The Official Shift+F1 V6 Thread of Speed

Not to mention...

I'm all for making crazy fast things and then driving them crazy fast, but as someone who lives in Melbourne I can't wait for this sodding race to be over. All the bloody whining and jets blaring. It's Sunday! I'm trying to play videogames!

Aaaand it's over. That was a hell of a season opener. No doubt that Magnussen and Bottas are (near) future stars.

Awesome. Look forward to ALT+F1 :D

Nice win, 2 was not close

I'd say that was a great start to the season.

Merc on top. You're next Michael. #HopingForAMiracle

As a noob, I can't say what a "great race" is, but I enjoyed every second of this. I'm glad I decided to jump into this (lots of reading, the podcast, and a few documentaries warmed me up for tonight). I haven't watched a whole sporting event in years. Now I have something to talk about. lol.

Damn it Kobayashi! Crashed right at the start and took Massa with him >:(

Also hit Raikkonen on the way. Doesn't help the finn is struggling with breaks. Thankfully he was able to finish the race.

Solid driving from Alonso even though I don't like him.

Great from Rosberg. Deserving victory. Unlucky day for Hamilton I guess after the pole.

Fresh faces at the podium too. Not a fan of Ricciardo but it's nice to see a fresh face at the podium. Impressive driving from Magnussen.

Wish Hulkenberg had finished ahead of Alonso but there was little he could do.

If Mercedes can keep this form for the next few races they might be able to build a solid lead at the championship. Just the 1st race though.

And the results are in...

1) N. Rosberg
2) D. Ricciardo
3) K. Magnussen

4) J. Button
5) F. Alonso
6) V. Bottas
7) N. Hulkenberg
8) J, Vergne
9) K. Raikkonen
10) D. Kvyat

11) S. Perez
12) A. Sutil
13) E. Guitierrez
14) M. Chilton

Technical retirements: Hamilton, Vettel, Bianchi, Ericsson, Maldonado, Grosjean.

Crash retirements: Massa, Kobayashi (Lap 1, Turn 1)

Am so very proud of Daniel Ricciardo - had a great weekend.

That was good fun! Glad I stumbled upon this thread before I decided to jump in bed. May have to give this whole F1 deal a shot.

Now I can't wait for the podcast. 7AM Pacific is gonna feel ages away now

Plenty to talk about on this week's podcast. Just wanna say thanks to everyone for listening to Alt+F1 and sending in your feedback. We're trying our best to keep it entertaining and generally informative. If you have any suggestions or feedback feel free to put them in here or send them to altf1@giantbomb.com (at least I think that's the address).

Thanks for hanging out duders!

decent race, not a classic by any means, bottas did a great job of keeping it interesting

all the racing will be in a midfield again while theres a mercedes on the road but at least those two are better matched than vettel/webber

the idea that a car could retire at any time, something which was lost in recent years is also encouraging, keeping the tension alive until the end

Why do they weigh the drivers at the end of the race? Just after the top three had gotten out of their cars, there was a little scale off to the side that Magnussen went to stand on. Is this to make sure they aren't super dehydrated or something?

They do, there is a weight limit on the cars and they need to make sure that car/drivers are not to light or heavy.

@shadowfax said:

Each car/driver must reach a pre-determined minimum weight (this year it's 691kg - which is 91kg more than last year. Likely due to the new energy recovery systems). My understanding is that instead of weighing the drivers in their cars, they weigh them both separately and add the two.

Turns out Kobayashi had a rear brake failure.

I can love him again.

Not looking good for Ricciardo. Sounds like Red Bull are appealing... But yeah, disqualification seems unavoidable, very interested too know what happened.

Looks like the FIA had issues reading fuel flow all weekend: https://twitter.com/F1Racing_mag/status/445137340990631936/photo/1. Hope's not lost yet.

Another link here: http://racer.com/index.php/latest-stories/item/101948-ricciardo-podium-in-jeopardy-over-fuel

Such a tough break for Ricardo if he gets disqualified.

@user_undefined: I thought it was just Bottas who lost the wheel scrapping with the wall? Did Button have an issue during the race too? I thought he was back just due to his poor Q position. He did well by the end though for sure.

What a great way to start the season off. Great to see Bottas finally being able to show off his skills with a fast car and I hope that Williams won't start lagging behind the bigger teams as the season goes on. Also great to see this many cars finish the race despite the poor performance in pre-season testing.

And after scrolling through this thread I really think there should be a chat up for qualifying and the race.

cant argue with it of course, but its one of the worst parts of f1, the results being changed hours afterwards

hope danny/drew check before they start the podcast !

Rules are rules. Unlucky for Ricciardo but his team should have known better. They know the limit for fuel delivery but at least they know they have pace and have something to build on.

As for my fav driver Jenson. He showed just how smart he is. What he lacks in raw pace he makes up for in intelligence. Jumped to 6th with a lest minute dive into the pits with the safely car then jumped Hulkenberg and Alonso by stopping for tyres 1 lap early before his final stint. Master stroke and I expect he will do this type of thing all season to get more points especially as there is now so much inexperience on the grid around him.

Also a very emotional time for him after the passing of his father John. His number 1 fan and like his son, a true gentleman. The McLaren team all wore his signature pink shirt as a tribute. Very nice gesture.

Man that sucks for Dan. I do not believe it is his fault, rather the fuel meters that have been proven to be unreliable, giving Red bull false information.

And anyway that rule is awful, who the hell thought fuel saving economy rules were fitting in a car race?

Great race, shame about Ricciardo's DQ though but from the Steward's Report it's pretty damning.

Fantastic by Bottas especially, if he hadn't crashed into the wall then he'd easily have got a podium. Still he did well to bring it back to what is now 5th place.

@hero_swe: Even without the regulations teams would still want to save fuel as much as possible so they can run less of it during the race. More fuel = More weight = Slower lap times. Even before these regulations teams would often have to conserve fuel to make it through a race.

Yeah, but that's to make it through the race, these new fuel regulations are too draconian for a racing sport imo.

@hero_swe: like the amazing safety features of these cars, the fuel saving measures and energy recovery systems are designed to be relevant to road cars. The sport must remain cost effective and relevant in order to exist. By developing these technologies and implementing them in road cars helps keep F1 teams in business. Lotus won the race last year yet struggled to put their cars on the grid this year. HRT have already been lost and it won't be much longer before Caterham head for the hills. I'd rather have a grid of 22 cars than only 10 or 12.

Great to see a Dane doing well in F1. As a Norwegian I always find myself cheering for Swedes and Danes when there's no one from Norway. This is the first F1 race I've seen in about 7 years, and I'll continue watching!

Between the black & silver McLaren and the Martini Williams, today was one sexy looking race.

I do kinda wish the numbers were a little more "in your face" -- it's still hard to tell which team member you're watching at first glance.

@ascagnel: If you look at the top of the cars, the piece that's on the very top have a different color for the first and second driver of the team to help tell them apart :)

@ascagnel: Get to know your driver crash helmets. That's always been the way!

My favorite moment was when they said "Chilton has just passed Vettel".

Crazy that after the Ricardo exclusion effectively only 13 cars finished the race officially.

Before the race Mika Häkkinen said that if any driver would finish the race they'd automatically be in the points. Turns out he wasn't that far off in his assessment. The situation is really shitty for Ricciardo and I hope that the issues concerning the sensors will be resolved so that this won't happen to other drivers. It is interesting that seemingly no other team had any issues with the FIA sensors.

@71ranchero: +1

Overall I found the opener to be incredible.Only 6 teams had both cars finished. Even with the reliability issues we still had some good wheel to wheel racing going on. Shame about Ricciardo getting DSQ but if Red Bull had been having issues with the fuel flow system before the race why didn't they inform the stewards beforehand, could've saved them that podium.

I felt like this race was a good showing for the younger drivers. Magnussen and Kvyat having great debuts. Bottas performed really well and without his kiss with the wall I wonder how much higher in the field he would've been.

Glad Button had a good result. Winter must've been very hard on him. His dad was at practically every race to give him support.

It's also kind of funny to see Mclaren now topping the constructors championship after last season. Having Ron back must be a good thing.

That, alone, would be worth the price of admission.

@xenonick: You might want to (re)read the report linked by @mijati. Here it is. TLDR: they did tell the stewards.

I'll put my reading after each point, but I'm definitely no FIA representative.

4) The stewards considered the history of the fitted fuel flow sensor, as described by the team and the Technical Delegate’s representative who administers the program. Their description of the history of the sensor matches.

Here I think they're saying for all the following points, FIA and Red Bull are agreed this is what happened.

a. During Practice 1 a difference in reading between the first three and Run 4 was detected. The same readings as Run 4 were observed throughout Practice 2.

In practice its common for an F1 car to make multiple small 'runs' during the practice window. They'll do a couple of laps to try out various settings, come back in, adjust them in the pit and repeat. For the first 3 runs of Practice 1, Red Bull were happy. In the final run something changed and they thought something was wrong. Unsure they went out to Practice 2 and continued to test. They were unhappy with the results so approached FIA for advice, who gave them another sensor to fit.

b. The team used a different sensor on Saturday but did not get readings that were satisfactory to them or the FIA, so they were instructed to change the sensor within Parc Ferme on Saturday night.

This sensor NEITHER Red Bull or FIA were satisfied with. Keep in mind this is another FIA supplied sensor. They aren't made by the teams. So using the same diagnostic tools they both found something wrong with the calibration of the FIA supplied part.

c. They operated the original sensor during the race, which provided the same readings as Run 4 of Practice 1, and Practice 2.

They had to switch back to the sensor Red Bull thought faulty.

Now part 9 in the same report is the actual contentious point. Red Bull thought they were told to fit a faulty part back to their car and were advised to use an offset. If they're right and their injector telemetry is right then the offset is a massive disadvantage for a fault part FIA supplied. If they're wrong the penalty is justified. They must have been reasonably confident they could fight this as they were given a chance during the race to comply. They must have done some maths and thought they had a higher probability of winning more points fighting it, than reducing power and picking up a lower place.

From Mclaren's post race memo on how to not tear up the car during a pit stop.

source

I am going to listen to this soon and I will enjoy it with my face.

Interesting start to the season, really glad to see Mclaren (and Jenson in particular) back in contention. Pretty stellar races from Ricciardo and Magnussen too - assuming the fuel thing wasn't giving them an advantage, the pace of the Red Bull looked pretty ominous if they can get it to the end of a race. I remember Mika Hakkinen saying at the start of a season when his Mclaren kept breaking down "It's easier to make an unreliable, fast car reliable than it is to make a slow, reliable car fast".

Have to imagine Bottas is really kicking himself over that contact with the wall that lost him his wheel - he certainly looked gutted in post-race interviews. I'm sure he's thinking that these early races when Williams have the Mercedes advantage are going to be his best chance of scoring big points as teams with bigger development budgets will soon start catching and overtaking them...

@dannyodwyer: Are you guys taking questions for the podcast, or just comments/suggestions?

@littleg: Yea we're taking questions. altf1@giantbomb.com

Australian GP organisers say the quieter engine noise could breach F1 contract

Seems like the Aussies want to sue the FIA for breach of contract as the engines are too quiet!

AND! Mr Ecclestone said he's going to make the engines sound louder...

"I can't imagine anything can be done in the short term, but hopefully for next season they can specify a megaphone exhaust and even twin pipes although I suspect that would cost tens of millions for the three manufacturers to redesign and re-map their motors."

OK Bernie.

Just need some duct tape, keep costs down.

To give a bit more context, the Victorian State Government (Melbourne is in Victoria) heavily subsidises the hosting of the event to the tune of about $50 million AUD. The economists calculates it brings in about $30-35 million AUD in tourism, so an overall loss. The state government and Australian promoter are under fire, understandably, for its value.

I see this more as the promoter trying to get F1 to help out financially than a serious complaint about engine noise.