2018 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, 22 -25 March

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Phil
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Re: 2018 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, 22 -25 March

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Can I predict on a surprise result of Bottas outqualifying Hamilton?
I also predict Max will beat Ricciardo (Australians just never have the luck on their home turf it seems and I think this trend will continue).
Vettel will outqualify/perform Kimi I think too. I also think McLaren will struggle big time due to reliability but have a fast car. Renault will secure a very solid result. 8)
Not for nothing, Rosberg's Championship is the only thing that lends credibility to Hamilton's recent success. Otherwise, he'd just be the guy who's had the best car. — bhall II
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dans79
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Re: 2018 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, 22 -25 March

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GPR-A wrote:
14 Mar 2018, 16:55
On another note, on this circuit it is going to be impossible to overtake, unless a car is more than 3 seconds faster. If anyone from leading group gets stuck behind a top 10 car, the race is screwed.
Yep, Lewis had that issue last year with Max.
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Big Mangalhit
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Re: 2018 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, 22 -25 March

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GPR-A wrote:
14 Mar 2018, 16:55
TAG wrote:
14 Mar 2018, 16:02
I'm just excited about the potential for differing strategies, Ferrari are good at it, one area where they rise head and shoulders above Mercedes for sure.
:lol: :lol: :lol:

On another note, on this circuit it is going to be impossible to overtake, unless a car is more than 3 seconds faster. If anyone from leading group gets stuck behind a top 10 car, the race is screwed.
It is ironic that precisely on this circuit (2016) Ferrari lost the race cause they did a terrible strategy during the red flag.
http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12515/ ... aus-report

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dans79
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Re: 2018 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, 22 -25 March

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Phil wrote:
14 Mar 2018, 17:06
Can I predict on a surprise result of Bottas outqualifying Hamilton?
Baring an issue, I think this will be unlikely.
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Phil
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Re: 2018 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, 22 -25 March

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dans79 wrote:
14 Mar 2018, 17:16
Phil wrote:
14 Mar 2018, 17:06
Can I predict on a surprise result of Bottas outqualifying Hamilton?
Baring an issue, I think this will be unlikely.
Trust me, I'm praying that too. But I actually think Bottas isn't half bad (just as Rosberg was better than most people still give him credit for). And assuming that Bottas isn't that bad, you never know, especially on a street circuit. And I am still open to the idea that the Mercedes might not totally be invulnerable to problems on the US tire, so it just might not be a smooth sailing. It's just a feeling I have, that's all. And I'm doing this prediction not based on logic, but with a bit of fun. And GPs often can be quite unpredictable. The quickest driver or fastest car might not always win.
Not for nothing, Rosberg's Championship is the only thing that lends credibility to Hamilton's recent success. Otherwise, he'd just be the guy who's had the best car. — bhall II
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TAG
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Re: 2018 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, 22 -25 March

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Bottas was actually strong in the race last year but qualifying in Melbourne he was miles off. It will be good to see how much progress he makes in his qualifying now with a year under his belt of working with his side of the garage.
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Sieper
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Re: 2018 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, 22 -25 March

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Hamilton is a legend, Rosberg a very good driver (and a gentleman) and Bottas is below the level of Rosberg imho. Bottas China 2017. My oh my. Rosberg not a single mistake when he needed to get it done at the end of 2016.

If Hamilton sets his mind to it Bottas is chanceless. If merc indeed does not have the big qualy power advantage anymore I predict both Ricci and Max (and Seb) in between Hamilton and Bottas.

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dans79
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Re: 2018 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, 22 -25 March

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Phil wrote:
14 Mar 2018, 17:23
Trust me, I'm praying that too. But I actually think Bottas isn't half bad (just as Rosberg was better than most people still give him credit for). And assuming that Bottas isn't that bad, you never know, especially on a street circuit.
I agree, but stuff like this makes it sound like he knows he isn't up to the task when you read between the lines.
https://www.crash.net/f1/news/891534/1/ ... s-beats-me
“Lewis is a great driver and I should never get upset if he is quicker than me at times. Then I just need to accept it and learn from those,”
“I know the team, I learned a lot last year and it’s entirely up to me to perform. I think for me to secure a long-term relationship with the team I need results, I need performance, week in, week out, I need to be able to challenge Lewis. That’s it; it’s completely up to me.”
Notice how he said challenge, not beat.
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Vasconia
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Re: 2018 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, 22 -25 March

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dans79 wrote:
14 Mar 2018, 17:33
Phil wrote:
14 Mar 2018, 17:23
Trust me, I'm praying that too. But I actually think Bottas isn't half bad (just as Rosberg was better than most people still give him credit for). And assuming that Bottas isn't that bad, you never know, especially on a street circuit.
I agree, but stuff like this makes it sound like he knows he isn't up to the task when you read between the lines.
https://www.crash.net/f1/news/891534/1/ ... s-beats-me
“Lewis is a great driver and I should never get upset if he is quicker than me at times. Then I just need to accept it and learn from those,”
“I know the team, I learned a lot last year and it’s entirely up to me to perform. I think for me to secure a long-term relationship with the team I need results, I need performance, week in, week out, I need to be able to challenge Lewis. That’s it; it’s completely up to me.”
Notice how he said challenge, not beat.
I think he has realized that he won´t beat Lewis unless he starts to make mistakes in many races. Bottas is a fine driver but he is not as fast and constant as Nico was.

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TAG
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Re: 2018 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, 22 -25 March

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Vasconia wrote:
14 Mar 2018, 17:39
I think he has realized that he won´t beat Lewis unless he starts to make mistakes in many races. Bottas is a fine driver but he is not as fast and constant as Nico was.
he's also not dirty, stating he wouldn't resort to those tactics as his predecessor did.
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ripper
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Re: 2018 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, 22 -25 March

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GPR-A wrote:
14 Mar 2018, 16:55
TAG wrote:
14 Mar 2018, 16:02
I'm just excited about the potential for differing strategies, Ferrari are good at it, one area where they rise head and shoulders above Mercedes for sure.
:lol: :lol: :lol:

On another note, on this circuit it is going to be impossible to overtake, unless a car is more than 3 seconds faster. If anyone from leading group gets stuck behind a top 10 car, the race is screwed.
That's why if I were in FER or RB I would try to split strategies and do a SS (or US)-S race with one car and try to nurse the tyres as much as possible

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GPR-A duplicate2
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Re: 2018 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, 22 -25 March

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TAG wrote:
14 Mar 2018, 17:51
Vasconia wrote:
14 Mar 2018, 17:39
I think he has realized that he won´t beat Lewis unless he starts to make mistakes in many races. Bottas is a fine driver but he is not as fast and constant as Nico was.
he's also not dirty, stating he wouldn't resort to those tactics as his predecessor did.
Not to drag this discussion in wrong direction, but what people conveniently forget before concluding that Nico was good and Bottas is comparably bad, is that, with the kind of qualifying margin that Mercedes had on the next best team (from 2014-16), even when Nico qualified half a second behind Lewis, he only started second as the rest of the field was more than 6 to 8 tenths behind the pole time. With that, except for Nico, there was no one there to take advantage when Lewis had problems at the start. Bottas didn't get that kind of advantage with a difficult car last year and Ferrari was as close as 2 or 3 tenths behind on pole time.

If this year's car is as dominant as W05, W06 or W07, then I have no doubt that, Bottas will be in a similar situation to that of Nico and constantly qualify second and at times pole too. He would also be there to take advantage if Lewis has problems at the start and end up being ahead by turn 1, after which, Mercedes' rules of engagement kicks in and ensures that Bottas will get some wins. As beneficial as Nico was.

If anything, we probably wouldn't witness a Monaco 2014 qualifying, an Austria 2016, a Silverstone 2016 and a Spain 2016. That would be sad.

tok-tokkie
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Re: 2018 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, 22 -25 March

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The pre-season testing thread has run its course. The 2018 speculation thread is just that. I choose to post this here but Mods move if you want it somewhere else.
'--------------------------
Recently in the pre-season testing thread there was discussion about cars suited to high speed or high downforce circuits. I was aware of Monza, Silverstone & Spa as high speed & Monaco, Hungary & Singapore as high downforce circuits. But what about the rest? So I made a spreadsheet listing the winner of each race, the distance & the winner’s time. Calculated the winner’s average speed & used that to create a table of the tracks going from high downforce to high speed.

Sure, weather & safety cars distort it but here it is. Course & winners average speed in kph.
Azerbaijan 148
Monaco 149
Singapore 150
Hungary 184
China 188
Mexico 190
Spain 192
Abu Dhabi 194
Canada 197
Bahrain 197
United States 197
Brazil 201
Malaysia 207
Russia 211
Japan 211
Belgium 218
Australia 219
Austria 225
Great Britain 226
Italy 244

So already I got some surprises. Azerbaijan, Austria & Australia.

So now I had a list to guide me as how Ferrari (high downforce) & Mercedes (high speed) should perform at the various circuits. Red Bull was similar to Ferrari but what about the rest? So I decided to add to the spreadsheet the points scored by each team at each race to see what each team preferred. The full spreadsheet is attached ( no it 'aint as I don't see how to attach an xlsx file). To make it easier to interpret the data I made a scatter graph for each team. The Y axis is the score; the X axis is the sequence number of the circuit (Azerbaijan=1, Monaco=2 ...). It made things much clearer. I then added a simple trend line to each graph & the slope of the trend showed nicely which type of circuit each team preferred. I used the Excel function SLOPE() to give me the trend in units of points per kph which I could do from the table of data. (I don’t know how to set the X axis data in Excel.) Because the x-axis is different the slope value for the graphs is points per track sequence number. This gave me a very nice grading of the team’s strengths. Negative preference is high downforce. Positive is high speed. I have multiplied the numbers by 100 to give integers.

Toro Rosso -7
Ferrari -6
Red Bull -6
Williams -2
McLaren -2
Force India -1
Renault -1
Haas 3
Sauber 7
Mercedes 15

Sure that is last year’s cars so things will be somewhat different this year. But I am expecting the mid speed circuits to be where the closest racing will be. But you really can see how Mecedes has a strong preference for high speed circuits – that was the ‘diva’ so this year’s car should be somewhat different. But what about the longer wheelbase Ferrari?

Any insights you can share?

ripper
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Re: 2018 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, 22 -25 March

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First things that come to mind: Last year Baku was plagued by many SC and red flag too. As far as I understood this year Ferrari car is less "downforce heavy" and more efficient, so it should be worse for Monaco-Hungary and Singapore and better for high speed tracks

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iotar__
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Re: 2018 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, 22 -25 March

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Vasconia wrote:
14 Mar 2018, 17:39
I think he has realized that he won´t beat Lewis unless he starts to make mistakes in many races. Bottas is a fine driver but he is not as fast and constant as Nico was.
Here we go again. I've heard the same nonsense with Rosberg 3 or 4 times #-o and look how it turned out. What were you watching last year? Bottas disappared after Merc de facto cllinched WCC around emberssement of Hungary and "came back" when they got DC. A miracle or running on hype farce of a sport where corporation overpaying 30+ million a driver can't be emberassed like in '16.

As for can't beat: Russia, Bahrain, Monaco (Bottas is what 0,1 off Ferrari and Mercedes is labeled "diva") Hungary etc., team orders, bad tyre pressure and 2 engine failures in Barcelona.

Rosberg was anything but consistant, neither is Bottas (clearly stated before the '17 season by yours truly and quickly proved by reallity) and neither is Hamilton, especially under pressure (watch Singapore, Monza, Japan, Mexico '16). That's why he got a gift of DOUBLE TEAM ORDERS IN THE THIRD RACE OF THE F.... SEASON - to calm his feeble psyche. Look out, now this thread becomes off topic =P~ mommm! I mean mods.

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