Quote from iMCk. :

How bloody good were the races at Adelaide!! See they should always start at Adelaide! Atmosphere was hell great.
Keep Bahrain and Abudhabi somewhere else in the calender but never start the v8s there again imho.
Hard luck for Whincup in the last race. Gets hit from behind then loose bodywork then ends serving a penalty for it.
Well done to GT, he is back! Race 2 of Clipsal500 was prob best clipsal i've seen in a long time.

Here guys full races ready to download:

Race 1.

Race 2.

that rule is just stupid and unfair...

someone punted you, damaged your car, you'd to come in to the pits for a mechanical blackflag to pull that bit off. It'd gone off already half way round the track, but you still need to drive through the pits in order to serve that black flag...

and meanwhile, the guy who did the damaged, get away for it despite completely ruining out someone else's race.

So if you tap someone into a spin, you get a drive through, if you punt someone straight up the backside, damage it badly enough so there are parts hanging off it, it'd be the poor guy who got rammed that get penalised, and it'd be even more costly than being spun on track...

Quote from Reik :

BOOOORING! Refuel ban sucks...

Looks like Red Bull and Ferrari are fast, but both have some technical problems ATM, I'm sure they will fix em quickly. McLaren too.

HRT just sucked badly, new team, but still. Or maybe I just don't remember how badly new teams have started before. When was the last time a new team joined the series, but did not buy an existing team? Virgin is not reliable, but looks faster than Lotus. And a great race by Lotus, Trulli had some odd problems at the end, and Heikki had such a long stint his tires were all worn out. But a great victory for Lotus.

if I remembered correctly, it would have been Toyota and BAR, which were both disastrous...

and they both have plenty of money and much more time to prepare for their first season compared to the poor folks this year, but still pretty much came last anyway...

Quote from NitroNitrous :

Oh of course is not, but the fact that he's usually so lucky annoys me a bit

you make your own luck~ and he's always there or there about to benefits...

Quote from el pibe :

noooooo, hang on kate's younger sister! ( vettel's car )

nooooooooo... if she can't hold on to the lead, at least go take the Ferraris out~!!!!!!!!

but it's sounding quite sick, don't know if it can hang on for another 15 laps...

Quote from Nobo :

Agree dont like the rule changes. Almost everyone on same strategies, no refuelling, boring.

and I fail to see how the new points system will help motivate drivers to overtake too... (it's not like they're ever that demotivated)

eg. the guy in 2nd going for the win, it's potentially 7 extra points vs potentially 18 fewer points...

PS. Ferrari is showing their cards and picking up their pace now, 1sec a lap quicker~!

they could never passed on tracks, now that FIA took out the fuel stop, they could hardly use the pit stops to pass people too...

the question now is, will the prime last till the end of the race~?

Vettel seems quite comfortable controlling the pace, and I'm falling asleep...

is Lotus the only new teams still hv its cars running~? lol
gosh only 20 laps hv passed...

lucky bastard~ lol

do you know for sure who's going to give u the ride~?

Quote from DieKolkrabe :

Lol@interview

Schuey'll probably finish out of the points

...Did Martin call the pace car sexy?

which it is...

But that got me wondering... had James Allen ever called Lewis sexy~?

Quote from NotAnIllusion :

It certainly would be an interesting prospect but despite having a tyre advantage, I suspect at least the Ferraris will outpace him.

lets see if Ferrari's brand sparkling new engines don't give them "some abnormal parameters" too...

please blown the engines on BOTH Ferrari, PLEASE~!

Otherwise as Alex Yoong pointed out in our commentary in Asia after qualifying yesterday, rightly and wrongly, it's going to be a snore-fest... (while his co-commentator is giving him the looks of you can't say that son, that'd hurt our TV ratings~ lol)

BOTH Ferrari have their engine changed, and the first race havn't even started...

well at least their PR/marketing people said that engine being replaced can be used in free practice sessions in the future, just to comfort themselves....

Quote from samjh :

I think McLaren and Mercedes are very well-matched in absolute performance. The bigger factor is in the drivers. Hamilton is the only driver among the four who is in a position to extract maximum performance from the car and the team. Button is new, Schumacher is rusty, and Rosberg is also new. With time, I think you'll see a lot of shuffling in the rank order between those four.

As for Red Bull, I think it'll be a tough fight against Ferrari.

So far:
RBR = Ferrari > McLaren = Mercedes > Renault = Force India > Williams > Sauber = STR > Virgin = Lotus > HRT

I think FI has a better car than Renault, but Kubica is famous for swinging the hell outta the car to extract extra performance in qualifying through~

we shall see if the order in qualifying would be the same tomorrow in the race~ Vettel's left front look rather 2nd hand when it gets to the end of his flying lap, and I think Ferrari will have an easy run to a 1-2 tmr...

Quote from Mustafur :

Vettel pole!

he was throwing the car into the corners in S2 on that flying lap, awsome~!

looks like only Force Inida qualified on the harder tyre, everyone else was on options in Q3, will be interesting how quickly they will burn these out with 160kg of fuel tmr...

surprises of Q2, Schumacher and Button JUST managed to scrape into Q3...

in terms of low fuel qualifying runs, Red Bull have the quickest car, with Ferrari close behind. Mercedes is ahead of McLaren. But perhaps it'll be different again tomorrow when they have 160kg of fuel on board instead of 10kg...

oh and is it just me or something~?

I still havn't seen a single shot from any camera at the new bit of the track, the director is always cutting to cars on the 3rd sector...

and why did most drivers bothered to do the 2nd run during Q1 anyway, it's very obvious which 6 cars are for sure going to be eliminated since the 3 new teams are so much behind everyone else...
They could've saved some tyres for Q2 and Q3 instead, as well as the engine mileage...

Last edited by JCTK, Sat 13 Mar 2010, 11:23.

Quote from Bean0 :

McLaren have some live data on their site...

http://mclaren.com/home

and their commentary include their radio transmission~
although the commentary in a whole is obviously going to be very McLaren-biased~

Quote from Timo1992 :

schumi rosberg or mclaren will take pole position

McLaren this year seems to be also not quick enough in the corners...

their clever aerodynamics is helping them at S1 and S3, but they're nearly 0.5 slower than Ferrari (and perhaps Red Bull and Mercedes too, to a lesser extent) at S2...

at the moment my money is on Ferrari~!

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

Mclaren always seem to come up with these clever interpretations, but they usually end up being banned, along with all the other clever ideas that give teams an advantage. Let me just throw this out there, if Ferrari had come up with this everyone would be calling the FIA biased for declaring it legal.

Ferrari did have their hubcab~
Renault had their mass dampers...

and I'll stop here before suggesting the timing of when these things got banned~

Quote from BlueFlame :

Typical of most to slag off the new commers. I think we forget sometimes how tight the F1 grid had become, when you think about it, 11seconds over a almost 2minute lap, it's not really THAT much, any amount of time you lose on a lap like this will be multiplied, ok given, most of the F1 tracks are quite big laps, but maybe not Monaco or Canada or even Silverstone (maybe not anymore with the new layout).

HRT : They've literally done not even 20laps and they are 11seconds off the pace, I'd say that was a pretty damn good achievement, I don't think some of you are really viewing it, in the full perspective of things. Remember, I say it yet again, the Lotus team and Virgin team have already run their cars at various test events. HRT haven't!!! That's why there is a difference. As for the Virgin and Lotus team, they will inevitably struggle with a new car, especially on a track that is effectively renewed, and also dusty until the track gets rubbered in and the dust gets washed out.


PS : Not to mention HRT will need to aquire setup data ontop of the data needed to modify and tweak the car for race day.

I think it's quite ignorant to just sit there and say "11 seconds off the pace, well thats shit why are they even here." How do any of you know that Bruno S was even pushing the car to the limit? You don't , it didn't look like he was pushing it TOO hard (to me).

I doubt Senna would be allowed to push, as I'd expect them to be very short on spares...

and probably because of that, both wouldn't be pushing much tomorrow nor in the race also, they need to gather as much data as possible when the car is running (before it'll eventually have a problem and breakdown or get pulled to the pit)

Quote from samjh :

Indeed. Bridgestone has stated that the fastest four (Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes, RBR) have similar tyre wear characteristics, but Sauber has the advantage in tyre conservation. The Renault engine is known for being fuel-efficient, contrast to Ferrari, which is rumoured to be fuel-hungry. There are whispers that Williams might reintroduce KERS some time during the season, although it seems very unlikely.

Ferrari are always fuel-hungry~ but Shell has their "fuel economy formula" to compensate~
(well that's what Shell's PR dept is going to say anyway~ XD)

I wouldn't be surprised if Williams reintroduce their KERS (once they get more testing of it with the Porsche), since it's still allowed in the regulations and the teams won't stay this united forever (especially since they were the first team that got kicked out of FOTA last year), especially when it comes to performance gains~

the good thing is that Williams' system is light, so would be much less a compromise on handling and setup of the car~

Quote from Rudagar :

Don't forget they've added several new corners in an infield section, thus making the track longer and different from last year.

I think he's refering to how different last year's FP1 results looked compare to qualifying/race...

Quote from Reik :

Looks like Mercedes will dominate in Bahrain! I mean the engine, not the team itself. It's hard to say what will happen in the qualify but I think McLaren and Mercedes GP will take the first two rows. Red Bull had some problems at least in the practice session and I think Ferrari wasn't that aggressive as they could've. There's was just something that didn't work well with them.

Seriously, I don't understand what's going on with HRT. Chandhok hasn't driven a single lap and I think Senna broke his car in the end of the second practice session, I wonder if they have any spare parts yet. I know "bla-bla-bla it's a new team", but they have some major problems anyway when comparing to f.e. Lotus. Virgin is also struggling a little bit.

Anyway, I'm rooting for Rosberg. He has driven brilliantly.

My predictions for qualify:

1. Hamilton
2. Rosberg
3. Button
4. Schumacher

They only have ONE car ready for today, and I bet they're doing an all-nighter tonight to get the 2nd car ready for Karun for tomorrow...

and then they'll just cruise around slowly for the rest of the weekend, because they most probably don't have much (if any) spares...

Quote from Rappa Z :

Button just passed one of the HRT cars on a straight and he could've run circles around the thing. Also, there was a rather large vent part way up Button's nose. I wonder what it could be cooling considering how inefficient it looked for the aerodynamics.

would that be part of the "F-vent" system or whatever it's called~?

Quote from samjh :

Neither of the two FP sessions are reliable indicators of real performance. FP3 is closer to the truth, but still a little off.

and this year it's not like we'll get a true indication even in qualifying~

some cars are ought to be better at heavy fuel long run than low fuel single lap pace, or vice versa.

Quote from Intrepid :

Webber might not be the best drive out there but he's entertainment!

oh no Webber is trying to find the hole~