less than 24 hours until F1 Friday practice session:

[cl8ton]

Only 2 constants this weekend.
Kimi is still with Ferrari and Hamilton is still with McLaren.

Alonso changed teams and has all but admitted Renault will take some time.
Massa being the spoiler, he usually comes out of nowhere to take a win and hates being referred to as Kimi’s lap dog
Math done, it will be either Kimi or Hamilton winning this weekend, preferably Kimi IMO

Unless they take each other out, then I go with Massa

[Neilk]

Directv viewers, is your picture stretched and cutoff at the bottom?

[porcupine911]

Originally Posted by Neilk

Directv viewers, is your picture stretched and cutoff at the bottom?

no problems here.

[cl8ton]

Originally Posted by Neilk

Directv viewers, is your picture stretched and cutoff at the bottom?

Looks fine here!

[cl8ton]

Yea he was really a whinny SOB in Champ Car wasn't he! LOL
I think he will become the F1 version JPM in 2008

Originally Posted by strupgolf

Well I see that the "great" Sebastion Bourdais, winner of 4 CART titles, comes in over 3 seconds slower then Kimi. Yea, he's a winner all right, against nobody's and such. I cant wait to see him get his a** handed to him up front and then say he didn't know the competition was going to be this strong. DA

[lisa_spyder]

Track temp was around 48 deg celcius...it was great to watch these guys sliding around without traction control and engine brake etc etc!

The track is slow too - according to the V8 Supercar times from a couple of years ago (they didn't run here last year), who are lapping over a second slower with current configuration cars.

It will be interesting to see how the F1 guys compensate for the cars moving around more in race conditions.

Times from the second session for those of you who may not have seen them yet.

It should be a bit cooler tomorrow... a bit anyway .

[nostatic]

while it is always tricky to read too much into Friday, Red Bull looks impressive.

[BRPORSCHE]

Isn't Adrian Newey, the aerodynamics genius, at Red Bull?

[cl8ton]

Most of the drivers look like native California commuters driving in the snow for the first time!
The lack of TC and Engine Breaking is showing, well except for Kimi

[lisa_spyder]

Todd,

I doubt that Red Bull will have the race speed and/or reliability but we'll have to wait until Sunday to see. Mark Webber has always been impressive around here in practice and even qualifying.

Tom,

Newey was there last year - I think he's still with Red Bull?

[nostatic]

I think this is Newey's second year, but figure that last year was teething and transition. If they can keep the engine from grenading, it could be an interesting year for the 3rd through 6th place teams. I don't think anyone will have the pace of Ferrari and McLaren.

[Jims5543]

Originally Posted by cl8ton

Most of the drivers look like native California commuters driving in the snow for the first time!
The lack of TC and Engine Breaking is showing, well except for Kimi

+1 amazing how many offs there were. Lots of bobbles too and this is just practice, whats going to happen when one of them puts pressure on the other in a race, it could force a bad move and an easy pass.

[Jims5543]

Originally Posted by strupgolf

Well I see that the "great" Sebastion Bourdais, winner of 4 CART titles, comes in over 3 seconds slower then Kimi. Yea, he's a winner all right, against nobody's and such. I cant wait to see him get his a** handed to him up front and then say he didn't know the competition was going to be this strong. DA

Being that he is in a back marker car what are you expecting? He himself admits he will not have the pace to be up front, but who knows, lets revisit this subject mid season and see how he is doing, you may be right, but honestly he is only hoping to get in the points and that will be more than last years drivers did. IIRC.

Sebastien Bourdais believes scoring even a single point would feel as good as winning to his new F1 team, Toro Rosso.

Bourdais is a driver who is used to winning races and titles having clinched four successive Champ Car Championship titles before opting to move to F1 and Toro Rosso.

However, the move effectively puts an end to the Frenchman's days of winning races, as Toro Rosso are not in the position to finish grands prix on the podium never mind finish them in first place.

But that's okay for the 29-year-old who reckons scoring points for the backmarker outfit will feel as good as if he's won the race.

"For us, when we score points - if we score points - it will feel like a win," he told Reuters.

"We've got a midfield car and if the car deserves a 12th place and you put it eighth, then it's even more satisfying than winning a race with a car that basically deserves to win anyway.

"I've been doing that (winning) pretty much for the past four seasons and now it's a different challenge.

"We are not going to win races and are probably never going to win the Championship in the current status of the team, but we want to grow together and get better and eventually be a contender."

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by cl8ton

Most of the drivers look like native California commuters driving in the snow for the first time!
The lack of TC and Engine Breaking is showing, well except for Kimi

Hamilton did not look bad in this area either but Kimi, DC and Jarno are the old timers that should pick it up fast with their having loads of time in non-TC cars in the old days.

[911pcars]

Originally Posted by strupgolf

Well I see that the "great" Sebastion Bourdais, winner of 4 CART titles, comes in over 3 seconds slower then Kimi. Yea, he's a winner all right, against nobody's and such. I cant wait to see him get his a** handed to him up front and then say he didn't know the competition was going to be this strong. DA

If you follow F1, you should know these machines aren't created equally (ala NASCAR, IRL/Champ Car). Following your stated line of logic, Button, Kubica, Sutil, Piquet, Barrichello, Sato, etc. are in the same "loser" league. Nope.

Any F1 driver is superior to any other series chauffeurs. Put it another way; only a few people in the world are qualified to race an F1 machine, and Bourdais happens to be one of them, or at least until his contract is up.

Sherwood

[Jims5543]

Check this video out. Looks like F1 is heading back to the old days of oversteering through a corner. Once these guys come to grips with it it will be fun.


Much Oversteer in Melbourne from Axis of Oversteer * on Vimeo.

[cl8ton]

Nice vid Jim!

In addition to the over steer issues; there were certainly a lot of pucker moments in the braking zones!
I never seen so much gravel fly at a track as yesterday.

Hopefully the drivers will find the limits and calm down by Sunday.

Seemed like Alonso liked off-roading

[lisa_spyder]

Yesterday's sessions were run in pretty awful weather conditions. Particularly the second session with a BIG wind. A lot of these guys were struggling at the end of the back straight particularly as there was a massive tail wind.

Thankfully I don't think the winds will be blowing as hard today or tomorrow. They will qualify today in hopefully similiar conditions to what are forecast for the race.

The track is already well rubbered and will get more laid down today as the Aussie Grand Prix is unique in that we have a lot of support races running for the four days of the event. It's a pretty full race card and the F1 guys have to cope with dramatic changes in the circuit from one session to the other.

I watched the second session yesterday on TV (joys of working from home ). Our local coverage is excellent - plenty of cameras in plenty of places - best seat is in the loungeroom!

For the first time in a long time F1 is going to be exciting - like Jim said once these guys come to grips with the lack of "controls" this is gonna be fun!

Certainly with all this power oversteer now they will have to give each other a little more racing room.

Can't wait for race start - wonder if they will all get away cleanly?

2 and a half hours to Sat practice....

[911Freak]

Qualifying starts in 13:45, 44,43,42,41......

[cl8ton]

Qualifying starts in 2:25,24,23,22,21...... Cya!