The Official 2013 F1 Thread. Spoilers possible!

Your wish is their command.

Really impressive tire management by Lotus and Kimi. If they can manage one fewer pit stop per race this season, the title should be theirs pretty comfortably. Outstanding result for Lotus.

Looks like Ferrari are back. 2nd and 4th and ahead of Red Bull. Compare this result to last year's car and the difference is pronounced. They've caught up. They must be pleased.

Red Bull proves it's a front-running car, for me. Sutil's long first stint slowed Vettel and a poor second pit stop cost Vettel a place to Alonso. After that, the Red Bull's lack of top end pace meant that even DRS couldn't help him make a pass in the overtaking zones.

Really enjoyed seeing Sutil run at the front for so long. He was always a pit stop short of winning but good to see him come back with style.

After all our moaning about Hamilton taking a step back, the Mercedes seems to be a better can than the McLaren. I wonder how McLaren so badly bungled an incremental change to last year's car? Still, it's just one race, shouldn't make too big of a deal out of it, right?

The commentating team talked a blue streak and yet missed vital points. Disappointing. They completely missed that Vettel's second pit stop was slow and was to blame for him losing a place to both Alonso and Sutil. And on the last stint they spent ages speculating about how Sutil might win and never mentioned the obvious -- Kimi had a one pit stop advantage over everyone and was obviously going to win.

A really enjoyable season opener!

Seb Vettel was the perp At Abu Dabi last year

I meant I was going to skip qualifying (which I did). I agree, the race was very good. People giving Vettel a tussle is good. Seeing Massa running alongside his teammate is good. Kimi winning is good. Change is good.

- Mark

Was watching the race, (almost live) and kept trying to figure out what Vettel's issue was. Almost no mention of him. Plus until the very end, couldn't figure out Kimi's (two stop) advantage.

Piss poor commentating by the NBC guys.

PS-- fun race, glad F1 is back.

It was the first race of the season and those guy's are in a new home, let's hope it is done better, the coverage was good the pictures where any way, I was not sure how the NBC guy's would do :huh

New home, but they've been doing this for years. In almost exactly the same way- watch video feed from whomever produces it and commentate.

Hey, at least its none of the guys doing the ALMS commentating.

*AHEM* Johnny O'Connell *DERP*

The McLaren has actually changed quite a lot.

A few more races and we might just have an idea.

Red Bull is still very conservative, hence the low top speed. They are content with their strategy of high corner grip at the expense of top-end speed believing that if they dominate qualifying, they can control things from the front. If their drivers can be quicker through the corners they can open enough of a gap to avoid being overtaken on the straights.

It's a strategy that has worked well in the recent years.

The strategy places more stress upon the tyres though and this year that may be enough to compromise their season.

If anyone needs an example of this, just look at Vettel's Abu Dhabi performance last year. When he was demoted to the back of the grid, the team altered the car set-up to lose corner speed in favour of top speed and he finished on the podium.

A few years ago, someone at Red Bull did the sums and worked out that if their cars could start in front of the rest, having the ability to corner faster than anyone else, taken together with the aero penalty of following too close, would negate the loss of top speed between the corners. As long as the gap coming out of a corner is big enough and the car can accelerate up to its lower top speed at least as well as the following car, then the chance of being passed (even in the DRS zone) is limited. With better cornering grip the drivers can brake into a turn later than any car that manages to close the gap between corners in the knowledge that they will have the grip to not fall off the circuit.

Watch the speed trap figures this year. If Red Bull begin to register higher top speeds it will be an indication that the new, less durable, rubber is hurting their overall strategy (probably the reason for the compound change in the first place).

Yup, after winning the race in Abu Dhabi Kimi said shit ("last times you guys were giving me shit about...") and then Vettel slipped the F-word.

Actually podium guys were the same in Abu Dhabi last year and now in Melbourne. Maybe that's the reason why announcer said "remember we're live"

photo montage from Australia

LINK instead of auto-start video...

sorry 'bout that

I'm glad I watched the Sky Sports feed instead. Nothing against NBC, but Sky does not break for commercials during the race.

NBC alternated between picture in picture & just showing commercials.
I watched the BBC feed of the race afterwards, and I have to say they get pretty excited... it is like they have money on it!

Along with a billion others, I was pissed to see Sky squeeze the Beeb out of half the live races last year and now again this year. Glad not to have to listen to Martin Brundle talk non-stop, though. New face on the BBC commenting team is Suzi Perry of Moto GP notoriety. Good first outing, bound to be some nerves but she's a veteran. She'd go right to the top of the heap if she could get even a half-ass interview with Kimi.

What a fantastic race he ran. He's so smooth you'd almost think he was just putting around in third gear. So, just leave him alone....he knows what he's doing.

The best part about Sky is Martin Brundle, I really enjoy him. Ted Kravitz does really good pit reporting too.

Yes, thanks, I've since read that rather than incrementally upgrade the car, McLaren gave it radical changes. As a consequence they're completely lost. They have no idea where the problems are.

They set a fast time on their first sequence in their first test and have never been able o repeat it. Turns out they had an improperly mounted suspension piece.

I say, then mount your suspension improperly for every race! That's why I'm not an engineer.

ps Yes, that's why I said Red Bull is a front running car; can't pass in corners and no top end. Had Sutil not been there, I wonder how different the race would have looked? One imagines Kimi's two-stopper might still have won it, as his pace was good.

I think Sutil was just the spoiler needed to stop Vettel from running away. I wonder if Massa had let Alonso by early w/ no fuss things might have been different for the red cars?

I thought the general NBC Sports coverage of the race was good, probably a little better than Speed. I don't miss Varsha (who was covering the 24-hours of Sebring - yawn) and Leigh Diffey is quite good.

It does still amaze me that these guys with so much air time don't seem to notice the obvious. It took mid-race or later before they even started commenting that Kimi's staying out so long on this first set of tires might give him a chance to do a two-stop strategy. They really seem to just be at the mercy of talking about the surface things that appear in the video feed in front of them rather than doing some analysis and insight into the extra data that they should be monitoring.

- Mark

fastest laps
interesting...

LINK

I guess I was clueless, I was so focused on the cars I missed that, or I was peeing during that stint