Australian GP 2011 - Albert Park, 24-27 March

[godlameroso]

I thought pole was going to be 1:26....well foot in mouth and all that. Will be an interesting race for anything other than Red Bull

[myurr]

@2011F1 - what I find interesting when looking at the front of the grid is that Petrov didn't both hiding his pace during practice and went fairly close to his maximum, presumably to get a good feeling for the car. Then looking at Alonso vs Hamilton and Vettel, it's clear that both Hamilton and Vettel held more back in practice than Alonso and were sandbagging to a degree despite posting fast times.

[raymondu999]

Has anyone mentioned Vettel will have to start the race with a left front tyre that has a flat spot ? He locked it going into the penultimate corner and I definitely saw the flat spot on tv. It wasn't a huge one, but will be interesting to see what effect it'll have in the opening stint (I'm assuming the "you start the race with the tyres you set your fastest quali lap" rule is still valid).

+Props to Mr. Lewis Hamilton. He was the only guy to keep the bulls honest; heck even managed to split them. For me he was *the* guy of the qualifying session, and given their winter performance a very very pleasant surprise.

He's not the only one. Hamilton had a massive lockup to turn 3 IIRC.

Does anyone have full info on who is starting on which tyre?

[Mr Alcatraz]

myohmy..maybe some people realise that 3 tenths is just one mistake or an obstruction during your flying lap.
It is beyond me why one should bash Button for being 4 tenths slower but not Webber who is a second slower and was unable to put the dominant car in row one.
But as always those who fail to deliver when it counts will not look good even if they have proper explanations why it did not pan out.Not even one week ago a lot of people in this forum went as far as rendering the new Mac a writeoff and now they are the one team able to keep at least one RB in check.
Lets see how things will pan out tomorrow.

The same thing goes for Fred.
A yellow or some other thing, (it may mave been his own fault now that I think about it, I getting too old to remember s!it) ruined his first flying lap with his only set of options in q3
It is just the way these things go I never under stood why people are of the opinion that the more cars the merrier. I've always thought that 20 was good.
With the current format for qualifying 20 is too many to guarantee a clean run when it counts IMHO.

[vall]

I think they swapped up Q1 and Q3 in that analysis? Anyway, the top 4 managed to find more pace between Q1 and Q2, while Alonso and the rest could not. Also, clearly something was not right with Ferrari. On Friday they looked ok, but on Saturday they slipped back.

Perhaps this year the qualifying will be less important? If the overtaking aids work, then a car that qualified lower but has better race pace will have a change to make ground easier. Well, let's wait and see how the race will unfold. Of course, the tires are a big unknown.

[gridwalker]

Are there any pics of Massa's camera falling off of his car and the subsequent duct-tape "repair" job?

[myurr]

I think they swapped up Q1 and Q3 in that analysis? Anyway, the top 4 managed to find more pace between Q1 and Q2, while Alonso and the rest could not. Also, clearly something was not right with Ferrari. On Friday they looked ok, but on Saturday they slipped back.

Perhaps this year the qualifying will be less important? If the overtaking aids work, then a car that qualified lower but has better race pace will have a change to make ground easier. Well, let's wait and see how the race will unfold. Of course, the tires are a big unknown.

Well thankfully it looks like Ferrari will be testing this out for us so we can see if they are able to move through the field.

[andrew]

Are there any pics of Massa's camera falling off of his car and the subsequent duct-tape "repair" job?

Before:





Havn't found the after yet!

[Sean H]

can't wait to see how much not being able to use the DRS button freely effects race pace. Has it been making some teams seem faster than they really are?

[alvinkhorfire]

Just a moment to enjoy a joke by Vettel:

FIA post-qualifying press conference - Australia

Q: (Matthew Cochinos - pitpass.com) Mark, how hungry are you going into your home grand prix tomorrow?
SV: You’ll have lunch before, no?
MW: Yeah, Seb said I would have lunch before the race!

Although Vettel has significant advantage over Webber, he may have slight concern that Webber has extra motivation from home crowd, giving him the boost to have better pace in tomorrow race.

[FrukostScones]

Why did Buemi choose to go out on used soft tyres in q3 and degrade them even more.
I would have opted for hard and/or would not have run a lap at all. Did they expect to beat Ferrari?

[marcush.]

I think a lot of the teams are doing bad jobs in Qualifying.You just cannot afford to abuse your tyres for a good spot on the grid.
I think getting into Q2 on Primes is key and then use one set to try and get into Q3 if that does not stick ,then be it.
I f you don´t have the chance to challenge for the pole,conserve your tyres and use the 3 or so seconds advantage in the race ...thats a potential 10 seconds to be found on race elapsed time...not shabby.

I have seen RedBull preparing their option tyres in Q2 or Q3 ....One very conservative
lap and back into the pits letting them rest.As I posted earlier this year ..Pirellis seem to like this on certain (new or non permanent tracks).Did anyone else do this?

[myurr]

I have seen RedBull preparing their option tyres in Q2 or Q3 ....One very conservative
lap and back into the pits letting them rest.As I posted earlier this year ..Pirellis seem to like this on certain (new or non permanent tracks).Did anyone else do this?

They only did that because of the yellow flags. They probably planned to do one fast Q2 time and then sit out the rest of that session knowing they had time to respond or have another run if they needed to. The yellow flags from Barichello's mistake blocked them from being able to set a time so they headed back to the pits.

[Tamburello]

My order of fastest to slowest CARS are:

1. RB7
2. MP4-26
3. F150
4. W02
5. R31
6. C30
7. STR6
8. FW33
9. VJM4
10. T128
11. MVR-02
12. F111

4-6 seem to be fairly close to each other. So not all that different to last year; the more things change, the more they stay the same.

[raymondu999]

I think the Macca and the Ferrari will fluctuate depending on circuits. Sometimes the Ferrari will be faster, sometimes vice versa.