2017 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, 24 - 26 March

For ease of use, there is one thread per grand prix where you can discuss everything during that specific GP weekend. You can find these threads here.
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ringo
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Re: 2017 FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX Fri 24 – Sun 26 Mar 2017

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Phil wrote:
25 Mar 2017, 10:35
I second that. I think its unlikely that Ferrari closed the gap to Mercedes on the engine front. They might have improved, but this year with added drag and aero efficiency playing a huge role, assuming the engines are close enough, means that aero and set up could play a big role. I also think Melbourne is very uncharacteristic, surface and all. Wait for a track with lots of downforce and high cornering speed...
I think Ferrari ICE has been the strongest from last year. This year they improved drivability and their ERS. It appears, to me and some others, that the ferrari PU is slightly better this year. Stronger ICE, and good enough ERS to give it a slight edge. It's not blasphemy to think that merc has lost the lead in the engine.
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GPR-A duplicate2
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Re: 2017 FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX Fri 24 – Sun 26 Mar 2017

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ringo wrote:
25 Mar 2017, 17:50
Phil wrote:
25 Mar 2017, 10:35
I second that. I think its unlikely that Ferrari closed the gap to Mercedes on the engine front. They might have improved, but this year with added drag and aero efficiency playing a huge role, assuming the engines are close enough, means that aero and set up could play a big role. I also think Melbourne is very uncharacteristic, surface and all. Wait for a track with lots of downforce and high cornering speed...
I think Ferrari ICE has been the strongest from last year. This year they improved drivability and their ERS. It appears, to me and some others, that the ferrari PU is slightly better this year. Stronger ICE, and good enough ERS to give it a slight edge. It's not blasphemy to think that merc has lost the lead in the engine.
We need to reserve the judgement about the PU until about we have seen China, Russia and Bahrain. They are power hungry circuits and suck more juice than the opportunity to recover it back. Melbourne offered good opportunities to refill the batteries due to break and go corners and did not had long straights. When we witness the cars going through high speed corners, which are targeted to be faster this year and make the car power hungry, we would see which PU is capable of refilling the batteries faster and keep the juice longer. This year the cars are going to break later, be on throttle more and faster, making the energy recovery that much more difficult. Let's witness those races.

gridwalker
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Re: 2017 FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX Fri 24 – Sun 26 Mar 2017

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Which engine has the most ellipses?
"Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine ..."

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DVB
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Re: 2017 FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX Fri 24 – Sun 26 Mar 2017

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RB back to 2016 engine... less powerfull and more heavy #-o
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Phil
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Re: 2017 FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX Fri 24 – Sun 26 Mar 2017

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ringo wrote:
25 Mar 2017, 17:50
I think Ferrari ICE has been the strongest from last year. This year they improved drivability and their ERS. It appears, to me and some others, that the ferrari PU is slightly better this year. Stronger ICE, and good enough ERS to give it a slight edge. It's not blasphemy to think that merc has lost the lead in the engine.
This is quite contrary to what i have been reading. Putting aside sheer "power", AMuS believes the Mercedes still has superior energy recovery and thus they think a slightly bigger advantage will emerge during the race when fuel efficiency will be an important factor. Given "power" is directly linked to efficiency and the recovery process, it wouldnt be farfetched to think that Mercedes would be ahead there too.

I personally think Mercedes is quite a bit ahead in this departement, and when you are, like they have been since 2014, this carries over in more headroom to perfect the package. And with package, i also mean requirement for cooling, packaging as in size and space requirement that can lead to an aero/chassis advantage. I suppose it's hard to judge, but given their shockingly good reliebilty in 2014, 2015 and last year and not to forget their sizeable advantage in overall car performance vs their nearest competitor, i wouldnt be at all surprised if the reasons you think Ferrari might have already had a PU on par last year was because Mercedes was effectively masking their performance by running in slightly detuned modes and controlling the pace from running ahead in clean air.

We only ever saw glimpses of how strong the Mercedes unit is in QF (when running that very potent mode) and perhaps during points in the race for very short durations, like overtaking or when both their drivers were pressing buttons and using modes they shouldnt have when fighting for position.

IMHO what makes it so hard to compare power units, is because its always effectively a trade off vs fuel usage and reliability. A car with more outright power and better efficiency could also use that to run more downforce, giving the impression of superior aero and masking some of that performance.

In regards to this year; given the longer wheelbase of the Mercedes, couldnt one assume they have gone this route for more downforce and therefore drag (and maybe weight given it is 5kg overweight) at the expense of a bit of engine performance giving the impression that the Ferrari unit is closer matched?
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psychemedia
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Re: 2017 FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX Fri 24 – Sun 26 Mar 2017

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A visual summary of qualifying.

Session rankings:

Image

Session utilisation:

Image

Q1 cut-off time evolution:

Image

Q2 cut-off time evolution:

Image

Q3 cut-off time evolution:

Image

Via: http://www.f1datajunkie.com/2017/03/f1- ... fying.html

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PlatinumZealot
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Re: 2017 FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX Fri 24 – Sun 26 Mar 2017

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Juzh wrote:
25 Mar 2017, 11:36
Mercedes vs Ferrari

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AV6KRnz4Uc
Interesting. That pole was won on the brakes. Ferrari looks decent on acceleration. Turn in under brakes not as good as Merc, but it could be a Hamilton effect.
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PlatinumZealot
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Re: 2017 FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX Fri 24 – Sun 26 Mar 2017

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VEttel did not lift in turn 11 while Hamilton and Bottas did. Could mean more power or less Downforce for the respestive cars.
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ferkan
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Re: 2017 FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX Fri 24 – Sun 26 Mar 2017

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Ferrari powered cars do run more rake (apart from FI) so that straight line speed might be slightly lower, but I still think Ferrari has 10-15hp less then Merc which will affect times however you put it. Merc might have less drag, but all Merc cars are slightly faster on the straight so I don't buy that.

Interesting. That pole was won on the brakes. Ferrari looks decent on acceleration. Turn in under brakes not as good as Merc, but it could be a Hamilton effect.
Interesting, as full analysis of their lap by driver61 came to conclusion that Vettel constantly break later, but Hamilton was earlier on the throttle. Merc also had ever so slight understeer while Ferrari was a bit tail happy.

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FW17
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Re: 2017 FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX Fri 24 – Sun 26 Mar 2017

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PlatinumZealot wrote:
25 Mar 2017, 19:06
Juzh wrote:
25 Mar 2017, 11:36
Mercedes vs Ferrari

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AV6KRnz4Uc
Interesting. That pole was won on the brakes. Ferrari looks decent on acceleration. Turn in under brakes not as good as Merc, but it could be a Hamilton effect.
Ferrari engine is about 4 kph slower than Merc. It was really out of breath in the run to turn 11.
Vet also lost out big in turn 3 in comparison going in a touch slower and late on exit.

Interesting you mentioned "Turn in under brakes", this was a system being developed by Mclaren in the Hamilton era (not the 1997 one)


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ringo
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Re: 2017 FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX Fri 24 – Sun 26 Mar 2017

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Phil wrote:
25 Mar 2017, 18:36
ringo wrote:
25 Mar 2017, 17:50
I think Ferrari ICE has been the strongest from last year. This year they improved drivability and their ERS. It appears, to me and some others, that the ferrari PU is slightly better this year. Stronger ICE, and good enough ERS to give it a slight edge. It's not blasphemy to think that merc has lost the lead in the engine.
This is quite contrary to what i have been reading. Putting aside sheer "power", AMuS believes the Mercedes still has superior energy recovery and thus they think a slightly bigger advantage will emerge during the race when fuel efficiency will be an important factor. Given "power" is directly linked to efficiency and the recovery process, it wouldnt be farfetched to think that Mercedes would be ahead there too.

I personally think Mercedes is quite a bit ahead in this departement, and when you are, like they have been since 2014, this carries over in more headroom to perfect the package. And with package, i also mean requirement for cooling, packaging as in size and space requirement that can lead to an aero/chassis advantage. I suppose it's hard to judge, but given their shockingly good reliebilty in 2014, 2015 and last year and not to forget their sizeable advantage in overall car performance vs their nearest competitor, i wouldnt be at all surprised if the reasons you think Ferrari might have already had a PU on par last year was because Mercedes was effectively masking their performance by running in slightly detuned modes and controlling the pace from running ahead in clean air.

We only ever saw glimpses of how strong the Mercedes unit is in QF (when running that very potent mode) and perhaps during points in the race for very short durations, like overtaking or when both their drivers were pressing buttons and using modes they shouldnt have when fighting for position.

IMHO what makes it so hard to compare power units, is because its always effectively a trade off vs fuel usage and reliability. A car with more outright power and better efficiency could also use that to run more downforce, giving the impression of superior aero and masking some of that performance.

In regards to this year; given the longer wheelbase of the Mercedes, couldnt one assume they have gone this route for more downforce and therefore drag (and maybe weight given it is 5kg overweight) at the expense of a bit of engine performance giving the impression that the Ferrari unit is closer matched?
Yes i was referring to sheer power. Merc do still have the better ERS, but ferrari's is improved this year which brings them closer. As you say lets see how things pan out throughout the season
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giantfan10
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Re: 2017 FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX Fri 24 – Sun 26 Mar 2017

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Its quite interesting reading all the excuses and justifications for the 3 tenths Mercedes was ahead of Ferrari by.
Hamilton had a better lap while Vettel claims he mucked up corner 1 at the beginning of the lap... watch the video its pretty much the exact same gap at the start of the lap versus the end of the lap. ...driving styles, ERs deployment, setup and braking points will never be the same so its pointless in my opinion claiming driver X did whatever better based on guesses.
the Mercedes was 3 tenths ahead for this race and i'm good with that....we have a race tomorrow is all i care about and it looks like it will be a real race.
Red Bull... are we going to now revoke the Adrian Newey genius card which IMHO was a farce from the jump?

daniellammers
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Joined: 17 Dec 2016, 14:22

Re: 2017 FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX Fri 24 – Sun 26 Mar 2017

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Juzh wrote:
25 Mar 2017, 19:29
Some onboard laps:

Gro P6 lap
https://vimeo.com/210036013

Ham P1 lap
https://vimeo.com/210036305

Vet P2 lap
https://vimeo.com/210036483

Eriksson Q2 lap:
https://vimeo.com/210043432

Ver Q2 lap:
https://vimeo.com/210045682
Awesome, every single one of them. It's like rails!
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Pierce89
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Re: 2017 FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX Fri 24 – Sun 26 Mar 2017

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gridwalker wrote:
25 Mar 2017, 18:06
Which engine has the most ellipses?
Ringo didn't respond, maybe he's moved past his ellipses, or just maybe, Red Bull dropped their ellipse technology after they discovered that 1 person in the whole world found them out.
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“I've got to be careful what I say, but possibly to probably Juan would have had a bigger go”
Sir Frank Williams after the 2003 Canadian GP, where Ralf hesitated to pass brother M. Schumacher

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