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Official 2011 Season Discussion - Everything!


pined5551
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Thought it would be a nice idea to have a place to discuss everything about the new season. If you have a question about a new regulation, a technical queery about a car, info on drivers performance, team relations etc. It's all here.

 

 

Having just watched Practice sessions 1 & 2 from Melbourne, the clearest suprise is McLaren. Having totally redesigned their car AFTER the last winter test, they seem to have found some real pace this morning. This annoys me (being a Webber fan) haha.

 

Seems the same teams as last year may well be contending for the title. Even with Vettle and Webber taking the top spots in P1, i know for a fact that Red Bull are yet to show their true pace, as is Alonso (not so much Massa, sadly he spent a large portion of this morning locking up his breaks and heading into the gravel - as many did to be fair). Looking forward to seeing P3 and Qualifying tomorrow that's for sure.

 

Anyone else stay up to watch it?

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After seeing some of your posts on here, I must say, you are a real F1 enthusiast :)

 

OT: I am also surprised at McLaren's sudden surge of pace. I am happy with this, however, as it makes the championship outlook seem more open. From all the pre-season testing, it looked like it would only be 2 teams in contention.

 

And hopefully, I'll be up at 7am Sunday morning to watch the lights go out for the first race of 2011 :D

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Watching Q3 atm, Vettel seems to be in another dimension at the moment, those are some unbelievable times he is putting up.

 

Current Facebook status: "Getting raped by Sebastian Vettel really hurts!" :(

 

You are correct, the gap to Vettel is simply terrifying if you ask me. Shame about Barichello and Heidfeld. I had them for Q3 in place of Kobayashi (AMAZING) and Buemi (again, respect to him)! Petrov also suprised, he took Schumachers Q3 spot from my predictions. Although a little off with Hamilton. Mercedes seemed to loose pace today. I really hope Vettel just doesn't run away with this year. Especially with Alonso's car being slower than expected - Not that i'd like to see him win, but it would make it more interesting.

 

Not sure how much of an impression Webber will be able to make on Vettel throughout the season. Likewise Hamilton has a lot to do to chase him down. The fights from 4th-10th may become more entertaining than 1st-3rd this year, who knows. Will have to wait for the race. Hoping Vettle has a bad start and Hamilton tries to shove him off track at turn 1, screwing them both over, allowing Webber to sail thought haha. Got £5 on Mark to win (would only pay out £25 though) my mates have £10 down on Button at 10/1. I really don't want to see each of them win and me not hahaha lol.

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must admit I didn't expect Vettel to be that dominant, its going to be hard for anyone to catch him if he manages his tires properly.

 

I think that the cars on the even side of the grid to struggle to get of the line as its still very dirty so Alonso should get the jump on Button and if Webber has managed to improve his starts from last year he may get Hamilton.

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OK, so Vettel absolutely owned everyone in qualifying. Am I surprised? Not really. The Red Bull has been outstanding in pre-season.

 

To be honest, I can't wait to see what happens between 2nd and 10th in the race. Vettel will just completely dominate the race (provided that they fixed the realiability issues from last season).

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So, not a foot wrong from Vettel... damn! Webber seems to really need to find some pace :( Massive props to Petrov, would have loved to see him hold up Alonso again if the race was a few laps longer haha. But great drives from the Sauber guys, especially Perez. How he managed a 1-stop strategy i have no idea. I really wish on the F1 forum show they had gone over to look at his tyres and see how badly they had fallen apart, although he never entered the 5 second drop off zone, so can't have been that bad. Maybe the cars retro, low budget tail pipe is the key haha. Less really is more.

 

Also Red Bull with NO Kers!! Nice to see them holding their own off the line still.

 

Also what do others think of the rear wing? I would only like it if they could use it at any point on the track, rather than just one designated straight. Still keeping the 1 second rule however. Today seemed like quite a let down. Not the best of races in my opinion, but sure feels great to watch another Melbourne race!!! :D

Edited by pined5551
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Was I wrong? :p

 

Not the greatest of races, but there were some talking points. Shame about Button, but the decision was fair. Still glad to see him fight up the field and get some points though (admittingly, he did get some "assistance" from Barrichello).

 

Also, props to Perez on his first race, although apparently, the 2 Sauber drivers were disqualified due to a technical infringement... shame. On the plus side, that put Di Resta to 10th place, giving him a point on his debut, which is awesome :)

 

Also, congratulations go to Petrov, getting his 1st podium. Shows how much he has learnt since last season.

 

And finally, Vettel. Was there really any doubt he would take victory?

 

Overall, it was a solid start to the season. Can't wait for Malaysia in 2 weeks. Promises to be an eventful race, after the last 2 races there :)

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Also, props to Perez on his first race, although apparently, the 2 Sauber drivers were disqualified due to a technical infringement... shame. On the plus side, that put Di Resta to 10th place, giving him a point on his debut, which is awesome :)

 

OMG!!!! I can't believe this. This is such a shame. It says they gain no performance advantage from the breach though, so hopefully the appeal will go through.

 

Me and my mate were joking during the race that Perez had the old Bridgestones on his car and just painted the Pirelli designs on them, so when I read your comment I was thinking... NO WAY!! But turned out to be something else. Hope it gets decided in their favour. But in any case, the car is still fast, so they can score again for sure.

 

No doubt it was a Ferrari member who told the stewards to take a look at those wings. FUCKING CUNT TEAM!

 

EDIT:

 

Also I have the first question. Can someone explain the new split time display. It says 'Interval' by the leader, then gives a time, but the times are not sector times, they change every few seconds and they are not the time down on the car infront or the leader, as sometimes it would say a gap that just wasn't visually possible (eg, a car right behind another and it says +10 seconds, which would be only 2 to the one infront, and around 30 down on the leader). I don't understand them. Anyone else notice this, they seem new for this year?

Edited by pined5551
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Also I have the first question. Can someone explain the new split time display. It says 'Interval' by the leader, then gives a time, but the times are not sector times, they change every few seconds and they are not the time down on the car infront or the leader, as sometimes it would say a gap that just wasn't visually possible (eg, a car right behind another and it says +10 seconds, which would be only 2 to the one infront, and around 30 down on the leader). I don't understand them. Anyone else notice this, they seem new for this year?

 

Yes I was trying to understand these "Interval" times too but could'nt understand them.

 

Anyway, the race wasn't awesome, in fact I think I fell asleep between laps 40-49 or so, but I think Jenson was unlucky but he clearly was not ahead of Felipe. I was surprised to see Felipe actually set the fastest lap tbh. Well done to Perez, a good performance for his debut race, irregardless of his DSQ due to a "technicality".

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Also I have the first question. Can someone explain the new split time display. It says 'Interval' by the leader, then gives a time, but the times are not sector times, they change every few seconds and they are not the time down on the car infront or the leader, as sometimes it would say a gap that just wasn't visually possible (eg, a car right behind another and it says +10 seconds, which would be only 2 to the one infront, and around 30 down on the leader). I don't understand them. Anyone else notice this, they seem new for this year?

 

No i couldn't understand it either, even just tried googling to see if can find an explanation with no luck, hopefully will find out somehow by the next race.

 

Also I think Brundle & Coulthard need to work on the commentary by the next race. He is clearly very knowledgeable but now as the lead commentator needs to concentrate on commentating on the race in general and leave the expantaion of expalining technical information, rules etc to Coulthard. At times it seemed like we had no lead commentator just too summarisers.

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Impressed with commentary, i think it should improve throughout season

Does anyone think that the pace of the most cars is very similar to last year? We seem to have the same front runners, midfield has shuffled a bit and then the same tail enders(not always racing now though) I expected to see a lot of movement in the pecking order, not much changing, however it seems like gaps between some team members have grown, vettel and webber, alonso and massa, will be interesting to see how this develops throughout the season.

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  • 2 weeks later...
So... Malaysia. What's everyone's predictions for this race?

 

I'm going for Vettel making it 2 for 2, but that's just me. Here's hoping we see another eventful race there, like in 2009. Now that race kept me glued to the TV, with the extreme weather and all.

McLaren in the rain... Probably Hamilton although Button did a great job in 2009 there :)

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I usually like wet races because it tends to mix things up, but I hope it is dry tomorrow so we can see Vettel, Hamilton, Webber & Button go up against each other.

 

They are all so evenly matched I think it may come down to how they look after their tires... push hard with to try and build a lead or look after the tires and try to pass people by pitting latter, should be a good race !

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Interesting race again. I was hoping for at least some degree of rain to see how well everybody fares with the new Pirelli wets, but the race was very enjoyable and eventful nonetheless.

 

Very solid showing from Webber, unfortunate that his KERS didn't work during the race, I was about to call him the shittiest starter in F1 history before I learned about his KERS not working. His pit-strategy was a complete disaster, but some luck (Hamilton, Alonso) brought him back to 4th.

 

Very happy about Alonso falling back in lap 46 after his cunt move on Hamilton, although he did show some crazy pace at times.

 

All in all I think we're in for a very interesting season, as McLaren and Red Bull look more eye-to-eye than in Melbourne, although one wonders what might've happened if both Webber and Vettel could have used KERS for the full race.

I found it very interesting that Vettel could make his second set of options last 16 laps, while Hamilton had to change from primes to primes twice... very strange that his tyres lost grip so fast.

 

Additionally, I am really not sold on the DRS. I think it's a cheap way of giving F1 viewers the "thrill" of seeing more overtakes, but it really doesn't show who is the better driver when 2 cars are battling for a position...

 

On to China.

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As I predicted, Vettel made it 2 for 2. However, what happened behind him, I did not expect.

 

I fully expected Hamilton to be right up Vettel's gearbox, but he just didn't seem to have the pace, and when he changed to the primes... Well, I don't know what happened. At least Button had the pace to come in 2nd.

 

One Renault on the podium again. Heidfeld had an amazing start, and held off Webber very well at the end. He throughly deserved his 3rd place. What happened to Petrov though... Never seen the whole steering column come detached from the car before, and how he just took off was quite scary.

 

I felt Webber could have been a major factor in the outcome of the race if he had KERS, but he did well with what he had, and the fight with Heidfeld at the end was quite gripping.

 

As for the Ferrari's, once again, they didn't seem to have the pace. They will need to find it soon, or they're gonna be on the backburner. Also, as an added note, it was very satisfying to see Alonso suffer due to him being an idiot :D

 

Overall, definitely better than Melbourne, although I had hoped for rain. Would have made the race a bit more lively.

 

On to Shanghai!

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If DRS has not really worked in Melbourne and Malaysia, hows it gonna work in places like monaco where there isnt a proper straight to use it on.

I would guess the will activate the DRS just before entering the tunnel although it could also be on the pit-straight. Short run, I agree, but hopefully more do or die action on the track.

 

By the way, in China DRS is on the back straight; not really a place to have it in my opinion since the 2 corners leading up to it, should easily give someone the opportunity to pass if the frontrunner makes just a little mistake accelerating.

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Anyone seen quali?

 

- Webber?

- Schumacher?

- Di Resta!

- Petrov?

 

Gonna be a cool race tomorrow; Renault got a very fast car but putting my faith in KERS & DRS for McLaren. :woop:

 

Think the Mclarens are in with a shout if they can get a good start, unlike the previous two races if they get jumped at the start then i think Vettel will disappear into the distance and the control the race the race from the front

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