be immediately said of Fernando Alonso's assurance that Ferrari's position ahead of the new season is "200 times better" than it was at the start of 2012. The first is that, given Ferrari were two seconds off the pace at Australia twelve months ago, Fernando's relief is perhaps not saying very much at all. The second is that Alonso has also admitted he expects the Scuderia to start the new season behind the frontrunners. [h=4]Live on Sky Sports[/h] [h=3]Live Formula One[/h] 2013 Australian Grand Prix March 17, 2013 4:30am please log in to view this image Remote Record In sum, although the F138 might be an improvement on the F2012, there's no guarantee Ferrari are in shape to challenge for victory on Sunday - or anything like it. Indeed, with both Lotus and Mercedes apparently leaping forward, one of the big questions waiting to be answered this weekend is whether the F138's relative improvement on the F2013 will count for anything more than better lap times. Fernando and Felipe may be faster, but it doesn't necessarily follow that they will be further up the grid - or in position to challenge for victory. If McLaren can get the MP4-28 dialled in, and Mercedes and Lotus then both make good on their winter promise, it might even be the case that the two Ferraris struggle to reach Q3. We'll see. Having failed to deliver their Melbourne spec for the final test, Ferrari will be leaping into the unknown during Practice One when they'll bolt a suite of new parts on to the F138. The competition, by perhaps decisive contrast, will be a stage further in the process and fine tuning what Ferrari will be merely checking. Alonso's headline-grabbing soundbite might have sounded a breakthrough, but the small print is far less assuring - or persuasive. PG Will Pirelli's tyre choice produce fireworks? Depending on who you believed during the course of winter testing, F1 is set to witness either one of two strategy extremes in Melbourne: "Seven or ten pitstops", reckoned an only partially tongue-in-cheek Sergio Perez, or the more standard "two or three", according to Pirelli. There's no doubting that tyre graining was a serious factor with the 2013-spec slick compounds throughout all three tests but the reason put forward as way of explanation by Pirelli - consistently unrepresentative cool conditions - was entirely logical and certainly nothing out of the ordinary. Early historiography on Bridgestone's era as the sport's sole supplier may have created the impression that their tyres could run unchanged from Paris to Prague, but graining is an age-old F1 phenomenon - particularly during a cold European winter. [h=4]F1 on Sky Sports in 2013[/h] Sky Sports F1 is the only place to watch every grand prix live in 2013. Our dedicated F1 channel will broadcast every race, qualifying and practice session live, along with highlights shows, analysis and even more coverage via the Red Button.Find out more at sky.com Indeed, that was indeed that buzzword the only time the supersoft tyres were previously brought to Albert Park in F1's current control tyre era - by Bridgestone in 2009 - as is the case again with Pirelli for the first time this weekend. Of course, as the softest tyres in their range, the red-marked rubber is designed to degrade faster than the other compounds and perhaps the biggest question surrounding tyres this weekend is actually how long they will last and how and when exactly teams will use them. In 2009, the conundrum produced some one of the most exciting Australian GP finishes in recent memory - notably the collision between Kubica and Vettel - as some opposite strategies met head-on in the final stint of the 58 laps. Speaking to Sky Sports F1's Johnny Herbert last week, Lewis Hamilton revealed that someone at Pirelli had told him that "the supersoft tyre might not last six laps" on Sunday which offers hope for some excitingly divergent strategies for the season-opener. JG
Q. (Michael Wittershagen– Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) Question to Sebastian and Fernando: could you please tell us what you think of each other as a person and as a driver? FA: Well, I think as a driver, really not much to say: three times World Champion beating all the records in terms of wins and fastest laps and pole positions etc. 2011 was nearly a record championship and this is not only about the car or about the package. You need to perform, even when you have the car that is available. Seb has won everything perfectly in the past years and for that he is World Champion and he's a tough rival and contender for the next couple of years. As a person, we obviously don't spend much time together. We are of a different generation. We didn't race together in go-karts or anything like that. He's a normal – or looks like a normal guy – and nothing more so all good. SV: Thank you very much. I think, as a driver, I don't have to introduce Fernando. I think he's one of the most respected and most accepted drivers in the world. I think in all circumstances he has the ability to be on the limit. I think he's a very intelligent driver and I think that's the reason why he was always fighting for the championship until the end, in many years of his career. Fortunately we had the upper hand in the last couple of years but surely he's trying his best to give everyone a hard time again this year, and as a person, as he said, we don't spend that much time together, hardly with any of the drivers. It's probably what people think or expect from the outside but there's obviously not a lot of time during the weekend but in private – I don't drink coffee so I'm not inviting you for a coffee but I can invite you for a Red Bull if you want to talk. Q. At least you're on one each other's Christmas card list now for the future.
There we are then. The way I see it, the only way there has ever been a (perceived) difficulty between these two drivers, was as a product of Helmut Marko's outspoken and (deliberately, in my view) provocative comments. If he came onto a forum to say the sort of things he has in the past, I think he'd rightly be called a WUM!
