Quote from BlueFlame :

Schumachers wheel had left the car, Vettels wheel was still attatched, which makes it more potentially dangerous as the wheel could somehow disconnect itself when Schumacher hit Coulthard in the wet his wheel just flew off. With 3 wheels in Schumachers situation, he's only a danger to himself, with 3 wheels in Vettel's situation, he's a danger to everyone.

Speaking of which, I thought the tethers appeared weaker than I recall.

Quote from Becky Rose :

I wish to disagree with you Tristan, my view is that Hamilton drove very well, and showed that he is a tenacious racer by again pulling off some ballsy overtakes. Accepting that he is in a rather lacklustre car, let's look at a few facts.

He finished in a fairly high position in a midfield car. Compare that to other great recovery drives of say Nigel Mansell remember when he went from last to 1st? Alain Prost did the same thing too, and a few others of that era... But that era, cars where 4.5 seconds apart over a lap, and they had the best cars. The qualifying for Australia was a 0.7 second spread.

Sure he passed a few cars that fell off the road. Now I hate to break it to you but for as long as i've been watching F1 (25 years) there have been retirements in motor racing, quite a few actually, indeed, it's not a question of if a few cars fall off the road but how many.

Hamilton did a good job, he over delivered on expectations. Sure a few things went his way, and on another day they might not have, but I dont think many other drivers in the field would have achieved the same thing. Certainly I cant think of many drives by a certain Mr Jenson Button where he went from last to almost rostrum in a midfield car, and I can think of many races where he had the opportunity.

I'd agree with most of that, but "drove very well" does not equal "it was an exceptional drive that will be talked about for years". As you said, on another day, driving in exactly the same manner, he might have finished must, must lower down the field because a lot of the luck was out of his control.

And I'm not claiming that Button's was exceptional either before anyone thinks I am.

well i'm not going to fall for being entrenched :P I to do not believe we'll be talking about it in a number of years, although, i'm tempted to put it into my calendar and drag it up again next year just to prove you wrong.

Funny to see that almost 40% were most impressed by Button. I mean, I really like that guy (unlike Hamilton) and wish him all the best, but driving away from pole to an unassailed victory in the fastest car is really not all that impressive to me. It was a solid drive, not more. (I seem to remember saying the exact same thing about Hamilton after one of his wins in 2008... Can't remember which race it was, though.)

Hamilton on the other hand clearly overperformed. Partly due to luck, partly due to good strategy and partly because he kept his cool and the car out of trouble. He definitely had a harder time than Button and made the best out of what he had. I wouldn't exactly call that "impressive", but many other drivers out there apparantly weren't capable of pulling that off.

Personally, I was most impressed by Buemi, because, like others, I expected more of a Piquet style race from him. Plus, ist was his first race, he's only 20 and all that. So, definitely Buemi impressed me the most.

Quote from Linsen :

Personally, I was most impressed by Buemi, because, like others, I expected more of a Piquet style race from him. Plus, ist was his first race, he's only 20 and all that. So, definitely Buemi impressed me the most.

I agree. Other drivers probably drove better, but the one who impressed me most was Buemi: I didn't know anything about him and I expected a poor rookie performance with his Toro Rosso, instead he got a good result and I also saw him fight for some positions.
+1 for Buemi

Quote from Linsen :

Funny to see that almost 40% were most impressed by Button. I mean, I really like that guy (unlike Hamilton) and wish him all the best, but driving away from pole to an unassailed victory in the fastest car is really not all that impressive to me. It was a solid drive, not more. (I seem to remember saying the exact same thing about Hamilton after one of his wins in 2008... Can't remember which race it was, though.)

Hamilton on the other hand clearly overperformed. Partly due to luck, partly due to good strategy and partly because he kept his cool and the car out of trouble. He definitely had a harder time than Button and made the best out of what he had. I wouldn't exactly call that "impressive", but many other drivers out there apparantly weren't capable of pulling that off.

Personally, I was most impressed by Buemi, because, like others, I expected more of a Piquet style race from him. Plus, ist was his first race, he's only 20 and all that. So, definitely Buemi impressed me the most.

Like you say, someone can impress you without being the best. You wouldn't say Buemi was the best driver on the day, but he did more than you expected.

I clicked Button in the poll because I wasn't sure he was capable of dominating in a dominant car, and he did. It wasn't anything that would make him the new number one driver in the world, but I was impressed because he's never really been in that position before and he did the job very well (except for the pit stop problem).

Maybe Hamilton did more- maybe a drive under no pressure at all, starting as an underdog, in a car which was clearly at least a little better than his grid position, that only got him close to the front runners because of things out of his control, is the drive of the day...........but I think he just did what most people would say he is capable of doing. He's World Champion remember, if it were his first race then it would be different. Which is why, as credit worthy as the performance may be, it's not so impressive (to me).

I don't agree he was under no pressure. He's coming into the race as WDC in a hugely under performing car. Considering he has always been told he has only won because he has had the silver spoon he now has to prove moer than ever he is actually the real deal.

So in some ways he came into the race with more pressure. It's been a long time since Hamilton was in a similar position - 2001 FSA World Champioship to be precise.

OK so it may not have been drive of the century but it certainly shut up many critics!

One thing I am sure about - Malaysia will be much much much tougher. I think they'll be fighting witht he STRs and FIs

I don't know, everyone wrote off his chances for the first part of the season. Some critics were saying McLaren should write off the whole 09 car and begin to work on the 2010 car! McLaren expected to walk away with nothing. LH would have been under far more pressure if the car had been 5th/6th grid slot worthy, but as it was nobody expected anything of either McLaren, any points haul is considered a "bonus". The only pressure all weekend was to beat Heikki, but then the gearbox problem in quali and grid position which resulted would have excused him had he not.

He and McLaren as much as admitted that they were out of the running. I honestly don't think the pressure on World Champion, the expectation that he will score big points, could ever have been any less. If he finished 13th, we'd just say "Wow that car was awful".

i agree with sinbad

Quote from sinbad :

He and McLaren as much as admitted that they were out of the running. I honestly don't think the pressure on World Champion, the expectation that he will score big points, could ever have been any less. If he finished 13th, we'd just say "Wow that car was awful".

or some would say "Hamilton can't deal with a crap car". I feel there was pressure there to perform in sub-standard car quite a lot actually. I was at a gig where Hamilton was doing a meet and greet with a lot of Cadet and Junior karters who look up to Hamllton (he must have spoken to nearly 100 drivers one to one). I know helping these young drivers means a lot to Hamilton after his experiences of some F1 drivers when he was a kid.

As corny as it sounds he has to keep his word about performing to the maximum even when your car isn't their for you.

So the pressure is there to perform, just the pressure is different and less obvious.

I thought I'd chip in on the Hamilton thing. To say his drive was exceptional is a bit far fetched. It's too hard to say if it was exceptional or not given that quite a lot of stuff happened in his favour (retirements and safety car periods). It was most certainly a good drive and if not then a great drive. He kept his head, took any places that he could and brought the car home in a good position which was more than he was probably hoping for in the circumstances.

The GP as a whole was one of the best I've seen in a while but I think that's because i've allowed myself to get sucked into the fairytale-ness of it what with BrawnGP getting a (quite lucky) 1-2 after not really being sure if they were going to compete last month. It did make it quite a spectacle and I imagine this race will be talked about for a while for that reason alone, especially so if BrawnGP keep up their pace and keep on getting good results.

I certainly hope they do well, it could help rejuvenate F1 a bit I reckon.

The Kubica and Vettel incident is an interesting one. I don't think either driver drove particularly well there. Vettel went in pretty hot and probably shouldn't have attempted it. Kubica most certainly knew he was there (although maybe that was the glare issue coming into play?) and could quite easily have avoided an accident and maintained track poistion. Vettel wouldn't have had much chance of catching after that, he was struggling with his tires at that point anyway (wasn't he? I seem to remember he was), so Kubica made a pretty big mistake trying to squeeze Vettel IMO. I wouldn't have punished either for it myself, racing incident that both could have avoided and both drivers have been punished for. One piece of tarmac that two drivers really want to be on, or 20 drivers to 1 piece of tarmac in LFS. Having said that driving on with a wheel flapping about is a bit stupid and a pretty good reason for a penalty anyway!

Why does every race have a massive discussion about hamilton?

Hes a Brit and hes good get over it

In general I'm glad this race is over, mostly because for many years it has been more of a lottery than an actual benchmark after the pre-season, thus making assumptions out of it is risky to a degree (yes, I know that usually the driver that wins this first race usually ends up being WDC, but statistics are there to be broken, not followed).

Out of all the drivers, I've been most impressed with Trulli. Surely, he had done nothing that is truly remarkable or awesome, but if you think he came out last from the pits and ended up third before FIA penalized his car again, it's quite telling you that his team is up there next to the Brawn GP ones.

Best drive would go for Kubica and Vettel weren't they both to crash into eachother (if I was a steward I would sign this off as a race incident), or Rosberg wasn't his performance or tyres degradating. All in all, it's hard to get a 'best at' without naming a BrawnGP driver, however I would say that as many incidents the race had, it was more a matter of being at the right place at the right moment than anything else.

Waiting for the Malaysian GP, I think everything is yet to be decided in the means that this australian race has shown plenty of action but since many cars did not manage to finish, the result is not as meningful as it will be on next races with less incidents.

All in all, pretty happy there are much more things going on in the 2 hours than just one driver stopping at the pits, the pace of the race feels better, there actually are more chances for overtaking and the drivers are closer, so all the rule changes are working (the KERS is the only one I'm doubting, either because the implementation was poor on some teams or because drivers were not using it properly) and making it more exciting and close-knit. Apart, it seems the level of the broadcasts has gone up, so it makes more for a spectacle, which is always good as long as it doesn't kill the essence of F1.

My 2 cents

Liked the race, though am not sure if its the race or that the good BBC commentators have given me an alternative to the Dutch commentator Olaf "HOLY F**K! Mol(quoted from tv guide for truth). Damn was I glad to get resonable commentary and not having to hear him overloading any sound system between me and Australia over a drivers fart. Everytime he's on and something happens I'm inclined to run to the shelter out of fear all the satellites come crashing down to earth due to malfunction.

Well about the race, Kubica at the end, well what do you expect? All Polish people drive like this, so its perfectly normal for him. [if you didn't get it, its humor with a ring of truth to it]

Button was boring to look at but am happy for him. Liked Hamiltons drive since it looks he drives more aggresive overall. To me he somehow seems to approach the kerbs more aggressive, and when going out of a corner these steering corrections while still having throttle on, I find that great to look at. Buemi surpised me, though he didn't get alot of airtime, seems like someone with a brain and not getting to cocky in his first race. Sad for Trulli, that penalty was too damn harsh, it wasn't his fault there was a damn safety car but now he gets punished for this by losing so many places.

Edit, and does anyone else notice that Ferrari's make a different sound then other cars? It sounds like the revs are fluctuating when shifting, while in other cars its a "clean" transition from high rev to almost instant a lower rev.

Melbourne fastest laps:
http://www.fia.com/public/f1_media/aus09_race_laps.pdf

And a link to view all laptimes:
http://channelf1.net/timing.php

Using those laptimes, I tried to get a rough estimate of "race pace"... so I calculated the average of each driver's top 20 laps.

Best Top 20 Laps Average of each team:
Button 1:28,375
Vettel 1:28,486
Kubica 1:28,867
Robserg 1:29,105
Raikkonen 1:29,265
Trulli 1:29,571
Hamilton 1:29,668
Sutil 1:29,673
Alonso 1:29,704
Buemi 1:29,934

It looks like only RBR was really on BGP pace, and BGP didn't push on softs during the last stint.
Obviously a simple average like this cannot tell exactly team strenghts, but I think it gives an interesting overview of how teams performed on Melbourne.

Quote from stry90dis :

Edit, and does anyone else notice that Ferrari's make a different sound then other cars? It sounds like the revs are fluctuating when shifting, while in other cars its a "clean" transition from high rev to almost instant a lower rev.

yeah, i heard that too, i dont think it was only the ferrari's though. would have to watch again.

Quote from Starblue :

Melbourne fastest laps:
http://www.fia.com/public/f1_media/aus09_race_laps.pdf

And a link to view all laptimes:
http://channelf1.net/timing.php

Using those laptimes, I tried to get a rough estimate of "race pace"... so I calculated the average of each driver's top 20 laps.

Best Top 20 Laps Average of each team:
Button 1:28,375
Vettel 1:28,486
Kubica 1:28,867
Robserg 1:29,105
Raikkonen 1:29,265
Trulli 1:29,571
Hamilton 1:29,668
Sutil 1:29,673
Alonso 1:29,704
Buemi 1:29,934

It looks like only RBR was really on BGP pace, and BGP didn't push on softs during the last stint.
Obviously a simple average like this cannot tell exactly team strenghts, but I think it gives an interesting overview of how teams performed on Melbourne.

Who's Robserg?

It's Hyperactive in disguise.

Quote from BenjiMC :

yeah, i heard that too, i dont think it was only the ferrari's though. would have to watch again.

I think that was just the poor signal in the onboard channel, the video speed was out of sync / speed at times.

Quote from zeugnimod :

it's hyperactive in disguise.

GO GO BUTTOCKS! i

anyone have a replay of t1 lap one as barrachello says that he got hit by a mclarren and i didnt see one in the race and there are no vids on youtube ?

There's one somewhere in this thread.

Quote from DejaVu :

Who's Robserg?

It's Kajanima's teammate

Quote from stry90dis :

Edit, and does anyone else notice that Ferrari's make a different sound then other cars? It sounds like the revs are fluctuating when shifting, while in other cars its a "clean" transition from high rev to almost instant a lower rev.

its just the ferrari engines i guess. i went to the canadian GP last summer and the ferrari engines were the ones that sounded the best. its like a high revving v8 symphony.. =)


oh guys ! apparently the canadian gp could be back if they cant build the track in abu dhabi in time.... =D if that really does happen, ill take the first flight to montreal and buy a ticket for the hairpin ( where kubica nearly killed himself )

Definately the TV interference making the strange noises, you could hear it on all the team's onboards; usually down into Turn 3 under the trees and at the far end of the circuit.