CaptainNovolin

I think Haas has had enough time planning their car and working on the very edge of the rules with Ferrari to have a strong start. They might not get points in Australia, but I'm sure they'll get them by the end of the season. I'd imagine Renault might not do too well since the Lotus takeover probably stalled development at least a bit while new people settled in, but a lot depends on if they've managed to get a decent engine built.

With Alonso and Grosjean driving for Force India and Manor, There's no way I can't win!!

I'm pretty sure Merc didn't even run the softs until round 2 of testing, so I don't think they ran enough to say for sure. We probably won't know anything for sure until a few races in. I'm worried that Ferrari are going to have major reliability issues this year, since them, Haas and Torro Rosso all had a pretty rough time with the second week of testing. I hope things can get sorted out for Melbourne.

I... did not expect it to be 1.2 seconds between 1st and second. That's amazing. 1.2 seconds between first and second and 50 seconds between the podium positions after 12 hours. Endurance racing is cool.

I think SVG has this. Chiyo is maybe gaining a second to a second and a half per lap, but once he has to fight for position SVG can speed up beyond what the nissan is capable of, or even just defend long enough to make it across the line. SVG has the overall lap record for Bathurst so I think it's safe to say he'll keep 1st. If there's a place that can maybe swap i'd say it's 3rd, if the bentley makes a mistake or two, it could cost them the podium.

Jesus, that tire just exploded out of nowhere. This safety car is going to make things interesting, though, since this will bring SVG nice and close to the rest of the pack. He does look to be ~.5 seconds slower than Chiyo in most sectors, though.

If it wasn't for someone going into the wall earlier we might have seen another safety car.

Chiyo keeps passing traffic with two wheels on the dirt like it aint no thang

8 hours into a race and the top 5 are able to swap positions with a single pit stop. Endurance racing is great

I think the reason i love endurance racing and prefer it in some ways over F1 is that so many things have to be managed over the course of a race and can go wrong, meaning you can actually recover from a huge deficit if you have a good stint, or with a well-timed safety car or three.

E: Looks like they've managed to get a proper repair job going on the Bentley that lost some bodywork.