Absolutely Nitro edition Melbourne Legend


I think they have so much performance on hand their not even thinking about maximising other structures in their team, it's all Newey. I think they are running these cars right on the edge of reliability and are expecting more dnfs which though will be balanced out by huge performance gains to coast later in races and or just bascially fight for the win, they are not looking for 2nd place to pick up points, that car is fast, 25 points or dnf, they are attacking the season outright for wins and gambling a bit, maybe other teams have made their cars too cautious with reliability, both ways can work, it depends if other teams nick points off each other when redbull dnf. Vettel's break issue in Spain seemed odd, he was on the edge of another dnf.

The tyres take time to heat up. The tyre warmers don't get the tyres upto the temperatures that the tyres have on track. It is just an aid. We often hear drivers complaining about not have enough heat on the tyres (particularly with hard tyres) on the outlap. We often see the car that was already on track with hot tyres overtake the cars that just pitted not just at the first corner, but leading up to the turns 2, 3, 4 etc.

Red Bull can start to fix their problems by sacking the bloke on the right front tyre jack. he has cost Mark and Seb too many times. Seriously how many times can someone stuff that up? Can't wait for Monaco and hopefully Mark is on it again

^ Why didn't they pit Webber first at Barcelona then? It is a matter of trade-off between how slow the times get with old tyres and how quickly they can heat up the new tyres. There is no general rule as changing to hard tyres mid-race a lap earlier is an advantage. It depends on the laptimes of the old softs, optimal tyre for a track on a particular day, traffic, race position, etc.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/83599

I see that Red Bull are blaming the discs for their problems again... wonder how long it is before Brembo release their own statement saying the opposite...

I'm afraid I don't buy this brake excuse. Split down the middle? Onboard footage looked more like Vettel's wheel had worked loose. The team is incapable of getting both front wheels on both cars cleanly during a race, that must be a reflection of the hub design, not the faulty brakes. Surely that is the root of the problem.

If I was Dietrich Mateschitz, I'd be a taurine addict.

Did any of you hear what happened to MW in FP2 ?

he was doing long-medium runs and setting good times.
then on his 25 lap came in and did not return for almost half the session.
when he came out it was for 2 rather slow laps in the last seconds of FP2.

I have seen no reports of what was going on.
reliability ?

Someone mentioned brake failure on Mark's car which was why it was in the garage most of the session.

Apparently the same problem as what happened to Vettel at Barcelona - perhaps a bad batch?

Let us hope it isn't the case. It is all well that the gremlins have not found Seb cars yet, but hopefully they don't saw Mark's.


H2H

I'm kinda surprised Kubica managed to beat Seb though. I was expecting another 1-2 for us although that wasn't blatantly obvious during free practice.

I feared what Kubica might be able to do all session. He and Alonso were the only threats really and with the latter out of the frame I breathed a little easier.... in the end though I think Seb didn't get the maximum out of it and it should have been a 1-2. The little mishap into the chicane cost Seb that lap and possibly affected his rhythm for his final shot.

Depends what damage Webber has done to his car too. He seemed pretty concerned with the front right after the race and it looked wobbly when he pulled into parc ferme.

Nice lap time by the way. It's only 2 tenths of a second short of Räikkönens lap from 2005. Should be the second fastest lap that has been achieved there for the current incarnation of the layout.

He seemed pretty concerned with the front right after the race and it looked wobbly when he pulled into parc ferme.

To put that into perspective though, Raikkonen's 2005 lap was still done with race fuel onboard.

I also noticed that...

To put that into perspective though, Raikkonen's 2005 lap was still done with race fuel onboard.

Apparently the same problem as what happened to Vettel at Barcelona - perhaps a bad batch?

Kimi? He's some rally driver isn't he?

What a great win.

But why the heck did RBR not call Mark in for the stop to cover everyone else, especially at a track like this where the SC is so common?

Unbelievable the risk the team took there with the race leader.